⊥ᵒᵚ Cᵸᵎᶺᵋᶫ∸ᵒᵘ ☑️ @falken@qoto.org

In the 1980s, if you wanted your IBM PC to be faster for spreadsheets or CAD, you could buy the Intel 8087 floating-point chip. Internally, the chip runs special code called microcode. We opened the chip, extracted the microcode, and are figuring out how it works. 1/n

so far in 007 First Light:
- Bond makes a reference to the internet of shit by saying "my toaster has a tracker";
- the antagonist is a founder of AI company whose AI tech is used to predict terrorist threats but actually makes serious mistakes;
- and the antagonist fixes those mistakes by sending a squad of soldiers to reframe the narrative and make sure AI supposedly provided correct intelligence

you know, I think this is potentially a GOTY candidate

Anyway, enough blabbering, let's fire up the 5150 and stick the Gremlin in it.

An ISA card generates wait states by pulling pin A10 of the ISA bus, IO_CH_READY, low. A probe of this pin shows a solid, unwavering 5V. This means our Gremlin wasn't built with the wait state option enabled.

reengine accounted for every single wait state cycle in his cycle-counting calculations when writing these demos.

No wait states therefore means the beam-racing code runs a bit to too fast, all the insane mid-scanline CRTC register writes end up being issued at the wrong times, things don't latch when they should or latch when they shouldn't - essentially, you get the green spaghetti.

I have seen a LOT of green spaghetti. I could probably wallpaper my apartment with screenshots of green spaghetti.

So now we need to figure out the development environment for the Gremlin so we can reprogram it.

I expect tech companies to be hit by a triple whammy in the coming months

1. Rising AI token costs.

2. The realization churning out more code doesn’t necessarily translate to business or customer value and is in fact worse in some cases.

3. Fewer employees to clean up the mess post-layoffs.

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/corporate-america-is-starting-to-ration-ai-as-cost-skyrockets-1eb99d7a

Most of the logic on the 6845 is driven by some counter reaching some-register-value, so this is a bit of a surprise to discover a flag that gets set at the start of a line.

It goes on.

This is one single flag. One page. There are 286 pages. So you start to see the problem with making a 6845 that can withstand demo abuse.

#StarTrek

Picard engineering tip: Use the metric system.

@geerlingguy When you buy a Framework you are not paying for the hardware, you are paying for the commitment of a better industry where everything doesn’t need to become e-waste right out of the factory, where you can keep your hardware for years to come and not to satisfy a board of directors and their billionaire delusions.

While we can’t fix the current industry trends, there’s a price to pay.

The failure of the New Glenn rocket is going to have big implications. It thoroughly scrambles NASA's Moon plans, and greatly increases US dependence on SpaceX.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/heres-why-the-failure-of-blue-origins-new-glenn-rocket-is-so-catastrophic/ #space #science #tech

Aphex Twin LIVE at Day For Night Houston (FULL SET)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6erFwsRmpo

#music