johnwbyrd
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7 months ago
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on: Why I write recursive descent parsers, despite their issues (2020)
johnwbyrd
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1 year ago
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on: Gosub – An open-source browser engine
Yes, but I'm concerned about the number of existing browser engines that have fallen by the wayside, as the project founders have become exhausted. The scope of such a project is incredibly easy to underestimate, and it has only ever gotten larger.
Some examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/124kphe/what_do_y...
johnwbyrd
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1 year ago
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on: Plop Boot Manager
Thank you Plop, but nowadays we have a profusion of blessings, including VenToy, iVenToy, and netboot.xyz.
johnwbyrd
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1 year ago
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on: Meta says you can't turn off its new AI tool on Facebook, Instagram
ME: How can I get you to fuck off and leave me alone?
META AI: I understand that you may be frustrated, but I'm here to help and provide information. I am not capable of taking offense or feeling emotions, but I want to assure you that my purpose is to assist and provide helpful responses. If you have any specific questions or topics you would like to discuss, I am here to help. If you would like to take a break from our conversation, I understand, and you can always come back when you are ready. Please feel free to ask me any questions or clarify how I can assist you further.
There you have it. Meta AI is a stalker.
johnwbyrd
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1 year ago
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on: MOnSter 6502: a working transistor-scale replica of the classic MOS 6502
Fun project, but fairly old news at this point.
johnwbyrd
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2 years ago
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on: Vision Pro: What we got wrong at Oculus that Apple got right
What I want is a dollar for every evangelist and every early adopter that has told me that the ?R explosion is right around the corner. I have worked in the game industry for 30 years and would be well retired by now, had I made my money by listening to people tell me how ?R would be mainstream in Just A Few Years Now. The tech industry NEVER tires of telling that story and hearing it. Yet it never, ever, EVER happens as a mainstream product.
johnwbyrd
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2 years ago
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on: Buzz: A lightweight statically typed scripting language
Classic premature optimization, assuming that hardware functions must be revealed in language features. If you can't get your integers closed under addition from the get-go, what hope do you have of writing a secure programming language?
johnwbyrd
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2 years ago
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on: Buzz: A lightweight statically typed scripting language
johnwbyrd
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2 years ago
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on: Linux on a Commodore 64
johnwbyrd
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2 years ago
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on: Linux on a Commodore 64
Seems like your problem is more with the venerable 6502 itself rather than the compiler. Most of that assembly code is spent calculating the offsets inside the Ball struct, which must be done at 16 bits of resolution in every case. The compiler's using the indirect indexed (zero page address with Y offset) 6502 addressing mode to get at all the fields in your struct. It has placed all the variables in zero page, so no instruction is more than two bytes long; additionally, the code in question is entirely linear, with no JSRs or other subroutines. Note in particular how it efficiently uses DEY/INY pairs of one byte instructions to get at low and high bytes of 16-bit memory. Hand-written assembly might be speedier, but not by much and still deal with all the corner cases that your generated code does. "While writing Apple BASIC for a 6502 microprocessor I repeatedly encountered a variant of Murphy's Law. Briefly stated, any routine operating on 16 bit data will require at least twice the code that it should." -Steve Wozniak
johnwbyrd
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2 years ago
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on: Linux on a Commodore 64
The loading screen reports 130 BogoMIPS, but remember that it's emulating the timer as well, so the number is meaningless.
johnwbyrd
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2 years ago
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on: Linux on a Commodore 64
Says you. llvm-mos generates surprisingly efficient 6502 code given its age and maturity. Don't take my word for it, try some experiments with it on godbolt.
johnwbyrd
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2 years ago
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on: Linux on a Commodore 64
Yes, if you use an REU, which is a correctly contemporary memory upgrade for the C64.
johnwbyrd
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2 years ago
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on: Linux on a Commodore 64
Onno Kortman has taken semu, a minimal RISC-V emulator, and cross-compiled it with llvm-mos, an LLVM port to the MOS 6502 processor, in order to run Linux on the Commodore 64. Kortman writes: "The screenshots took VICE a couple hours in 'warp mode' to generate. So, as is, a real C64 should be able to boot Linux within a week or so."
johnwbyrd
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4 years ago
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on: A project to port LLVM to the MOS 6502
Your assumptions are correct.
johnwbyrd
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4 years ago
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on: A project to port LLVM to the MOS 6502
johnwbyrd
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7 years ago
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on: The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written
Other than permuting itself, what did it do that was sophisticated? Code morphing viruses have been around for a very long time, much longer than 2000. Simple replication does not constitute sophistication. Even my brother in law does that.
johnwbyrd
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7 years ago
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on: The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written
I hadn't read the book when I wrote the article. I tried to get all the salient facts in, with as few words as possible. "Omit needless words" - Wm. Strunk.
johnwbyrd
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7 years ago
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on: The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written
Yeah, you understand exactly what I was trying to convey when I wrote the article. Thanks.
johnwbyrd
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7 years ago
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on: The Stuxnet worm may be the most sophisticated software ever written
In Kaspersky's defense, they have started making their source code auditable for certain customers. Kaspersky is well aware of how they are perceived as a company, and they are aware that if anyone ever traces any of their activities back to the KGB, it's game over for them. I can't pretend I trust Kaspersky 100%, but I can see why others might.
