"Programming a 144-computer chip to minimize power" - Chuck Moore (2013)
Strange Loop Conference7 HN recommenders · recommended in 8 months, 2021–2024
talk · advanced · evergreen · 2021–2024 on HN
Chuck Moore, inventor of Forth, presents GreenArrays' 144-core asynchronous chip at Strange Loop 2013. He explains how idle cores draw almost no power and how tight code minimizes energy use.
It is the favorite recommendation for understanding Moore's minimalist, low-power multi-core designs and stack machines.
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12 comments from Hacker News
This talk by Chuck Moore at Strange Loop was amazing ▶ this video "Programming a 144-computer chip to minimize power"
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: ▶ this video
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." ▶ this video It is like the elegance of Forth in low power, multi-core hardware.
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: ▶ this video I'm not sure how far this has gone since then. The site is still up with buy links as well: link
Here's Chuck Moore talking about the 144-core CPUs his startup is developing: ▶ this video That's an incredible design I would love to get my paws on.
Related Chuck Moore talk: "Programming a 144 Computer Chip to Minimize Power" (2013) ▶ 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)."
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.) ▶ this video or link is probably the best for groking
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: ▶ this video
Chuck Moore (creator of Forth [1] ) has a ultra-low power processor that is a fascinating possible solution: ▶ this video [1] Forth programming language: link
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] ▶ this video
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: ▶ this video
"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 ▶ this video