juliangambleon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Forth – The Early Years (1991)”
This talk by Chuck Moore at Strange Loop was amazing link to this video "Programming a 144-computer chip to minimize power"
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"Programming a 144-computer chip to minimize power" - Chuck Moore (2013)
Strange Loop Conference
88K subscribers • 114 videos on Hallway • Conference channel
- Recommended by 7 people: 7 on Hacker News.
- A classic. People kept recommending it from 2021 to 2024.
- Presented by Chuck Moore, creator of Forth
Advanced. Deep dive for people who know the field.
19K views5 years ago7 recommendations
HardwareProgramming languagesCPUs and computer architectureEmbedded systems
Chuck Moore explains how to program GreenArrays' 144-core asynchronous chip using Forth to minimize power consumption.
GreenArrays is shipping its 144-core asynchronous chip that needs little energy (7 pJ/inst). Idle cores use no power (100 nW). Active ones (4 mW) run fast (666 Mips), then wait for communication (idle). Tight coding to minimize instructions executed will minimize power. The programmer can also reduce instruction fetches, transistor switching and duty cycle. Chuck Moore GreenArrays, Inc. A computer engineer specializing in software, hardware and silicon. Invented the Forth computer language in 1968. Forth, Inc still programs embedded apps from telescope to data base. Designed a Forth gate-array in 1983 and circuit boards to sell it. It's successor (RTX2000) is orbiting Saturn. Filed a valuable asynchronous patent in 1989, embodied in the Sh-Boom microprocessor. Then laid-out fast, low-power Forth microprocessors. In 1998 invented colorForth and used it to position Forth microcomputers into multi-core arrays. GreenArrays is now selling a 144-core ultra low-power chip. Recorded at Strange Loop conference (thestrangeloop.com) in St. Louis, MO, Oct 2013.Why it's here
7 people recommend thisWhat people say. Recommended as a fascinating look at ultra-low-power computer architecture and Forth from its creator.
thesuperbigfrogon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Frugal Computing (2021)”
Chuck Moore (creator of Forth 1 ) has a ultra-low power processor that is a fascinating possible solution: link to this video 1 Forth programming language: link
bugfix-66on Hacker News • Recommends
On “Stack Computers: the new wave (1989) [pdf]”
Look at the Green Arrays F18: link This is such a simple machine. I am planning to make a tiny emulator as a puzzle for my site. One could probably write an emulator in 80 lines of Go. Here's a clear description of what each instruction does: link Hilariously, the system has no logical OR, only AND and XOR and NOT, because "Inclusive-or is rarely needed." This system was designed by Chuck Moore, father of Forth. Here is an entertaining video of him explaining the F18A stack machine and programming system: link to this video
bjconlanon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: Why did stack-based CPUs lose out?”
Isn't this where Mr Moore's (of Forth fame) cpu designs have gone? (see link ). Ok maybe not the 'actor' model per say (unless actor channels are thought of core interconnects (I think there is also a global state but I cant remember much of these details at the moment without re-watching the linked strangloop vid.) link to this video or link is probably the best for groking
thesuperbigfrogon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Forth: The programming language that writes itself: The Web Page”
Related Chuck Moore talk: "Programming a 144 Computer Chip to Minimize Power" (2013) link to this video How Forth powers ultra-low power computers: "GreenArrays is shipping its 144-core asynchronous chip that needs little energy (7 pJ/inst). Idle cores use no power (100 nW). Active ones (4 mW) run fast (666 Mips), then wait for communication (idle)."
LeonenTheDKon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Intel x86 Documentation Has More Pages Than The 6502 Has Transistors (2013)”
That reminds me of the Green Arrays computer with 144 cores, programmed in Color Forth. Chuck Moore has a talk on it here, very interesting stuff: link to this video I'm not sure how far this has gone since then. The site is still up with buy links as well: link
sphon Hacker News • Recommends
On “My history with Forth, and stack machines (2010)”
Here's Chuck Moore talking about the 144-core CPUs his startup is developing: link to this video That's an incredible design I would love to get my paws on.
thesuperbigfrogon Hacker News • Recommends
On “milliForth”
He has recently done some amazing low power work with GreenArrays: "GreenArrays is shipping its 144-core asynchronous chip that needs little energy (7 pJ/inst). Idle cores use no power (100 nW). Active ones (4 mW) run fast (666 Mips), then wait for communication (idle). Tight coding to minimize instructions executed will minimize power. The programmer can also reduce instruction fetches, transistor switching and duty cycle." link to this video It is like the elegance of Forth in low power, multi-core hardware.
aeonikon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Bootstrapping a Forth in 40 lines of Lua code”
The two Forths that I've had my eye on: link And the inventor of Forth has a very power efficient multi-computer chip that can be programmed with colorForth or array forth (he claims most power efficient): link link Here is a video about the chip, and some cool Forth demos with it: link to this video
qgcon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Why concatenative programming matters (2012)”
It's really not. This isn't a difference of opinion that looks like "well some thing x is better at doing y than z" It's a fundamental disagreement on the purpose and practice of the language. For regular Forth users, the high and low level sit together with Forth, you don't experience a sense of any kind of "layers" of abstraction over the fundamentals of what the machine is and does. One can dispute whether Forth has this property, but it's really not an overstatement to say that regular Forth users feel this sense deeply and share this subjective experience. The capabilities of processors change a ton over time, which is the most damning aspect of ANS Forth, it is simply outdated ! -- The…
thesuperbigfrogon Hacker News • Mentions
On “27 years later and the Psion 3a is still wonderful”
Ultra low power processors exist: "GreenArrays is shipping its 144-core asynchronous chip that needs little energy (7 pJ/inst). Idle cores use no power (100 nW). Active ones (4 mW) run fast (666 Mips), then wait for communication (idle). Tight coding to minimize instructions executed will minimize power. The programmer can also reduce instruction fetches, transistor switching and duty cycle. Chuck Moore GreenArrays, Inc." Source: link to this video They just are not widely used because ARM and similar processors offer much more computational power and people are happy charging their devices every day or so.
kmstouton Hacker News • Mentions
On “Forth: The programming language that writes itself: The Web Page”
"I always considered that size and speed were important for amateurs. But in the modern context, there's only three parameters that matter: power, power, and power." --Chuck Moore link to this video
aeonikon Hacker News • Mentions
On “BF-SYS: A fantasy computer that uses Brainfuck as its instruction set”
GreenArrays have really cool chip that boasts "the most power efficient per instruction executed" when they released it. On the order of picojoules per cycle IIRC. The chip has 144 independent computers (not processors -> computers) The inventor of the Forth programming language, Chuck Moore, developed it, and is designed to execute with this parallel model in mind. A parallel Brainfuck system might be a cool project to port over to this platform. link Here is a talk given at Strange Loop by Chuck: link to this video
vanderZwanon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Mechanical computer relies on kirigami cubes, not electronics”
Wouldn't that all depend on how much energy is used for computing, and how much for fetching and storing the bits involved? If the requirements involve slow computation with extremely long-term storage, perhaps mechanical computing can theoretically have an advantage. Then again, Chuck Moore's GA144 shows there's still plenty of room when it comes to optimizing electron-based computing for those kind of extreme scenarios as well. 0 link to this video