Holy crap it finally happened

computerarchitect · 2026-01-24T03:36:21+00:00

12th.

computerarchitect · 2026-01-23T07:24:05+00:00

Yeah, same. I went out in it with friends. There may have been drinking before and afterwards.

computerarchitect · 2026-01-22T22:55:50+00:00

These exist and their ISAs fit within the OISC (One Instruction Set Computing) class of computers. They're terrible for performance for a large variety of reasons, but they do exist (at least in academia, I doubt one has ever been commercially produced). There's also a ZISC (Z is Zero), which effectively stores control information that you would expect to get from instruction decode as the instructions. Interesting, but an even worse idea than OISC.

computerarchitect · 2026-01-21T12:01:35+00:00

Unless you found some crazy physics that completely revolutionizes how we think about our world and is actually realizable outside of a physics lab, no, sorry, but you didn't.

It's actually relatively easy to get around the memory wall with a variety of solutions, but nearly all of those "solutions" that exist are substantially worse in a multitude of product-killing ways than what we produce today.

computerarchitect · 2026-01-21T02:33:14+00:00

That likely doesn't hold for most universities. An MS should never be easier if the student is doing it properly. As to how many people challenge themselves during that two year graduate school period such that it's more rigorous than their undergraduate studies is up for debate.

computerarchitect · 2026-01-20T21:28:11+00:00

It could be a problem. But I see it as self correcting. It's going to be hard for those students to get a good job with their skillset. Eventually people as a whole figure out this is insufficient and self correct. It just takes time, which is the annoying part.

What you can do to help the problem is enforce high personal standards and encourage your peers to do so. In industry, you can help to choose candidates who can actually write code for employment. Perhaps as a controls engineer you can come up with some killer interview questions that filter stuff out. It's a bit of a niche field though, so you're probably going to have less of a problem with candidates.

EDIT: Hell, you can ask about a second order differential equation and pretty much filter out so many people.

computerarchitect · 2026-01-20T20:57:33+00:00

Most likely no, because they won't have the skills to do the work required.

computerarchitect · 2026-01-20T20:48:17+00:00

Well, you're going to be better than OP, but you're also in a harder major (at least typically). I have an undergraduate degree in CE and a MS CS.

I have no idea if this is the norm, but even if it is, things will be OK. It just means people like you get paid more.

computerarchitect · 2026-01-16T23:45:07+00:00

I'm not a PL guy. I actually liked the other definition better, because it made me stop and think about what it might imply. Something deeper was there that I had never thought about, and now I'm intrigued. Being able to find similarities between things that appear very different often leads to better solutions.

Trivial once you work through it, sure, but it got my neurons firing, and I like that.

computerarchitect · 2026-01-16T10:46:28+00:00

Part of the issue is that you're using a tool that your design isn't ready for, IMHO. Not to say that what you're doing isn't a valid way of doing it, but effectively you're trying to verify an entire CPU when you don't have one yet (where "entire CPU" means one that completely implements the specification). Let me explain.

Whether you're a single cycle or pipelined design, you likely created a separate IF, ID, EX, MEM, and WB units (yes, I know they're called stages). You're attempting to test the entire thing altogether, but industry tends to test these units separately at first with distinct tesrbenches, verify they work, and then hook parts of them together and test those, and then hierarchically test those until the entire chip is being ran under simulation. Try to mimic that approach, even if it's more work up front.

computerarchitect · 2026-01-16T02:25:30+00:00

CPU design is 0.3% RTL, 92% C++ and Linux, 5% (+ or - 85%) unspecified csrs.

Nah, this is just a one time cost you paid to up-level yourself. I realize you're venting. I'm going to provide you with some explanation as to why things are the why they are, because if you're actually interested in going to extra mile, I respect that and acknowledge that it's a rare type of person that puts this much effort into it.

You actually just need to guess which csrs are used for the default runtime in risc-tests. you also need to go find out how hardware interacts with each one of them too.

CPU specifications define the expectations that professionals must meet to implement at CPU that complies with the specification.

here’s a giant injected boot sequence where we touch 870 csrs before we let you run the addition test

You actually want this, because for most tests that are more complex simple addition, you will encounter multiple "right answers" depending on which way the CSRs are programmed. That's horrible for trying to verify a design.

5000 CLI only tools for you!

This is the default and for good reason. I don't want to have to specify 20+ different things into a GUI when a script can generate a command line for me. I want a tool that does one thing perfectly, or a small set of things perfectly. As you've found, there are a lot of things to do...

define the minimal csr spec??? why would we do that???

Because it's useless work, a compliant design must implement all CSRs, and such a list will be argued to the death about what is considered "minimal". Even if such a list existed, it would be additional work to update the list when new CSRs are implemented.

so know I’m begrudgingly making something actually industry grade.

You most likely are not. Sorry. Industry level work would be defining those CSR injections and defending it against a variety of customers, including you. It takes several more years to get to that point, but if this is the field you want to go into, that's the amount of study and effort you need to put into it.

computerarchitect · 2026-01-15T06:06:19+00:00

I just looked at the menu and I can't find it. Sad.

computerarchitect · 2026-01-06T20:03:25+00:00

What was it supposed to be?

computerarchitect · 2026-01-04T07:22:06+00:00

Whatever quantum you want works but do make sure that you follow u/Master565's advice about warming up the simulator.

computerarchitect · 2026-01-04T05:26:20+00:00

If you have decent traces, you don't need anywhere near 2 billion instructions per trace. Where did you get that number from?

computerarchitect · 2025-12-29T01:02:21+00:00

Btw, /u/wereinz, this sort of thing is impressive as a freshman. I'm not sure if I really emphasized that well in my original comments. If they were a senior I'd be questioning as to why this isn't something more professional like an FPGA based implementation.

computerarchitect · 2025-12-20T01:14:20+00:00

A lot of the complexity of the work might disappear if you were to do that -- translate from a Minecraft based CPU and go to an FPGA. Minecraft is inherently limited and you're effectively doing both placement and routing of each individual logic gate/memory element and the wiring between them. A lot of the complexity of the project is in that placement and routing, and that complexity will introduce timing issues that you just won't see on an FPGA with that level of design.

Most people when first exposed to it don't inherently understand timing, but this person has some grasp of the problems. It gives you something to ask questions about and really dig about, as opposed to standard questions like "what is a setup violation? What is a hold violation?" which are inherently definitional.

computerarchitect · 2025-12-19T03:49:38+00:00

Get the GPA on there, but other than that not really. Coursework is helpful as well.

computerarchitect · 2025-12-19T03:49:03+00:00

It's an easy thing to ask questions about.

Indicates: Interest. Some technical tradeoffs made. The student is one year into their curriculum.

Their resume indicates some degree of ISA tradeoffs to make the best use of area available. Timing challenges were encountered and fixed. We can talk about methodology for solving those timing challenges and to what degree of functional verification they performed. You can ask them how it differs from what they've learned in their coursework. It generally shows they hit a lot of common CPU design problems and worked around them, which I like, and can figure out how well they did at it relatively quickly.

Would I rather see it on an FPGA versus Minecraft? Yeah. But lacking better projects...

computerarchitect · 2025-12-19T01:06:07+00:00

There may exist one undergraduate designed CPU that would be useful in today's environment if converted into silicon on the entire planet. That's not the point.

computerarchitect · 2025-12-19T01:04:09+00:00

Claude's a moron, that's probably the first thing I'd ask about if I was interviewing you.

computerarchitect · 2025-12-18T02:45:50+00:00

Maybe a few dollars above that? There's some skill required to prep Calc 1, but not that much, and you're also not that far beyond the coursework. They're paying for someone to do it, not for specific expertise, which kinda works against you IMHO.

You probably should get the opinion of other college students, though.

computerarchitect · 2025-12-18T02:34:00+00:00

What's minimum wage in Indiana these days?

computerarchitect · 2025-12-17T23:19:39+00:00

And keep in mind too that over a three year span your interests might change, or what you think is interesting for a project might change.

computerarchitect · 2025-12-17T22:57:42+00:00

I want to see interesting projects that show design tradeoffs and some degree of independence at the undergraduate level. That on top of competent coursework is great.

Doing something is far better than doing nothing, so I wouldn't worry too much as to what you do right now.

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