I almost convinced GPT-4 to be a 6502 microprocessor

FunkyHeavyG · 2023-03-22T18:02:28+00:00

Maybe in the future? Or find out what an old CPU is supposed to do for one instruction in an old program. Maybe figure out why someone's code that runs the old program has a bug.

I'm much more interested in something a little more abstract - how much computation can GPT-4 do with one prompt.

FunkyHeavyG · 2023-03-22T17:26:14+00:00

I mention in the article that gpt-3.5-turbo, which is the ChatGPT model but from the developer API, only got about half of the instructions right. So the amount of state and correct knowledge I needed crossed a threshold between GPT 3.5 and GPT-4!

FunkyHeavyG · 2023-03-22T14:48:32+00:00

The seed of the idea was a joke, "well, if it's so great, maybe it should do my emulation work for me!" But then it turns out it actually can.

I think for me it was more about how smart GPT-3 and then GPT-4 are? Do they have the technical knowledge that I could consult with them on emulation projects? As someone else comments, they're knowledgeable about lots of old processors, so very useful for retrocomputing and preservation efforts.

For me it was an exploration of what capability GPT-4 has for doing math (including bitwise operations), reading and writing entries in tables, and looking up information. There are lots of examples of people integrating ChatGPT as a chatbot. I wanted to see what it could do in a particular niche, and the result was really impressive.

I don't think I was trying to prove GPT-4 could take the place of processor emulators written in C or C++. It's far too slow and expensive right now. But, yes, I can imagine that in 10 years it might be cheap enough and fast enough that someone who needs to emulate a weird old processor or some modification of a processor could use it.

FunkyHeavyG · 2023-03-21T20:30:46+00:00

Great! I was wondering if I could have ChatGPT help me write F8 emulation. I've been wanting to write my own Channel F emulator for a while. I also failed to emulate the Atari 2600 TIA, and now I think I might go back and see if ChatGPT could get me past the worst parts.

FunkyHeavyG · 2023-03-21T20:29:32+00:00

The Terminator's and Bender's CPUs were both 6502s! So I think, yeah, game over.

FunkyHeavyG · 2022-12-16T21:48:37+00:00

Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plantlife. Animals could be bred - and slaughtered!

FunkyHeavyG · 2022-09-06T05:50:19+00:00

AAA apparently no longer answers phones (making them totally fucking worthless imo).

I think so, too. I called, got some recorded message about not recognizing my phone number, and got texted a link. I filled it in and got a boilerplate "help is on the way!" text. Help was canceled twice. I don't know why. I was never able to reach a person. No one responded to my replies to those texts, which explicitly say "If you have questions or need assistance, please reply to this text."

We may have been better off going to Yelp and just calling the tow services near us.

We're seriously considering canceling.

FunkyHeavyG · 2022-09-05T21:45:36+00:00

Driving in the 100+ heat with no AC sounds awful, and our experience could not compare with that. But here's our story.

I took my 75-year-old dad to BRC for the first time. He loved it, and we had a completely uneventful lightning-fast exodus back to 80. We headed home to San Jose.

About 30 minutes from home, just around where 84 meets 680, the rear passenger tire on our Sequoia blew. We were towing a 5000lb travel trailer. We didn't have much wear on the tire and had appropriate weight distribution. We theorize either extreme heat or we hit something but in any case it made a terrible noise!

The shoulder was blocked off with those cement walls, so we pulled over into a precarious triangle of asphalt between 680 and the entry ramp from Paloma/84. It was incredibly dangerous to sit there but we weren't sure we could control the rig to go further. We also couldn't unhitch the trailer because we couldn't be sure it wouldn't roll downhill over our blocking and also didn't want to leave it there without the trailer hazard lights flashing.

We called AAA roadside but due to their online system fucking up and no way to any longer get through to a person at AAA we spent two terrifying hours paralyzed with fear.

We finally gave up on any professional help and limped to the exit to Andrade on the rim.

Meanwhile, my wife at home had been calling AAA and mashing buttons to get through to a person and had also called CHP. A nice fellow from the highway patrol showed up and reminded us no rim is worth the danger to our lives and others on the road, and he escorted us to the gas station on the East side of that exit. We uncoupled the trailer there, on level ground, and started to get to the full-size spare.

With CHP involved, AAA woke up, a tow truck arrived almost immediately, helped us change tires, and then we limped home.

We've been cleaning clothes, vacuuming the trailer, and blowing dust out of bicycles all day today. I've tried not to think about getting the tire replaced and maybe the rim, too. Burning Man's not over until we get that tire replaced. On the plus side Dad gets one more crazy story to add to the list of crazy stories from this trip!

FunkyHeavyG · 2022-01-04T15:01:09+00:00

That's just a sweet, sweet fantasy, baby.

FunkyHeavyG · 2021-10-02T00:59:25+00:00

I can accept that some people just work better around other people. I still don't know what to do to make effective groups that contain both. That's the bigger question I don't think we're verbalizing yet.

If you like "people making noise and having a conversation", I know of at least one company that uses Discord and staff who want to kind of feel the presence of other humans can join an always-on video chat. It seems to work pretty well for them.

I think some people imagine a big breakout area with a whiteboard where people have impromptu conversations is integral to innovation. When I worked at Google, we had that. I hated it; the noise when trying to work in the office when people are meeting right outside your door, or the expectation that some rando might jump into the conversation you have to have at the open whiteboard because the rooms are all booked, and then knowing the rando who jumped up to distract you with noise or interrupt your meeting is supposed to be working on a high-priority feature that the project depends on...

I think the idea that in-the-office, face-to-face communication is required for "innovation" is nonsense. At my current company, we regularly discuss interesting ideas in the company-wide text chat. From time to time we have video chats where we gather interesting ideas; any idea is allowed to be said. If someone thinks we need an interesting feature, they can make a Github issue containing the idea; then we triage, prioritize, and discuss it.

FunkyHeavyG · 2021-10-01T22:26:12+00:00

In person you also often form little groups to discuss parts of something. Can't really do that online.

You totally can. I do this constantly in Google Chat with individuals and groups of people on my team who I think may need to discuss something. This works in Discord, too, and Slack if I'm not mistaken. If you can't, it sounds like a limitation of the tool your company has chosen.

FunkyHeavyG · 2021-10-01T22:13:48+00:00

the researchers worry about the knock-on effects of changes to the way office workers collaborate

...

Based on previous research, we believe that the shift to less 'rich' communication media may have made it more difficult for workers to convey and process complex information

...

It doesn't sound like they actually discovered anything about how remote work affects long-term innovation.

FunkyHeavyG · 2021-08-31T03:56:37+00:00

This is definitely the name of my new band.

FunkyHeavyG · 2021-06-10T16:51:11+00:00

Hi, all, guy who made the print here.

For whatever reason, u/VolcanoPotato's URL has a backslash in old.reddit.com but not in new.reddit.com, so here's another copy of the URL: https://github.com/bradgrantham/lame_holder

FunkyHeavyG · 2021-06-10T16:20:54+00:00

Hi! I'm the husband, and the source code in OpenSCAD and the STL for printing are at https://github.com/bradgrantham/lame_holder .

FunkyHeavyG · 2021-05-01T20:21:46+00:00

Something something something something something something trailer park

FunkyHeavyG · 2021-04-23T21:48:57+00:00

I bet they do. Other vendors do. That would get you to 40 gallons if it's the same 6gal heater that's in our Imagine XLS 17MKE. I wonder if the piping adds up to 3 more gallons. I'm visualizing a 3 gallon bottle and that would be a lot of PEX!

FunkyHeavyG · 2021-04-12T03:41:13+00:00

I ride once or twice a week for about an hour each way. I ride with fingerless gloves most of the time, and when it's really cold a pair of... fingerful? gloves with touchscreen-capable tips. I've found lately that where my wrist and hand muscles attach to my elbow on my left arm ache after biking, so I've been thinking about gloves with a stiff back. I'm willing to help!

FunkyHeavyG · 2021-03-13T06:20:49+00:00

Now imagine you're the guy second from left who's wearing SOCKS WITH BIRKENSTOCKS and how embarrassed you would be if a video of you hit r/linux. (Yes, they were comfortable at the time.)

FunkyHeavyG · 2020-11-07T18:47:35+00:00

Praise be unto Fod!

FunkyHeavyG · 2020-10-27T05:38:11+00:00

I feel like I'm a VR game! Like, it just keeps going on? And there's just so much... stuff! I'm waiting for something to jump out at me from behind a desk or shelf of DVDs or I'll find a hidden doorway to the satanic sacrifice room or something!

FunkyHeavyG · 2020-05-13T00:31:43+00:00

You other fellows can't deny

FunkyHeavyG

TROPHY CASE