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"The Deliverator's car has enough potential energy packed into its batteries to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or a Burb beater, the Deliverator's car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished sphincters. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down, shit happens. You want to talk contact patches? Your car's tires have tiny contact patches, talk to the asphalt in four places the size of your tongue. The Deiverator's car has big sticky tires with contact patches the size of a fat lady's thighs. The Deliverator is in touch with the road, starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta.

 

Why is the Deliverator so equipped? Because people rely on him. He is a roll model. This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them. As a result, this country has one of the worst economies in the world. When it gets down to it-talking trade balances here-once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making

cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here-once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel-once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity-y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else

 

music

movies

microcode (software)

high-speed pizza delivery"

 

-Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

With a scan of the kidnapper’s transmat safely within the sonic, Samuel, Vale and myself make our way back to the Tardis. Given the vast complexities of isolating a transmat beam and successfully reversing it without some fault arising due to the transmat not being properly calibrated, it’s far more sensible to track the signal rather than reverse it. Not to mention the fact that the only logical conclusion that can be made for a transmat being used in this era means time travel is also at play. Especially now given that the Daleks are gone and Cybermen are in such a sad state that it'll take them millennia to master teleportation again.

 

I do hope this transmit was constructed after the 41st century. Almost all transmats after that period have a unique microcode embedded in the signal it uses to transport goods or people. How else are you supposed to stop the potential of transmats interfering with one another? Gosh that would be terrible. Then again, it’s not like that hasn’t happened before. Infact, I’m pretty sure some cargo pirates made a living off of that fault in older transmats. Hopefully, whoever these time travelling abductors are, they’re from a point in time after the 41st century. If not this goes from simply tracking back a signal to trying to find a needle in haystack.

 

Probably best not to mention that possibility to either Vale or Samuel. At least, not until I’m certain. Given how I’ve only just finished regenerating it’s possible my mind is still in a bit of a puddle…….cuddle……muddle!

 

Clearly more so than I thought. Once I’ve helped get the boy safely home I’ll need to spend some time in the zero room to properly recover from the regeneration, and more importantly to get my head in order. As we all turn the corner and lay eyes upon the familiar shape of that old police telephone box, I suddenly realise something.

 

The Doctor: Do either of you have my key?

 

Vale: Your key? For what?

 

The Doctor: For my antimatter disrupter.

 

Vale: You need an antimatter disrupter? Why?

 

The Doctor: I was being sarcastic, nobody needs a key for an antimatter disruptor, I’m asking if either of you have my key for the Tardis.

 

Samuel: Your time machine needs a key to start it?

 

The Doctor: No! But I need the key to unlock the door! It’s a time machine after all, you can’t be too cautious. Do either of you have it?

 

Samuel: I don’t think so…

 

Vale: I didn’t see any key when we were inside it last. Speaking of which, if you need a key to open the doors how come we were able to get into it last time with a key?

 

The Doctor: It’ll have been the help the pilot protocol. Since I’d only just regenerated the Tardis will have taken me to the nearest thing in range with a medical bay, thus why it also disabled the locks to let you both in.

 

Samuel: Then how come it doesn’t want to let us in now? It’s not exactly like we did anything to help you recover.

 

The Doctor: No you didn’t, but the Tardis will have detected that my regeneration is all but complete thus it reinstated the security protocols.

 

Samuel: So what? We’re locked outside of your ship? Then how are we going to get back Jerro!?

 

The Doctor: Oh that's simple. Like this.

 

I click my fingers together and the sound faintly echoes through the corridor as both Vale and Samuel wait for something to happen. For a good few seconds, nothing does. Clearly the old girl is starting to feel her age. But then, before I have a chance to consider clicking my fingers again, the door unlocks and opens to reveal the console room. They appear caught off guard to learn that I can unlock the Tardis with a snap of my fingers and to an extent, I was when I first learned I could do it as well. Thank you, River.

 

Vale: Did you just….?

  

Samuel: I think he did…..

 

As I place my hand on the Tardis door I can feel her humming as the engines begin to come alive once again. We may have aged, old girl, but moments like these never get old. Even after nearly five thousand years travelling with her. Before I have a chance to enjoy the moment, she swings open both doors and to my shock she’s changed the console room……again.

 

The Doctor: Oh look at you, old girl. You’ve redecorated. Aren’t you beautiful?

 

Given my vague post-regenerative state when both Vale and Samuel found me in the Tardis, I can’t help but wonder if this change in desktop theme is by accident or by her design. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time for either. Part of me also can’t help but wonder if I was still connected to the telepathic circuits whilst unconscious. Maybe she realised the struggle that was going on within me. Maybe she changed the console room to try and help me forget what my previous incarnation did.

 

A kind gesture.

 

But we can never truly escape our past.

 

Samuel: It’s…..different….

 

Vale: How? How has it done that?

 

The Doctor: It’s nothing, trust me. All that’s happened is a small change of the desktop theme. Ah! There it is!

 

They both seem baffled by what I could possibly mean as I point in their general direction as they both step into the Tardis.

 

The Doctor: I was worried she might have removed of it when I wasn’t looking.

 

Samuel: You were worried she’d get rid……of a coat rack? Wait, she?

 

The Doctor: Trust me, we’ve been having this back and forth for centuries. She think it’s stupid to have a coat rack in the main console room when I haven’t worn a long coat, hat or scarf for quite a few bodies in a row.

 

Vale: What are you talking about? She? Bodies?

 

The Doctor: ‘She’ is called the Tardis. You’re standing inside her and she’s going to help me get your friend back.

 

Samuel: And the bodies part?

 

The Doctor: Well when you say like that, you make me sound like I’m some sort of murderous freak.

 

Vale:…..Are you?

 

The Doctor: Not to my knowledge.

 

Samuel: That’s…..not exactly reassuring.

 

The Doctor: Fine, long story short I’m an alien with the ability to regenerate where my body completely transforms and I in effect become an entirely different man, or sometimes woman. Had a few of those in the past, boy were they exciting. But yeah, any questions?

 

Neither of them say a thing, instead choosing to look at me as if I were some sort of bizarre mythical creature to them. Maybe I am, perhaps that’s the legacy of the Time Lords. Little more than mythical beings that become the stories told to children. The only difference is that unlike most of those stories, the Time Lords were real. Well…I suppose the Lochness monster is also real even though it was actually a Skarasen being used by the Zygons, but who am I to judge how history chooses to romanticise historical events?

 

Well….I should probably be the one to judge it actually….last of the Time Lords and all…..it really is my responsibility to uphold the doctrine. Then again, I’ve flouted it almost from the moment I left Gallifrey. Not to mention the Time Lords themselves abandoned that principle long ago when they decided to fight the Time War, though it’s not like they had any choice in the matter really.

 

Samuel: Ummmm…..ok……….

 

The Doctor: Now, let’s see if we can find the people who abducted your friend.

 

I’m momentarily caught off guard by the absence of the sonic screwdriver port. Clearly she's decide to reorganise the console again.I do wish she'd let me know before she did it. Fortunately, the Tardis realises my momentary pause and quickly directs me to the port’s new position. Directly under the monitor, good choice old girl. As I plug the screwdriver into the console, and the Tardis begins to track the signal and lock onto the abductor’s timeline I turn back to look at both Samuel and Vale. They both seem rather overwhelmed by the new console room. Come to think of it, is it bigger than the last one?

 

The Doctor: So what do you think?

 

Vale. Is it bigger than last time?

 

Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks so.

 

Samuel: It’s certainly more well lit.

 

Vale: Cleaner too.

 

The Doctor: I aim to please.

 

Even if most of the improvements have absolutely nothing to do with me.

 

The Doctor: So the……oh…..

 

The Tardis lets out a faint ding to indicate that it has locked onto the transmat's signal. After a brief moment it manages to identify the ship which took young Jerro and pinpoints a suitable time point along the abductor's timeline for us to intercept them. I briefly check the co-ordinates to see just where they're going. Given how these kidnappers have access to time travel it's also possible they have technology to interfere with other species' time machines.

 

Valorem.

 

Curious, I wasn’t aware they had ever developed time travel. No matter, that’s where the people who abducted Jerro went, so that’s where we going.

 

Samuel: Doctor?

 

The Doctor: Found him. Locking on to his signal!

 

I quickly type in the co-ordinates for Valorem and the time date their ship jumped to before racing over to engine release lever.

 

The Doctor: You may want to hang on to something. The first ride is always the bumpiest.

 

Before either of them can ask just what I mean, I pull the lever down triggering the dematerialisation circuit as the engines roar to life as they begin to draw power from the Eye of Harmony. The console room jerks sharply as we depart the human colony ship and pass into the time vortex.

 

Next stop: Valorem.

Tests de HDR avec un ELPH 300 HS.

Une forme de tourisme noir ou gothique :-)

Fait avec: le microcode CHDK (Canon Hack Development Kit) pour obtenir un RAW (DNG), Luminance HDR pour le tone mapping (Mantiuk), et post-traitement avec GIMP (masques de calque)

 

Testing an ELPH 300 HS for HDR.

A kind of dark or gothic tourism :-)

Done with: the CHDK firmware (Canon Hack Development Kit) for producing RAW images (DNG), Luminance HDR for the tone mapping (Mantiuk) and GIMP for the post-processing (layer masks).

The NEC V20 (μPD70108) was a processor made by NEC that was a reverse-engineered, pin-compatible version of the Intel 8088 with an instruction set compatible with the Intel 80186. The chip featured approximately 29,000 transistors, ran at 8 to 16 MHz and was around 30% faster (application dependent) than the 8088 at the same clock speed, primarily due to a hardware multiplier (whereas the 8088 had to perform multiplication using a microcode program). More info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEC_V20

Although probably the most widely seen photograph of an ICL 2900, this system was not really a standard production model but had various non-standard devices attached for it's role

as a conversion platform for customers wishing to move from the ICL 1900 and ICL System 4

ranges to ICL 2900. This system's role was superceded when the ICL 2960 was introduced with Direct Machine Emulation (DME), as well as the native Virtual Machine Envionment (VME), around 3 years later. This delay period is criticised in the book "ICL - A Business and Technical History " (1989) by Martin Campbell-Kelly on page 326. The delay was probably necessary to prolong the sales of the ICL 1903T and ICL 1904S, which also had common peripherals with the ICL 2970 (MT4, LP1500,CR1200) and solid state stores, but the expectation of those of us who came from an IBM/RCA system architecture background was that direct emulation would be provided on the ICL 2970 in 1974 to provide a more powerful addition/replacement for the ICL System 4-72. In particular this was as the 4-72 was a good transaction processing machine for various important, high profile customers who needed more MIPS - but this was not to be. It was not clear in 1974 whether the IBM order code microcode for the ICL 2970 existed or was just not made available. The proposed ICL 2970 Mark 2 was cancelled, leaving the blanking plates for the LED displays by the side of the speaker (which would have presumably have been moved elsewhere as happened to it on the ICL2966) as can be seen on my photos of the ICL 2970 Engineers Panel (see the photo to the immediate right hand side of this photo), and what later became the ICL 2972 was not the Mark 2 P3+ but a slowed down version of the P4 OCP grafted into the ICL 2970 central units instead. However this made the ICL 2972 a hard-wired processor system that could only run VME.

MICROCODES by Pall Thayer at Pixelache Helsinki 2010

- the conceptual meaning of the artwork is revealed through a combination of the title, the code and the results of running them on a computer.

 

www.pixelache.ac/helsinki/festival-2010/programme/goto10/...

Very strange piece of mylar "card". This is used to program the device microcode. You "punch" out the bits here and apply electricity at the edge and "load" the program onto the device...

Acquire the information and results in a logical trx 700 and clear way. You should also explain how TRX Force Tactical Kit you get your results by giving precise and detailed examples.

4.Avoid using one repetitive method to show results and findings in your GCSE coursework writing. Use different ways like graphs, tables, charts, complex graphs, etc.

 

5.If there is an unusual result explain clearly why this could be, again using clear examples. If you notice a Cheap TRX Suspension Trainer Sale pattern explains it clearly with examples, try testing the pattern on other results as well.

 

6.When you make predictions always, include how you made your prediction and what gave you the ideas.

The final advantage of using a skin care system is that you often get a nice price break. Manufacturers reward their customers for making smart choices about their skin by offering them a trx suspension training exercises discount over what they'd pay if they bought each product separately.

628061-B21, TRX Bands with excellent massive data storage ability and data transfer rate offers users the most economical cost/GB drives trx trainer for sale and improved features over SATA Entry type. Excellent reliability which is better than ETY hard drives, consistency based on 40% workload perceives a explicit temperature entry, Hard drive throttles presentation to defend itself, enhanced over all situation with fast reliable spindle speed, revolving vibration, toughness for resistance to different situation revolving influences, Native Command Queuing (NCQ), Buffer fault discovery, Time Limited Error Recovery (TLER), Microcode Download and 3 GB/Sec compatibility. HP trx 700 628061-B21 SATA MDL HDD, is SATA interface which has requirement describes connectors for a selections of devices and mass settings, from extremely trx posters cost responsive desktop PCs, to mobile submissions and especially short outline way out. All brands of SATA hard drives are available at itdeviceonline.com

Printer is not responding. Sometimes printers freeze too. A simple solution to frozen printers is to reboot it just push the power button and hold it for several seconds. After the printer has shut down, wait for at least one minute before you turn in on again.Parts need replacement. Cartridges are the most common replaced parts. If the quality of the print is miles away from what you trx videos expected, then maybe it is time to replace them. When there is a disturbing noise during pick-up of paper, check the feed rollers for signs of wear and tear. Worn out rollers does not grip the paper properly thus causing a noise. If the noise occurs during an exit, then your problem may be the exit rollers. If the exit rollers are worn out, cheaptrx or has become, hardened or glazed it is time to replace them. Another source of trx band workouts a printers problem is its transport belts. Check if the belts have too much slack, if it has, you need to purchase a new trx suspension review one.These are the easy steps that cheap trx bands anyone can do to keep a printer. If the problem requires an in-depth analysis and expertise, seek professional help.

Một cuộc tấn công từ chối dịch vụ (tấn công DoS - Viết tắt của Denial of Service) hay tấn công từ chối dịch vụ phân tán (tấn công DDoS - Viết tắt của Distributed Denial of Service) là sự cố gắng làm cho tài nguyên của một máy tính không thể sử dụng được nhằm vào những người dùng của nó. Mặc dù phương tiện để tiến hành, động cơ, mục tiêu của tấn công từ chối dịch vụ là khác nhau, nhưng nói chung nó gồm có sự phối hợp, sự cố gắng ác ý của một người hay nhiều người để chống lại Internet site hoặc service (dịch vụ Web) vận hành hiệu quả hoặc trong tất cả, tạm thời hay một cách không xác định. Thủ phạm tẩn công từ chối dịch vụ nhằm vào các mục tiêu site hay server tiêu biểu như ngân hàng, cổng thanh toán thẻ tín dụng và thậm chí DNS root servers.

 

Một phương thức tấn công phổ biến kéo theo sự bão hoà máy mục tiêu với các yêu cầu liên lạc bên ngoài, đến mức nó không thể đáp ứng giao thông hợp pháp, hoặc đáp ứng quá chậm. Trong điều kiện chung, các cuộc tấn công DoS được bổ sung bởi ép máy mục tiêu khởi động lại hoặc tiêu thụ hết tài nguyên của nó đến mức nó không cung cấp dịch vụ, hoặc làm tắc nghẽn liên lạc giữa người sử dụng và nạn nhân.

 

Tấn công từ chối dịch vụ là sự vi phạm chính sách sử dụng internet của IAB (Internet Architecture Board) và những người tấn công hiển nhiên vi phạm luật dân sự.

 

Nhận diện

 

US-CERT xác định dấu hiệu của một vụ tấn cống từ chối dịch vụ gồm có :

 

Mạng thực thi chậm khác thường khi mở tập tin hay truy cập Website;

 

Không thể dùng một website cụ thể;

 

Không thể truy cập bất kỳ website nào;

 

Tăng lượng thư rác nhận được.

 

Không phải tất các các dịch vụ đều ngừng chạy, thậm chí đó là kết quả của một hoạt động nguy hại, tất yếu của tấn công DoS. Tấn công từ chối dịch cũng có thể dẫn tới vấn đề về nhánh mạng của máy đang bị tấn công. Ví dụ băng thông của router giữa Internet và LAN có thể bị tiêu thụ bởi tấn công, làm tổn hại không chỉ máy tính ý định tấn công mà còn là toàn thể mạng.

 

Các phương thức tấn công

Tấn công từ chối dịch vụ là một loại hình tấn công nhằm ngăn chặn những người dùng hợp lệ được sử dụng một dịch vụ nào đó. Các cuộc tấn công có thể được thực hiện nhằm vào bất kì một thiết bị mạng nào bao gồm là tấn công vào các thiết bị định tuyến, web, thư điện tử và hệ thống DNS.

Tấn công từ chối dịch vụ có thẻ được thực hiện theo một số cách nhất định. Có năm kiểu tấn công cơ bản sau đây:

Nhằm tiêu tốn tài nguyên tính toán như băng thông, dung lượng đĩa cứng hoặc thời gian xử lý

Phá vỡ các thông tin cấu hình như thông tin định tuyến

Phá vỡ các trạng thái thông tin như việc tự động reset lại các phiên TCP.

Phá vỡ các thành phần vật lý của mạng máy tính

Làm tắc nghẽn thông tin liên lạc có chủ đích giữa các người dùng và nạn nhân dẫn đến việc liên lạc giữa hai bên không được thông suốt.

Một cuộc tấn công từ chối dịch vụ có thể bao gồm cả việc thực thi malware nhằm:

Làm quá tải năng lực xử lý, dẫn đến hệ thống không thể thực thi bất kì một công việc nào khác.

Những lỗi gọi tức thì trong microcode của máy tính.

Những lỗi gọi tức thì trong chuỗi chỉ thị, dẫn đến máy tính rơi vào trạng thái hoạt động không ổn định hoặc bị đơ.

Những lỗi có thể khai thác được ở hệ điều hành dẫn đến việc thiếu thốn tài nguyên hoặc bị thrashing. VD: như sử dụng tất cả các năng lực có sẵn dẫn đến không một công việc thực tế nào có thể hoàn thành được.

Gây crash hệ thống.

Tấn công từ chối dịch vụ iFrame: trong một trang HTML có thể gọi đến một trang web nào đó với rất nhiều yêu cầu và trong rất nhiều lần cho đến khi băng thông của trang web đó bị quá hạn.

www.mediafire.com/?ec12h27c7503db5 ===>>> website sinhvienkinhte.net

"A well installed microcode bug will be almost impossible to detect."

―Ken Thompson

Here's the VCF/VCA input jacks (left) and the signal output jacks (right). Also, you can see the multiple trimmers for each of the NJM2069 Korg VCF chips.

 

The adaptation of the DW-6000 board to the Six-Trak required more work than I anticipated. I had to remove quite a bit of the interface circuitry that the DW-6000 used. Also, the periodic self-calibration that the Six-Trak uses doesn't JUST tune it's VCO's, it also tunes the VCFs! For some reason, the microcode in the Six-Trak would end up leaving a big DC offset in the final CV when it tried to calibrate the NJM2069, so I had "remove" it by putting an LED in series with the cutoff frequency CV, then adjusting the trimpot to scale the CV appropriately.

So the Mac is loaned to a roommate with no computer. To replace it?

 

The Sony VAIO T0w3r of P0w4r!

Came with a PPGA Cel433 and 64MB PC100, running Win98. Has an Asus P2B-AE board that I've currently flashed with the beta P3B-1394 BIOS patched with TUSL2-C Tualatin-aware microcode. It even preserves support for the onboard Aureal 8830 sound chip, another rarity. Firewire support is fully present in 400mbps mode. Oddly enough, only OEM system ever to ship with a CPU mounted in a slotket configuration - i.e. a PCB that fits into a Slot 1 SECC\SEPP interface and presents a 370-pin socket, with additional jumper blocks that set vcore, fsb and other features. So my previously bone-stock PCV-R522DS now has a Katmai 533 Slot 1 ES processor in it. ES means it's an original Intel engineering sample and is probably preproduction. Due to the technology of the current slotket, a 4.5 multi is hard set with a FSB of 100 for only 450 mhz, an 83 mhz underclock. Two scrounged 128MB PC133 DIMMs, a 4X AGP BBA Radeon 7000 64MB DDR video card, and a generic VIA chipset 4-port USB 2.0 PCI card round out the package with a D-Link DFE-530TX rev B. NIC providing network connectivity. With this configuration, this machine comfortably runs Edgy Eft with the stock Gnome setup and serves well as a web\aim\irc\junior SETI box.

 

And this is why you become a computer nerd, kids.

 

Net cost: $0

 

Future plans: Obtain Iwill slotket which allows for Tualatin and some FSB overclocking. Already have Pentium III-S 1.2 chip and Volcano7+ ready for some overclocking attempts.

#SamsungMicrocodes - To celebrate the launch of the Galaxy S20, Samsung Australia has hidden tiny codes in their ads around the country. First to find a winning code gets a free Samsung #GalaxyS20 Ultra 5G.

#CHEProximity #Electronics #Innovation #samsung bit.ly/2UbBUEz

For for our final project in our introduction to digital design course my lab partner and I decided that instead of designing the core of a CISC processor (microcode sucks!) that we would righteously design a 4 stage pipeline RISC processor, albeit only 12 bits - and make it play tic-tac-toe. We implemented branch predicition too!

 

It is an accumulator design, so only one register, the the 12-bits were divided into 4 bit opcodes, and 8 bits for data, all implicitly acting on the accumulator and started taking graduate level classes in graphics and image processing. Very cool stuff!

 

The opcodes were:

0000 - noop

0001 - not implemented

0010 - Jump

0011 - Store to Memory

0100 - And

0101 - Add

0110 - Subtract

0111 - Load from memory

1000 - Shift Right

1001 - Shift Left

1010 - Jump to Zero

1011 - Complement

1100 - Add immediate

1101 - And immediate

1110 - Subtract immediate

1111 - Load immediate

 

I wrote the assembler and two programs: a fibonacci sequence generator, and a tic-tac-toe program which was based on a decision tree of a pruned graph using the symmetry of the grid as shown in "the tinker toy computer" by genius Danny Hillis.

 

You can see the "board" in the lower middle which was implemented as memory mapped I/O.

 

I got bored of architecture after taking the graduate supercomputer architecture class which seemed like the end of hardware design had arrived. I switched to computer graphics just after Jurassic Park came out.

The CFT Microcode Board works as what used to be called a personality board. Change the board, and you change the computer (within reason — it'll still be very CFT-like). This one has three Flash chips to store the microcode.

 

Small Flash chips are difficult to find and expensive, so these are 4 Mbit parts. 12 Mbits in all. They're 16 times bigger than required, so a Microcode Banking (µCB) Extension was added to the system. With it, sixteen different microcode images can be installed at the same time, and ‘extended instructions’ (OUT instructions, really) are added to set the microcode bank in use either it's changed again, or for the next instruction.

 

The backside also features bus termination in the form of Texas Instruments 16-line Bus Hold chips.

Tests de HDR avec un ELPH 300 HS.

Une forme de tourisme noir ou gothique :-)

Fait avec: le microcode CHDK (Canon Hack Development Kit) pour obtenir un RAW (DNG), Luminance HDR pour le tone mapping (Mantiuk), et post-traitement avec GIMP (masques de calque)

 

Testing an ELPH 300 HS for HDR.

A kind of dark or gothic tourism :-)

Done with: the CHDK firmware (Canon Hack Development Kit) for producing RAW images (DNG), Luminance HDR for the tone mapping (Mantiuk) and GIMP for the post-processing (layer masks).

Have a seat kids and let the old man tell you about the computer.

 

When I was 13 my best friend, Derek, showed me his new computer. At that point in time nobody really knew what computers were. Nobody had ever seen one. But Derek was buddies with another kid in school who was into electronics and he had learned about this thing called a TRS-80 computer. His parents bought him one for his birthday.

 

When he showed it to me he typed in this:

 

10 PRINT "HELLO"

RUN

 

it said back:

 

HELLO

OK

 

It was a wonder to me that he could actually type letters on a keyboard and they appeared on a black and white TV. And what was so compelling about the phrase 10 PRINT "HELLO", that the TV would actually do it on command?

 

I knew if I tried I could find the answer to that question. So I did try. I read about computers and learned how to write programs in BASIC. But why did they work? I read about interpreters and assembly language. How did that work? I went to college to get a degree in Computer Engineering. One day in "Intro to Digital Logic" the final piece fell into place. Suddenly I realized that I knew how transistors made gates which made registers which made memories, ALU's and sequencers. And sequencers ran microcode and microcode executed machine instructions and machine instructions formed the interpreter that ran this little basic program.

 

Today, 27 years later, none of the wonder is gone. I still spend my days typing in little snippets of text, setting off unimaginably complex chain reactions of events. Microscopic transistors shunt electrons in billionths of a second to do my will and all I have to do is type the right keystrokes.

 

(This was actually executed on my 21-year old Compaq portable that still sits in my basement waiting to entertain me when I feel nostalgic.)

 

Imagine a gravity system with two massive bodies. One has mass 2.5, position 20,0, and velocity 0,−2; the other has mass 5, position −20,0, and velocity 0,1. Drop a massless particle somewhere on the plane and measure how far it is from the origin after 60 timesteps. This is the graph of that: darker is closer to the origin. To a very preliminary approximation, then, darkness marks stable starting points for our mote.

 

Other fun measures, which I might do if I feel like it, would be the velocity of the particle, its total distance traveled, or its angle from the origin. (Actually, center of mass might be kind of fun.)

 

The integrator is velocity Verlet, not well tuned or tested because I don’t understand it more than very shallowly. The image is centered on the origin and reaches x ±100 and y ±50. The color is lightness = 1/distance, so even cusps that look like wraparound are really cusps in the system.

 

I did this in pypy – I wrote a PPM image to stdout and piped to $(convert), because (despite many attempts) pypy PIL is busted on my Mountain Lion install. Why did I forego my beloved PIL? Because pypy is way faster at this kind of tight, math-heavy loop. How much faster? Well, on my machine, stock python renders this in 1157.23 seconds (19.28 minutes); pypy takes 94.48 seconds (1.57 minutes). So.

 

CUDA would be roughly 10× faster still, and indeed I have used it for this kind of thing before, but I’m in an HLL mood. I don’t write microcode on Christmas eve.

 

The code.

I burned bootloaders onto a few PIC 16f876 chips using the LuckyBite programmer. it works in Leopard using vmware fusion. The bootloader burns reliably. They use Microcode Studio to compile picbasic and that software is no good. It can't handle the USB-Serial convertors and often has problems requiring a restart. Same problem if run through bootcamp. This is a major reason for me to abandon PICs and move to Arduinos as much as possible.

An updated version of the Microcode Board. This saves space on Processor Board A by taking on one of the front panel connectors (all the microcode lights). This makes sense, of course.

Testing the RX01 controller with a real DEC KM11 board to display the microcode address.

This is a layout experiment with minimal routing. It shows the Control Unit, converted to surface mount, with microcode ROMs in PLCC packages, not the bulky 32-pin DIP. It looks sparse.

An updated version of the Microcode Board. This saves space on Processor Board A by taking on one of the front panel connectors (all the microcode lights). This makes sense, of course.

 

This is underside of the board, showing three 16-bit Texas Instruments WideBus buffers (bottom right)

Dating from around 1961, the left hand panel in this picture allows you step through the microcode of this machine!

This one is a monster, and was a monster to route. It's Processor Board B, and holds the major registers (PC, DR and AC) with increment and as of Microcode version 5, decrement support.

 

There's also the Zero Flag, Negative flag (this one's simple), the Address Bus driver and the Address Register that controls it. Also present are the Auto-Increment Logic unit (partially on the underside) and the I/O address decoder.

The CFT Microcode Board works as what used to be called a personality board. Change the board, and you change the computer (within reason — it'll still be very CFT-like). This one has three Flash chips to store the microcode.

 

Small Flash chips are difficult to find and expensive, so these are 4 Mbit parts. 12 Mbits in all. They're 16 times bigger than required, so a Microcode Banking (µCB) Extension was added to the system. With it, sixteen different microcode images can be installed at the same time, and ‘extended instructions’ (OUT instructions, really) are added to set the microcode bank in use either it's changed again, or for the next instruction.

 

The backside also features bus termination in the form of Texas Instruments 16-line Bus Hold chips.

The underside of the Microcode board. This is the first board on the bus (hence the label and QR code) and includes bus terminators (left). The chips on the right are 16-bit buffers for the front panel.

 

The final revision of the Microcode board, partially rerouted with ‘10/10 rules’ (0.01" thick traces, 0.01" clearance between traces) which makes things much simpler and nicer looking. The new socket along the bottom sends microcode-related information to the front panel (Processor Board A did this before, but it got too crowded on it).

 

Another minor revision may be made so I can add impedance-matching resistors to some of the board's 24 control outputs.

The NMOC certainly cannot be accused of dumbing-down: the entire description of these machines reads "First commercially-produced personal workstation - the PERQ CPU was a microcoded discrete logic design based around 74S181 bit-slice ALUs and an Am2910 microcode sequencer. It has 20-bit wide registers and a writable control store (WCS), allowing the microcode to be redefined. The CPU had a microinstruction cycle period of 170ns (5.88Mhz). PERQ 1 could be configured with 256kB, 1MB or 2MB of 64-bit-wide RAM."

One of the branch directions the AMD 2900 product line took was a fully integrated 16 bit data path with register file. Sequencing and microcode memory was still in other chips. One of the most distinguishing features of this bipolar processor was the aluminum heat spreader on the top, The picture does not do justice to the gold color of the logo and text window. From a marketing point of view this was really a clever move (and used on several other AMD products during the 1980's). When ever any company got a press release for their product (disk controllers, modems, video graphics, ...) there would be a photo of the board, and the AMD logo would be a very obvious feature.

"Regisderinf... Time is [15 minutes wrong!]"

 

Ever come back from vacation and on your way home you see something that tells you that your first day back at work is going to be a pain? I was the sign engineer at NextBus, my microcode seemed to be failing (actually it was hardware).

 

For the record, these signs were upgraded to 3G in time. The trackers on the vehicles weren't, so for a while these signs weren't displaying realtime predictions.

IBM 5100/5110 CPU - PALM, "Put All Logic in Microcode" (1977)

after update firmware microcode (apt-get upgrade)

Documented here because it seems like such a sick and twisted thing to be doing... only really doing it so I can carry on with PIC programming using Microcode studio.

Optimus Prime renames Mo Moses on the operations team to Mo "Microcode" Moses.

Data General Eclipse MV-7800xp - photo by @luisacivardi @verdebinario #dg #datageneral #eclipse #eagle #nova #microcode #cpu #vintagecomputer #retrocomputer #instanerd #nasa #spacelink #computer #circuit #maker #laboratory #programmable #tech #tecnology #projects #vintagecomputer #broadcasting #oldhardware #instatech #electronicscomponents ift.tt/2sGTu6G

6502 internal logic architecture. Internal buss (SB) split to re-use die area more effectively. Decode ROM is NOT microcode, but rather a PAL/Truth table to drive the Random Control Logic, which is a sequencer for the actual registers,ALU & Program Counter. All interrupts (IRQ, NMI, BRK and RESET) are handled by the same logic, as instructions. working Undocumented commands present due to "don't care" conditions in the decode ROM.

Non-working invalid commands- known as "KIL" (which hang the CPU) present due to "don't care" conditions in the Decode ROM that have no "Load next instruction" rule.

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