Oxide and Friends

Kate Hicks from Oxide operations joins to talk about the supply chain meltdown, war stories from the past, and the innovative ways she and her team have charted a steady course through these turbulent waters

The Oxide electrical engineers share their experience bringing up a 100Gb link--it's got everything from a purpose-built probing station to a 100Ω resistor that proved to be the difference between life and death (of the company)

Bryan, Adam, and Steve consider nuggets of conventional wisdom that turn out to be turds.

The Oxide Friends pour one out for Optane, Intel's great hope that never managed to find traction.

Seth Winterroth and Ian Rountree join Bryan, Adam, and the Oxide Friends to talk about investing in deep tech / hard tech.

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: July 18th, 2022Across the Chasm with RustWe've been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it's not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for July 18th, 2022.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our special guests were Steve Klabnik and Luqman Aden. Other speakers included Dan Cross, Tim McNamara, and others. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:@0:27 let_chains are stable in Rust 1.64Adam's tweetThe stabilization PR, with the full saga leading up to stabilizationAs Steve mentions, the feature dates all the way back to 2017 and extends the Swift-inspired if let expressions Rust has had for a whileSome Rust features, like async functions in traits, are huge rabbit holesDiscussion about Rust's commitment to stability and how it's enforced with things like craterAs an example of the process leading to burnout in programming language communities: Guido stepping down as BDFL after PEP 572 (Assignment Expressions, "the walrus operator")Discussion about Ruby also taking stability seriously: flip-flops weren't removed in Ruby 2.0 in part because of this pretty incredible snippet from Yusuke EndohQuines and variations, Yusuke Endoh's Qlobe (reproduced here), their infamous quine-relay, and their other projectsThe G-Portugol programming languageThe unstable features mechanism in Rust ("first class support for experimental features") and how this allows for user experimentationExclusive range patterns in Rust and some of their perils, specifically in tockContrasting the Rust unstable feature mechanism with Haskell language pragmas: the former requires a nightly compiler to use, the latter does not@18:20 Discussion about the Rust process; going from RFC to stable RustThe Rust inline assembly feature (tracking issue)The Rust RFC repoThe Generic Associated Types (GATs) Rust RFChubris is on nightly Rust but with an allow list of featuresNaked functions in Rust (tracking issue), Destructuring assignments, #[cmse_nonsecure_entry]Talking about LWN-style reports and curation as a way to lessen the pain of using Zulip style chat platforms for discussionLWN is hiring, looking for someone to keep up with Rust development, among other things[[partial notes]]

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: July 11th, 2022Integrating Hardware and Software TeamsWe've been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it's not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for July 11th, 2022.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, our esteemed guest was Jon Masters. Other speakers included Nathaneal Huffman, Tom Lyon, Dan Cross, Rick Altherr, Matt Keeter, Peter Corless, Timon, Siddharth Joshi, Bob Mader, Aaron David Goldman, Simeon Miteff, Remy Goldschmidt, and MattSci. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:@4:32 Fostering of mutual hatred between hardware and software peopleHuge difference in cost of errors in both time and money@9:38 Dealing with perishable pre-preg material Tachyon 100GTachyon 100G@15:06 The black magic that is DDRDIMM training demo@21:58 Open source tooling for EEsOpen FPGA toolingOpen RISCRISC VZero to ASIC courseLinux from scratchBen Eater's 8bit computerPhil's lab, KiCad 6 PCB design walkthoughPhil's lab, Altium Designer PCB design walkthough@33:18 Matt Keeter's take on ECAD toolsEagle CADSmaller breakout boards made with KiCad for unit testing@36:55 Timon's take on EE curriculumMath-heavy electrical engineering curriculumArts of ElectronicsKnowing at least basics of adjacent disciplines goes a long way@49:03 Software shouldn't pierce abstractions in order to work reliably, but people should to deepen their knowledge@1:04:54 Making microchips at homeSam Zeloof, maskless-photolithographyJeri Elseworth, making microchips at home@1:06:05 Oxide gets a Pick'n'Place machine?Open Hardware Pick'n'Place machine@1:09:40 Bob's take on silosSMM, System Management Mode@1:22:15 Vintage gaming as an intro into embedded softwareWiFi Game Boy Cartridge@1:26:14 Fabs at UNI@1:29:40 Intel Tofino (TM) Series Programmable Ethernet Switch ASICIntel Tofino@1:31:13 Google's open source high level synth. (HLS) tool XLSXLSBluespecChiselIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!

Special guest Scott Johnson joins for a Twitter Space recording where topics range from 'Beautiful C++' to 'Reinventing the Wheel'. The conversation covers tech software, business success, and memorable books, offering a blend of nostalgia and insightful discussions.

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Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: June 13th, 2022The Rise and Fall of DECWe've been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. Even though it's not (yet?) a feature of Twitter Spaces, we have been recording them all; here is the recording for our Twitter Space for June 13th, 2022.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on June 13th included Tom Lyon, Dan Cross, Tim Bray, Ian Grunert, and XXX. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Pronunciation and mispronunciationBryan's DEC reading list:The Ultimate Entrepreneur by Glenn Rifkin, George HarrarLearn, Earn & Return - My Life as a Computer Pioneer by Harlan AndersonHigh-tech Ventures: The Guide For Entrepreneurial Success by C. Gordon Bell, John McNamaraComputer engineering: A DEC view of hardware systems design by C. Gordon Bell, J. Craig Mudge, John McNamaraCreative Capital: Georges Doriot and the Birth of Venture Capital by Spencer E. AnteDEC Is Dead, Long Live DEC: The Lasting Legacy of Digital Equipment Corporation by Edgar H. Schein, Paul J. Kampas, Michael M. Sonduck, Peter S. Delisi@1:29:05 Ian mentions Computer History Museum's oral history program prompting strong recommendations:Ian: Bernie LacrouteAdam: Pierre LamondBryan: Dave CutlerIf we got something wrong or missed something, please file a PR! Our next Twitter space will likely be on Monday at 5p Pacific Time; stay tuned to our Twitter feeds for details. We'd love to have you join us, as we always love to hear from new speakers!