--- /dev/null
+---
+postid: '04d'
+title: On the future of computing hardware
+date: August 7, 2016
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+tags: asphalt, tech
+---
+
+One, systems tend to get smaller.
+
+Mathematicians with an inclination for studying so-called "systems" may
+without much effort look at various examples of such "systems" and
+devise quantitative measures of complexity. For example the mammal's
+organism is highly complex on various levels of abstraction, say, when
+looking at its average genetic makeup; the same can be said about social
+networks[^1], global weather[^2] or the motion of stars.
+
+These complexities are however against the intuition we have in
+engineering. That is because human-made systems are not only designed to
+be functional, but to also be as deterministic as possible; and such
+determinism cannot be achieved without a proper understanding of the
+theoretical model used in designs and *especially* its
+limitations. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication", and
+"everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler", but
+also "simplicity is prerequisite for reliability", to quote only a few
+aphorisms.
+
+We can observe empirically that systems' complexity, or rather some
+measure of their "size", evolves cyclically. Dinosaurs evolved to be
+huge creatures, only to be replaced in time by miniaturized versions of
+themselves[^3]. The first simple computing systems had the size of a
+room, while large-scale integration has led to computers which fit on
+the tip of one's finger. This reduction in size comes with reduction in
+certain features' size and/or complexity, which is why for example
+humans don't have tails, nor the amount of body hair of some of their
+ancestors, nor sharp canines.
+
+Looking at the evolution of various industries in the last few
+decades[^4], it is clear that they are currently in the latter phase of
+the growth-reduction cycle. It is only natural that the so-called
+hardware, and more specifically numerical computers made out of
+silicon[^5] will follow.
+
+<p style="text-align:center; font-weight:bold;">⁂</p>
+
+Two, on shaky foundations; transcending ideological confusions.
+
+The fact that nowadays' hardware industry stems from the needs of
+[marketing][marketing], as opposed to the needs of the market, is
+well-known. This charade started with personal computers, then it was
+followed by mobile phones, tablets, and now so-called "smart devices"
+from "the Internet of things", which operate in cycles of what is known
+in economics as "planned obsolescence"[^6].
+
+Purely from the perspective of computing hardware, this leads to the
+proliferation of functionality that is useless, or worse, harmful to
+the average consumer. For example the new generation of Intel Skylake
+processors come with Intel SGX, Intel MPX and possibly others; all this
+at the expense of reliability[^7], and at the same time without
+advancing the state of the art in any fundamental sense. All they do is
+offer some clients new ways to shoot themselves in the foot, and Intel
+are by no means a singular case[^8].
+
+Degrading processor quality aside, there are quite a few pragmatic
+factors lying behind the existence of the planned
+obsolescence-aggressive marketing vicious circle. For one, it's easier
+to scale silicon production up than to scale it down, as it's more
+effective to fabricate a large wafer containing smaller and smaller
+processors than to produce in smaller numbers[^9]. Meanwhile, some of
+the steps in the manufacturing cycles (still) require significant human
+workforce (for the time being), which makes eastern Asia the prime
+choice for production[^10]. Thus the per-unit cost of producing a
+processor is higher for smaller batches (say, a hundred at most), while
+e.g. smartphone assembly in high numbers will necessarily rely on
+poorsters in China.
+
+This context however underlies a problem of a more ideological nature,
+that has been recently, yet unfruitfully, [discussed][freedom-x86] in
+the free software world: there is a general lack of choice in
+general-purpose hardware architectures, and given the situation above,
+it's not likely that this will improve. We are most likely heading into
+a duopoly between ARM and x86, while the fate of MIPS is not quite
+certain[^11], IBM's Power is somewhat expensive and FPGAs likewise,
+barring the very low-entry ones. The open RISC-V architecture offers
+some hope, given Google's interest in them, but I wouldn't get my hopes
+up just yet.
+
+This is not the first time I am writing about this. I have touched on
+the subject on [the old blog][hardware-liber] a while ago, and I have
+also discussed some of the (still current) issues in a previous
+[Tar Pit post][3d-printing]. People don't seem to have gotten their
+heads out of the sand since then, so I will reiterate.
+
+<p style="text-align:center; font-weight:bold;">⁂</p>
+
+Three, I want to build my own hardware.
+
+To be honest, I don't care too much about Intel, Qualcomm, Apple and
+their interests. If Romanians were building their own computers[^12]
+back in the days before "personal computer" was a thing, then I don't
+see why I couldn't do this in the 2010s. Whether it's made feasible by
+3D printing, some different technology or maybe some hybrid
+approach[^13], this is a high-priority goal for the development of a
+sane post-industrial world and in order to pick up the useful remains of
+the decaying Western civilization. However one would put it, small-scale
+hardware production is the next evolutionary step in the existence of
+numerical computers.
+
+It is readily observable that[^14] the computer industry is heading
+towards a mono-culture, not only in hardware, but also in operating
+systems[^15] and in "systems" in general. This will -- not might, not
+probably, but definitely -- have the effect of turning the "systems"
+world into a world of (often false) beliefs, much akin to Asimov's
+Church of Science, where people will not even conceive the possibility
+of existence of other "systems".
+
+I am of course not crazy enough to attempt to stop this. The industry
+can burn to the ground as far as I'm concerned, and this it will, and
+it'll be of their own making. What I want is to gather the means to
+survive through this coming post-industrial wasteland.
+
+[^1]: By which I mean specifically not the jokes the average Westerner
+ calls "social networks". Facebook, Twitter, Reddit et al. are only
+ networks in the sense that they reduce the level of interaction to
+ at best that of monkeys throwing typewriters around; at best. The
+ average level is rather Pavlovian in nature.
+
+[^2]: Weather, not climate. Mkay?
+
+[^3]: Which taste like chicken.
+
+[^4]: Popescu's "[The end of democracy][trilema-democracy]" is required
+ reading on this matter.
+
+[^5]: Unless some other better, faster, stronger material takes its
+ place. Which I kind of doubt, given that science is also
+ [in a period of stagnation][academic-hogwash], and that is putting
+ it very mildly.
+
+[^6]: Which, although probably perceived by the naïve as capitalist, is
+ rather reminiscent of the old communist planned economy model. And
+ not unlike communist economy, it often leads to higher prices and
+ lower quality products. To bear in mind next time you're buying that
+ new Samsung or Apple smartphone.
+
+[^7]: Dan Luu's
+ "[We saw some really bad Intel CPU bugs in 2015, and we should expect to see more in the future][dan-luu]"
+ is required reading on this particular matter.
+
+[^8]: ARM are somewhat more conservative, but they offer SoC producers
+ enough freedom to shoot their clients in the foot. Without any
+ doubt, the average Qualcomm phone is most probably running Secure
+ World software that the end user will never care about, and that the
+ curious mind will never have the chance to reverse engineer --
+ without considerable financial resources, anyway. That's a good
+ thing, you say? Well, it's your opinion, you're entitled to it,
+ please stick it up your ass.
+
+ But what am I saying? By all means, please *do* buy whatever shiny
+ shit Apple or Samsung are selling you. As long as it's not *my*
+ money...
+
+[^9]: There are quite a few technical reasons for this too, and some of
+ these escape me. For one, opening a semiconductor plant isn't
+ exactly cheap, and the ratio of defects to units produced is
+ significant, yet in principle easy to estimate statistically. The
+ cost of making a circular wafer is also not small, which makes
+ economic feasibility a tricky thing. Meanwhile, bear in mind that
+ Moore's law is on its way to becoming dead and buried, given that
+ CMOS-based technologies are reaching their physical limits.
+
+[^10]: To be perfectly clear, the world's largest silicon producer is at
+ the time of writing not Intel, but Taiwan Semiconductor
+ Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
+
+[^11]: Imagination Technologies, the intellectual property holder, have
+ not been faring too well in 2016.
+
+[^12]: Remember the story of the [ICE Felix HC][balls-clean] that was
+ the toy in my early computing days, before I had the slightest idea
+ of what an algorithm actually was. Now ponder the fact that there is
+ no *qualitative* difference between that piece of junk and today's
+ latest, greatest, whateverest computer. Yes, you can do the exact
+ same things on that old heap of junk, and by "exact" I certainly do
+ not mean watching porn, by which I mean that this is why your
+ children will prefer make-believe sex instead of fucking real women,
+ which uncoincidentally is why Arabs are the superior ethnicity and
+ those God-awful political corectnesses will stop being a thing in
+ less than a generation. But I digress.
+
+ As a funny historical footnote, the same Romanians attempted at
+ making [a Lisp machine][dialisp] back in the '80s, which makes me
+ hopeful that the same thing should be achievable almost three to
+ four decades later. I hate repeating myself, but it's quite
+ literally either this or the dark ages.
+
+[^13]: The approach itself is relevant only as far as it solves the most
+ problematic economical aspects, i.e. logistics (needs to be made
+ using readily available and/or easily procurable materials) and low
+ production costs of a small number of units (tens to a few hundreds
+ at most). Processing speed and size are secondary aspects, a Z80 (or
+ maybe something equivalent to a 80386) should really be enough for
+ most general-purpose-ey uses.
+
+[^14]: Much to the baffling ignorance of otherwise intelligent
+ people. Unfortunately for them, nature abhors singularities; as one
+ of the older and wiser men in the Romanian Computer Science
+ community used to remind us, there is, simply put, a cost for
+ abso-fucking-lutely everything in life.
+
+[^15]: In case you were wondering, despite being the most usable kernel
+ to date, Linux is definitely *the* ultimate abomination. Its
+ greatest feature is that it's not too difficult to strip of all the
+ crap.
+
+ If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look at
+ [CVE-2016-0728][cve-2016-0728] for example.
+
+[trilema-democracy]: http://trilema.com/2016/the-end-of-democracy/
+[academic-hogwash]: /posts/y02/045-academic-hogwash.html
+[marketing]: /posts/y02/043-on-the-failure-of-marketing.html
+[dan-luu]: http://danluu.com/cpu-bugs/
+[freedom-x86]: http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2016-April/010912.html
+[hardware-liber]: http://lucian.mogosanu.ro/bricks/viitorul-hardware-ului-liber/
+[3d-printing]: /posts/y00/01c-3d-printing.html
+[balls-clean]: /posts/y01/035-with-our-balls-clean.html
+[dialisp]: http://www.atic.org.ro/ktml2/files/uploads/Masina%20DIALISP.pdf
+[cve-2016-0728]: https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/CVE-2016-0728
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