Bendable non-silicon RISC-V CPU demoed running while wrapped around a pencil

Re:Bendable non-silicon RISC-V CPU demoed running while wrap... by marshray on Sunday September 29, 2024 @06:08PM (#41691164)

One would have to run a similar BASIC interpreter on this processor to make that a reasonable comparison, and that would only highlight how ridiculously impractical this demo unit is.

If you want an computer that you can wrap around a pencil, I bet it could be done simply using a very small conventional silicon chip embedded in a flexible medium. Perhaps some of this technology could help with interconnections.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bendable non-silicon RISC-V CPU demoed running while wrap... by brucehoult on Sunday September 29, 2024 @07:17PM (#41691750)

No, because everyone now has high quality free C / C++ / Rust / Swift / Mojo compilers.

Interpreted BASIC was the only thing most end users had on those computers, for quite a few years, until Turbo Pascal and Think Pascal/C changed everything.

Professional software was written in assembly language but at the start of the revolution most of the programs that people wrote themselves, or that you saw printed in magazines to type in yourself, were in BASIC.

It was fast enough for many tasks.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Bendable non-silicon RISC-V CPU demoed running while wrap... by marshray on Sunday September 29, 2024 @08:27PM (#41692179)

I remember that era. The vast majority of "tasks" that were done in BASIC were simple games. It was all-but a toy.

It makes no sense to compare the execution speed of the output of a modern C++ or Rust compiler on one architecture to a BASIC interpreter on another.

[ Parent | on HN ]