I love giving the AVR example when people ask if something can run on an underpowered machine, now I have a new example to link.
Considering the frequencies and wattage I wonder how RF it spits out and what is detectable and decodable on the waterfall of a SDR.
By the way still reading through it, but at the time of this comment I see the word "soubroutine" which is probably a misspelling.
Fixed the typo. Thanks
Wow this was not a cheap project! Thanks Ebay collectors.
Also probably the only time I'd have gone for an LCD over a VFD. If you're running a multi-year long compile, it'll probably be burned in to hell by the end.
oof. amazing.
…you can see in the high PC bits what's currently executing!
P.S.: Still loads the kernel faster than a virtual ISO on a server's shitty IPMI over the internet ;D
While it boots, you can look at LEDs and map them to kernel function easily by running “nm” on vmlinux.
Also, when in user space, you can tell between the main binary (way below 0x01000000) and shared libraries (loaded high near 0x77000000)
The video took 9 days to film. 4 hours per emulated second.
Also I wonder why he's using Windows 95?
Sorry for the nitpick, but the laptop in the video looks like Windows 2000
The best Windows imo
Windows 2000
For the video, i wanted a laptop with a real serial port (no usb). This one fit the bill and was $20 on eBay. Windows 2000 is the prettiest windows IMHO, so that’s what I installed for the demo video.
There needs to be something like a Nobel Prize for this kind of thing.
Probably closest would be the Ig: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize
In the "Why MIPS?" section:
> some have shitty addressing modes necessitating that they would be slow (RISCV)
What is wrong with the RISC-V addressing modes?
Probably nothing unless you want to emulate it on severely underpowered hardware.
Virtual machine (as in the Z-machine or the JVM) worked on early micros when you couldn’t use them as compiler targets. See
The proof of the Turing Completeness Theorem in action. Beautiful. Boot time is ~5 days.
At first i was like "I'm pretty sure this is bullshit or some cheat used" but then i was like "Oh, its dimitry."
Impressive work, as always.
Very impressive work, but most of the work has been necessary because Intel 4004 was not really the first microprocessor, this was just BS propaganda used by Intel to push back by one year the date of the launch of the first microprocessor, to 1971.
The first true (civilian) microprocessor was Intel 8008, in 1972.
Intel 8008 was a monolithic implementation, i.e. in a single PMOS integrated circuit, of the processor of Datapoint 2200, therefore it deserves the name "microprocessor".
The processor of Datapoint 2200 had an ugly architecture, but there is no doubt that it was a general-purpose CPU and traces of its ISA remain present in the latest Intel and AMD CPUs.
On the other hand, the set of chips that included Intel 4004 was not intended for the implementation of a general-purpose computer, but it was intended just for the implementation of a classic desktop calculator, not even a programmable desktop calculator.
This is the reason for the many quirks of Intel 4004, e.g. the lack of instructions for the logic operations, and many others that have increased the amount of work required for implementing a MIPS emulator suitable for running Linux.
Even if Intel 4004 was intended for a restricted application, after Intel has offered to sell it to anyone, there have been many who have succeeded to use it in various creative ways for implementing microcontrollers for the automation of diverse industrial processes, saving some money or some space over a TTL implementation.
In the early days of the electronics industry it was very normal to find ways to use integrated circuits for purposes very different from those for which the circuits had been designed. Such applications do not make Intel 4004 a true microcontroller or microprocessor. Very soon many other companies, and later also Intel, have begun to produce true microcontrollers, designed for this purpose, either 4-bit or 8-bit MCUs, then Intel 4004 has no longer been used for new designs.
I'm glad to see the Datapoint 2200 is getting attention, but by reasonable definitions of "microprocessor", the Intel 4004 was first, the Texas Instruments TMX 1795 was second, and the Intel 8008 was third. It seems like you're ruling out the 4004 on the basis of "intent" since it was designed for a calculator. But my view is that the 4004 is a programmable, general-purpose CPU-on-a-chip, so it's a microprocessor. Much as I'd like to rule out the 4004 as the first microprocessor, I don't see any justifiable grounds to do this.
Intel's real innovation—the thing that made the microprocessor important—was creating the microprocessor as a product category. Selling a low-cost general-purpose processor chip to anyone who wanted it is what created the modern computer industry. By this perspective, too, the 4004 was the first microprocessor, creating the category.
My article in IEEE Spectrum on this subject goes into much more detail: https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-surprising-story-of-the-first-...
Your argument is that because the 4004 was built to power a calculator that disqualifies it as a microprocessor? Independent of the actual nature of the 4004 itself and its potential applications beyond its first intended use? Can’t see how that makes sense at all.
Your statement about Intel 'pushing back' the date to 1971 also makes little sense given Intel advertised [1] the 4004 as a CPU in Electronic News in Nov 1971.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004#/media/File:Intel_4...
No kidding about unusual uses of ICs. Not related to microprocessors, but I have an old analog triple conversion HF receiver (Eddystone EC958/3 for what it's worth) that uses a TTL IC in an analog circuit! I'd have to look at the schematic again, I think it's a multi-stage counter, but basically what it uses it for is to generate a comb shaped spectrum, one "spike" of which can then be picked up by an analog circuit and locked to, to generate precisely spaced tuning steps for the high stability tuning.
The naming and propaganda wouldn’t matter. I just wanted something lower-end for sure than a 6510 and an AVR. 4004 is that
Is this the oldest piece of hardware that's ever run Linux, I'm left wondering?
It surely is
Glad to see someone besides me posting this whenever 4004 history-rewriting comes up.
I didn't know the guy but he clearly knows what he's doing, it's unbelievably entertaining to read the details of achieving an impossible task with the most underpowered tool possible.
I mean, it's fun and interesting bullshit that cheats a lot. I'm sure that you could emulate a MIPS using a one-bit processor like the MC14500[0] with enough supporting hardware, real or virtual. Looking forward to it, Dimitry.
We need this for the Usagi Electric vacuum tube computer.
I’ll work on setting a new lower record every ten years or so. My guess at the next three steps: one bit controller, transistors only, vacuum tubes.
Mission impossible — do it with Windows!
Windows ran on a similar MIPS machine (Microsoft jazz). The issue is emulating scsi. I think I’d need a lot more rom space to do that. Scam is messy and hard.
The alternative is to find the Windows MIPS DDK and build a paravirtualized disk driver for it like I did for Linux. That would make it more doable.
> But for the one I'll have hanging in my office, I have loftier goals. With swap enabled, the kernel sources can actually be built right on-device. It will take some number of years. The partition where the kernel lives is /dev/pvd2 and is mounted under /boot. The device can build its own kernel from source, copy it to /boot/vmlinux, and reboot into it. If power is interrupted, thanks to ext4, it will reboot, recover the filesystem damage from the journal, and restart the compilation process. That is my plan, at least.
I have two visions of this.
One, it reminds me of that "worlds longest song" or somesuch thing, where they play a note every 10 years.
The other is just a picture of someone, asleep at their desk, a pile of calendars with days checked off tossed to the side, random unwashed mugs and such all dimly lit by a desk lamp and see the `$ make linux` finally return to an new, unassuming `$` prompt. Like Neo in the Matrix.
I like the second version!
Ars Longa, Vita Brevis
I wonder of you can calculate when it will finish by counting the instructions and then pin the date it will finish and stream the completion.
Yes. I have an emulator of this board (it is in the downloads too) which is much faster than the real thing. It shows how much realtime is needed to get to the current state. Doing a build in it will answer the question unequivocally.
I’d assume you’d have at least a few bit flips occur in the process.
