Re: FSF continuously harms Free Hardware

[Jacob Hrbek]

> Modifying *integrated circuits* is virtually impossible -- Leah

I disagree on that. From my experience it's very possible, but it's
usually not economical as people lack the infrastructure and knowledge
to develop those at home, where crowd-sourcing and outsourcing the
fabrication to a 3rd party is feasible e.g. what DarkRISCV seems to be
leaning towards [https://github.com/darklife/darkriscv]

I agree that verilog files (basically custom C-inspired programming
language used to define the internal wiring of integrated circuits such
as CPU, example on
https://github.com/darklife/darkriscv/blob/159eb623cc47249cd6fa066571499dfdb9da3bcc/rtl/darkriscv.v)
are very important for hardware and software freedom.

And i want to also highlight that the production of custom CPUs is very
possible and somewhat economical and in terms of the EU In germany BOSCH
invested in major semi-conductor
factory[https://www.bosch.com/stories/bosch-chip-factory-dresden/] and
with
Taiwan (who has majority of semi-conductor market share) making
their own factory in
lithuania[https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4388461] so it's
projected that the economical cost of production for these chips will
significantly drop in the next 3 years.

FWIW to make it understandable to people who are not familiar with the
subject i see integrated circuit development accurately represented in
Minetest's Mesecons[https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?t=628] or
allegedly Rubystone [https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?t=17402]
(or proprietary minecraft redstone) if that helps anyone understanding
the development process.. Basically you have a pulse that in set amount
of time reaches set amount of conductor lenght that you then work with.

Video showing the development of 8-bit computer in minetest's mesecons
for reference: https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=tVAcJHHmkIA

On 1/25/22 13:48, Leah Rowe wrote:
> Modifying *integrated
> circuits*
is virtually impossible

--
Jacob Hrbek

publickey - kreyren@rixotstudio.cz - 1677db82.asc
Description: application/pgp-keys

signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature