Articles – Page 80

October 12, 2020

“We still have judgement here, that we but teach bloody instructions which, being taught, return to plague th’inventor.” – Macbeth, 1.7

Today we dive into Computer Programming 101.

Computers don’t speak English. Or Mandarin, or German, or Spanish, or any other human language. Despite how Siri and Alexa may appear, computers and other gadgets are native speakers of their own binary tongues, languages that we can’t understand.

That means that if you want to program a … Read More → "What Is a Compiler, Anyway?"

The JOYCE Project to Equip Machines with Human-Like Perception

by Max Maxfield

October 8, 2020

Did you ever watch the British television science fiction comedy Red Dwarf? The stage for this tale is the eponymous spaceship Red Dwarf, which is an enormous mining vessel that is 6 miles (10 km) long, 5 miles (8 km) tall, and 4 miles (6 km) wide. Series 1 through Series 8 originally aired on BBC 2 between 1988 and 1999 (somewhat reminiscent of Whac-A-Mole, there were reboots in 2009, 2020, 2016, 2017, and 2020).

The underlying premise follows low-ranking technician Dave Lister, who awakens after being in suspended animation for three million years to find … Read More → "The JOYCE Project to Equip Machines with Human-Like Perception"

Weird Instructions I Have Loved

Processors Often Have Strange, Weird, and Inscrutable Operations

by Jim Turley

October 7, 2020

“Simplify and add lightness.” – Colin Chapman

If you don’t write assembly-language programs, you’ll miss out on some strange, interesting, wonderful, or uniquely powerful instructions lurking inside your processor. Some are immensely helpful. Others are just… weird.

Any processor can add and subtract, and most can multiply integers. A few can even do integer division. And some have a floating-point unit (FPU) for dealing with fractions.

But can your chip do 4-dimensional transforms? Table lookups? … Read More → "Weird Instructions I Have Loved"

Using Not-a-Blockchain to Secure Embedded Devices

Nonprofit Iota Foundation Delivers Open-Source Secure Access

by Jim Turley

October 5, 2020

“Most people want security in this world, not liberty.” — H. L. Mencken

Mention “distributed ledger technology” and you’ll either get a blank stare or someone will shout, “Blockchain!” The underlying mathematics behind cryptocurrencies and blockchain can, like any technology, be used for different purposes. The headlines tend to emphasize those that affect consumers, but there are a lot of other ways we can employ distributed-ledger technology without setting up massive cryptocurrency server farms.

Iota Foundation</ … Read More → "Using Not-a-Blockchain to Secure Embedded Devices"

Pulling Yourself up by Your Bootstraps

by Max Maxfield

October 1, 2020

A couple of days ago as I pen these words, I received a message on LinkedIn from someone asking, “Can you advise me about what books a beginner can peruse for learning NASM?” To be honest, this was a bit of a tricky one, not least that I didn’t have a clue what NASM was, so I did what I usually do in a time of crisis, which is to have a surreptitious Google.

You can only imagine my surprise and delight to discover that NASM stands for “Netwide Assembler,” which is an assembler and disassembler … Read More → "Pulling Yourself up by Your Bootstraps"

Mipsology Brings “Zero Effort” Inference

FPGA-based AI Acceleration Made Easy

by Kevin Morris

September 30, 2020

Like the proverbial carrot-on-a-stick, FPGA-based acceleration has been right in front of our noses, just out of reach, for the better part of three decades. We move closer, and the prize moves farther away. Every few years, we feel some tangible progress, and perhaps cut the distance in half, but asymptotes can be unfriendly bedfellows. The old “reconfigurable computing” vision of FPGAs as replacements for CPUs has teased, taunted, and ultimately disappointed us.

The fact that FPGAs are basically vast arrays of unconnected logic gives the notion that we can … Read More → "Mipsology Brings “Zero Effort” Inference"

Ambiq Apollo4 Undercuts IoT Power

Unique Subthreshold Voltage Drops MCU into Microwatt Range

by Jim Turley

September 29, 2020

“Whoever is new to power is always harsh.” — Aeschylus

Ambiq has a new microcontroller. Of all the MCUs you could pick for your next IoT design… this is one of them.

If that sounds like damning with faint praise, I don’t mean it that way. It’s actually a very nice part, as we will see. It’s just that the market for low-cost MCUs is very crowded. It’s hard for one vendor – much less one specific chip – to stand … Read More → "Ambiq Apollo4 Undercuts IoT Power"

Where Do Programming Languages Go to Die?

Assembly Programming has Become a Lost Art

by Jim Turley

September 28, 2020

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi volutpat.”

If you’re a parent with small children, you’ve probably taught them to “tie” their shoes by closing the Velcro straps. Someday, when they get older, maybe they’ll also learn how to tie shoelaces. You know, like their ancestors once did.

The question is, will they? Is learning to tie shoelaces a useful skill or just a remnant of an old and outdated technology that’s no longer relevant? </ … Read More → "Where Do Programming Languages Go to Die?"

Eeek Alors! Radiation Hardened eFPGA IP

by Max Maxfield

September 24, 2020

I think it’s fair to say that the majority of my friends in Embedded Space (where no one can hear you scream) tend to live on the microcontroller (MCU) side of the fence. To put this another way, relatively few of my chums don their “I’m an FPGA Designer” T-Shirts before heading off to work in the morning.

A few years ago as I pen these words, I realized that I was spending an inordinate amount of my time explaining what FPGAs are and how they work their magic to members of the MCU fraternity ( … Read More → "Eeek Alors! Radiation Hardened eFPGA IP"

Old Man Yells at Clouds, 2020 Edition

IdioT, DRM, and Cloud-Connected Devices Keep Making the Same Mistakes

by Jim Turley

September 21, 2020

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” – unknown (but not Albert Einstein)

It’s sad to see a little kid cry on Christmas morning. He unwraps his new PlayStation 4, plugs it in, grabs the controller in anticipation of playing his first game and then… waits helplessly for over two hours while it downloads a huge firmware update. Thank you, Sony, for deciding that updates happen on your schedule, whenever and wherever you decide. Great out-of-box experience, guys.</ … Read More → "Old Man Yells at Clouds, 2020 Edition"