Can't wait to use and promote illegal operating systems that do not verify age.

[gerardthornley@hachyderm.io]

@tubetime @Amorpheus @serapath @catsalad 🙂 yeah, I was kidding! I know we aren't going to knock up a PCB-based, GHz-speed, super-scalar, super-pipelined CPU in our sheds. (And the power consumption of you could! 🔥)

Now that I am thinking about it, though, I wonder what actually would be achievable for an enthusiastic amateur with means? For instance, would it be plausible for them to make an actual 6502 chip? At what point in the history of silicon manufacturing did cost and complexity make it utterly unachievable outside of the existing players in the industry?

[gerardthornley@hachyderm.io]

@reallylazybear @catsalad aye. I heard something recently pointing out that the current shift rightwards in Western politics was really predictable - a combination of the bulge in the demographic as the boomer generation pass through their retirement years, coupled with the long-observed tendency of people to become more conservative as they get older.
I also heard that we're passing the peak in that bulge at the moment, so as long as no idiots cause another huge generational ripple in the demographics, things might start to get a bit more balanced again.

[serapath@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@GerardThornley @tubetime @Amorpheus @catsalad

i do think in a fediverse world and beyond that peer to peer world, where people leave big tech and embrace self custody, may it be through self hosting (if ppl got the skills) or through embracing peer to peer apps where their identity is represented by a "seed phrase" that represents thei cryptographic keypair, which they write down and store away safely.

...hardware you can trust in is vital, even if it is slow, so ppl will buy open hardware🙂

[dirkhh@hachyderm.io]

@catsalad
We should start a movement that does that. We'd need a catchy name, though.
Open Sauce or something like it. We should workshop that

[light@noc.social]

@ClickyMcTicker
At least they're not getting it straight away. Makes it harder for them.
@catsalad @ramonfincken

[duckwhistle@mastodon.org.uk]

@ClickyMcTicker @catsalad @ramonfincken that's why I have not already lied about my kids ages and set them up multiple accounts on web services they're not old enough to use yet.

[0x0ddc0ffee@infosec.exchange]

@catsalad If you're wondering why I just went through 19 hours of your toots, retooting multiple posts, mostly cat-related, it wasn't for any of the usual creepy reasons. I was determined to find and retoot this toot, after seeing it in a browser window just before said browser window dumped core.

[0x0ddc0ffee@infosec.exchange]

@softspeak @catsalad This, but certain BSDs, 9Front, XV6, V7x86, Movitz, Native Oberon, UCSD p-System, and eventually, that rewrite of XV6 in SPARK Ada.

[kentpitman@climatejustice.social]

@catsalad

They'll be able to tell your age by the fact that you care about this issue. ;)

[0x0ddc0ffee@infosec.exchange]

@serapath @catsalad Time for the FPGA Underground?

[serapath@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@0x0ddc0ffee @catsalad

sounds interesting.
is it something i can replace either my phone or laptop with or is that the goal?

is there a way this can be leveraged in the future so many ppl can produce it to supply it to ppl everywhere? 🙂

[0x0ddc0ffee@infosec.exchange]

@serapath @catsalad Laptops, yes, and from a technical standpoint, phones should also be possible. Probably not phones that use existing phone networks, unfortunately, given the tight corporate and government control on what can connect to those networks. If some of the current mesh network projects continue to progress and spread, though, that might be less of an issue.

[serapath@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@0x0ddc0ffee @catsalad

is there a website or more information?
this sounds amazing.

how "fast" is it?
if its basic, its still useful for some tasks, but if it could compare to modern low end laptops, those that you can maybe buy new for 100-200 USD, that would be great. you could then install a desktop OS and use web browsers and various programs ... of course no high end gaming or any other performance/resource hungry app ...but still

[0x0ddc0ffee@infosec.exchange]

@serapath @catsalad You can find some of them on opencores.org. Most of what they have recreates fairly basic old machines, but in among them are several RISC-V and ARM-like implementations which could run modern operating systems and applications. It would take community efforts to build working computing devices around cores burned into FPGAs, but once there is motivation, I'm confident it will happen.

[amorpheus@kind.social]

@GerardThornley @tubetime @serapath @catsalad ARM is a good example. They just design circuitry, they do not fabricate it. Design is in the grasp of small expert groups and even individuals, but fabrication is only possible if you accumulate enough financial support.

Make your design and propose it. If you get enough supporters, let dedicated fabs produce it.

[amorpheus@kind.social]

@serapath @catsalad If 3D printers were already able to produce on sub-nm scale, I'd agree with joy, enthusiasm, dedication and participation... 🙂

[fluffykittycat@furry.engineer]

@catsalad pirate OSes, if you will.

[fluffykittycat@furry.engineer]

@duckwhistle @ClickyMcTicker @catsalad @ramonfincken good idea

[fluffykittycat@furry.engineer]

@ClickyMcTicker @catsalad @ramonfincken oppression is the point

[fluffykittycat@furry.engineer]

@serapath @catsalad I've been thinking about this. We should design for bigger mode sizes. If we can manufacture open hardware on the same fans that make power electronics we're pretty much home free. We will have to give up peak performance and power efficiency to do so.

In the meantime, don't throw out any hardware that runs and some of what doesn't. Old corpo laptops were cheap last I checked (double check because of RAM) and probably a good thing to buy by the palletload