Collaborate Disseminate
Everything is better when you can program it, right? We have software-defined radios, software-defined networks, and software-defined storage. Now a company called Ascenium wants to create a software-defined CPU. They’ve …read more Continue reading Software Defined… CPU?
A computer processor uses a so-called Instruction Set Architecture to talk with the world outside of its own circuitry. This ISA consists of a number of instructions, which essentially define the functionality of that processor, which explains why so many ISAs still exist today. It’s hard to find that one …read more
Continue reading RISC-V: Why The ISA Battles Aren’t Over Yet
There was a time when owning computer meant you probably knew most or all of the instructions it could execute. Your modern PC, though, has a lot of instructions, many of them meant for specialized operating system, encryption, or digital signal processing features.
There are known undocumented instructions in a lot of x86-class CPUs, too. What’s more, these days your x86 CPU might really be a virtual machine running on a different processor, or your CPU could have a defect or a bug. Maybe you want to run sandsifter–a program that searches for erroneous or undocumented instructions. Who knows what …read more
