[LMH]Re: Various questions

[Andreas Eder]

John Morrison writes:
 > Hi;
 >=20
 > Emmanuel Rialland wrote:
 > > I know that those questions could sound provocative and but here w=
e
 > > are:
 > >=20
 > > 1) why C++?
 > > why not lisp / scheme / OCaml or anything else (I remember
 > > that simh was mentionned).
 >=20
 > Easier to put on raw hardware.  If we were doing this in Lisp, and
 > didn't care so much about a Lisp OS, putting more work into CMUCL/SB=
CL
 > and gutting a Linux distro might be the way to go.

Well C would even fare better than, wouldn't it? And Ocaml should also
be quite good. I once saw a rather rudimentary kernel booting the raw
iron from a floppy that was written in OCaml, but I can't remember the
name at the moment.


 > Two other approaches that piqued my curiousity were:
 >=20
 > (a) FPGA-based PCI form-factor daughter boards for PCs.  Apparently
 > there are such beasts, complete with PC-based design tools that let =
you
 > roll your own custom CPU.  With a little bit of "life support" softw=
are,
 > you could have a Return of the Son of MacIvory (PC rather than Mac).=

 >=20
 > (b) A "soft" CPU (I forget the manufacturer), which was a sort of RI=
SC
 > part implemented inside of a single FPGA with lots and lots of extra=

 > gates unused, with tools to let you roll your own co-processor out o=
f
 > the remaining gates.  The RISC part would become the New FEP, and yo=
u
 > could configure a Lisp processor on the same chip with the unused
 > gates.  It also came mounted on a reference board, to ease developme=
nt.
 >=20
 > Ah, well.  Pipe dreams...

But both of these seem very attractive solutions to me. I'd certainly
like to have something like that.

'Andreas

--=20
Wherever I lay my .emacs, there=B4s my $HOME.