My first computer's CPU used a 3 µm process; the next generation of Apple CPU's are rumored to use a 3 nm process.
That's literally 1,000 times smaller. Bonkers.
@thomasfuchs an ARM cortex m0 fits into two transistors of the 6502. And that was almost ten years ago.
@th @thomasfuchs Now I want to build a 6502 out of Cortex M0s.
@kbob @th @thomasfuchs each M0 emulating one transistor in the 6502?
@Dtl @th @thomasfuchs I think an M0 could emulate two transistors.
@kbob @th @thomasfuchs you could do a montecarlo simulator of several transistors on each M0 and take the best weighted value as the state of the transistor.
No point skimping, 1 M0 simulates 10 transistors (or more) but adds only one to the overall construction.
Nicely complicated.
@Dtl @th @thomasfuchs That will solve the clock rate problem nicely, too. (The problem being that an M0 is much faster than a 6502.)
@kbob @th @thomasfuchs Finally a practical use for this: http://tom7.org/nand/
@th @thomasfuchs
New cursed architecture, a 6502 with 65536 ARM coprocessors.
@th @thomasfuchs Since the 68040, microprocessors have become at least a million times more powerful, and the number of them out in the world has multiplied at least a millionfold, but the product is nowhere near a bazillion times greater or better.
I often think that computing power is about a bazillion times too cheap. If it cost more, we'd work harder to make good use of it. Think trees, or whale oil, or aquifers, or whatever. Same as it ever was.
@th @thomasfuchs can we all just take a moment to appreciate that the 6510 (successor to 6502) was made with about 3500 transistors?
@th to be fair, the 6502 was (supposedly?) laid out on a kitchen table; I doubt the same is true of even an m0, unless you have a very large kitchen
@th @thomasfuchs It is seriously amazing. So much science needed to accomplish these feats. Precision in materials, gasses, liquids... and then movement with all the masks and EUV lasers… no wonder they have to be put so far under ground and isolated from any kind of vibration.