Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: May 31, 2021Silicon CowboysWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Steve Tuck, Tom Lyon, Dan Cross, and others. The recording is here.(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:Silicon Cowboys documentaryOpen by Rod CanionPortable before Compaq, Silent 700Osborne EffectPBS Silicon Valley documentaryIBM’s role in Compaq history80’s Ads: John Cleese, Charlie ChaplinCompaq and iPhone?Decline and AcquisitionSomething Ventured documentaryPRs welcome Bryan: Have you listened to the Reply All episode “Is the Facebook Microphone On?”The truth is actually scarier, Facebook doesn’t need the mic to be on … to read your mind.Silicon Cowboys[@2:46](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=166) The 2016 documentary “Silicon Cowboys” follows the rise of the Compaq computer company. (IMDb) (Watch the trailer ~3mins)I was trying to watch “Halt and Catch Fire” with my kid … and there’s a lot of spontaneous sex breaking out…Fastest to one billion in revenue… fastest to Fortune 500… a meteoric riseOpen by Canion[@7:05](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=425) The 2013 book “Open” by Rod Canion (cofounder and CEO of Compaq): “How Compaq Ended IBM’s PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing.”[@10:02](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=602) Steve: Ben Rosen was the venture capitalist who wrote the first check to Compaq, really got them off the ground. On the board for 20 years.Their timing was right. The way they did the company was right. And they executed really really well.To go from zero to 50 thousand units, of almost anything, in the time span they did, is incredible.[@14:40](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=880) Tom: The thing that really put them on the map was having the portable when nobody else did. And being 100% compatible.Those portables were barely luggable, they were huge!Back in a time when there was no network. Being able to pick up your computer and take it to a place, was your network.[@16:47](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1007) Steve: A big catalyst for their success was the channel. People were able to pick it up and go, they didn’t need special training.[@19:25](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1165) Dad used to bring home the luggable so I could play Space Invaders, and he would work on spreadsheets.Portable before Compaq[@20:49](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1249) There were portable solutions before Compaq, but for timesharing.You had the T.I. Silent 700, in the 70’s, you could tote that home and plug it into the modem.Osborne Effect[@22:41](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1361) Tom: They killed their company with the famous Osborne EffectBryan and Steve (clearly excited): What was the Osborne Effect!? Tom: Pre-announcing the next machine.Telling customers: man, if you love the Osborne 1, just wait till the Osborne 2… So they did Bryan: Something I found surprising about the history of Compaq was the different organizational approach that they had.Early on, before even thinking about what to go do, they were talking about the kind of company they wanted to build.PBS Silicon Valley[@26:14](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1574) The 2013 PBS documentary “Silicon Valley” tells the story of Fairchild Semiconductor. (Watch chapter one ~17mins)[@28:14](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1694) We ask people, when they apply to Oxide, when they’ve been most unhappy in their careers. And it all boils down to people not feeling listened to, not having agency.IBM’s role[@29:41](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=1781) How much of Compaq’s success is just pure mis-execution from IBM? IBM inadvertently creates this pseudo open architecture, and makes exactly the wrong move in trying to reproprietarize it with the PS/2 and Micro Channel architecture; which is an absolute disaster.In many ways the story of Compaq is as much the story of the failed PS/2.It was such a mis-execution to do this analysis on the market and say: we need to grab our existing customers and lock them in, before they slip through our fingers, and in doing so, just hasten their departure. And Compaq was in the right spot to pick up the pieces.MCA (Micro Channel architecture), ISA, EISA[@33:22](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=2002) We were ripping out a bunch of ISA and EISA drivers..I am a sacrificial sheep, I can’t possibly go. You are a sacrificial lamb.The machines themselves are anemic, if you want any functionality you go to a third party.. There were magazines filled with advice on which sound-generating card you should buy.IBM PC XT – Hercules graphics card[@37:00](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=2220) Driver for Token Ring.PCI – SBus – VME – VLB – AGP[@40:20](https://youtu.be/faY7kWHQuNE?t=2420) Speaking of Intel, a big part of the Compaq story is what happens with the 386.IBM clearly thought Intel would never give some clone manufacturer the first rights to the 386.They went from fast follower to innovator.OS/2 supported both 16 bit (for the

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: May 24, 2021from /proc to proc_macroWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Brian Cantrell (not making that one up!), Nima Johari, Joshua Clulow, Laura Abbott, and Tom Lyon. The recording is here.(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:The other Adam Leventhal [1] and the other AHL [2][@3:16](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=196) Hockey Calder CupCharlotte CheckersGrand Rapids Griffins[@4:02](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=242) Roger Faulkner invented the /proc filesystemGerald Ford Presidential Library and MuseumGerald Ford inaugural address (including its most famous line, “our long national nightmare is over”) > I went in a Gerald Ford cynic, and came out a Gerald Ford super-fanRoger’s “The Process File System and Process Model in UNIX System V” paper[@7:43](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=463) “I am on a mission from God to make programs debuggable” AVL trees and linked lists > Performance is the root of all evil.Trace Normal FormWatchpoints, libwatchmalloc > Watchpoints are magical, when they work. It feels like a superpower.[@11:37](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=697) > Roger made this incredible contribution about debugging infrastructure > being an attribute of a production system. strace, trussBONUS: 1986 USENIX: A System Call Tracer in UNIXThe ptrace(2) system callptrace’s overloading of the wait(2) system callThe German word that we’re seeking: Misappropriation-of-mechanism-in-a-seemingly-clever way-but-is-ultimately-a-disaster > ptrace is the x86 of system calls[@16:45](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=1005) A long-coming apology.. Linux branded zones (LX)“Method and system for child-parent mechanism emulation via a general interface” patent > You have to be bug-for-bug compatible.LX vfork/signal bug that broke golang > vfork: unsafe at any speed, toxic in any quantity[@20:16](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=1216) Upstart’s problematic use of ptrace(2)Celebrating Joshua getting ptrace correct for LX branded zonesStack shenanigans breaking LXRed zone, segmented stacks[@24:39](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=1479) The application was fishing in its own stack.. Clozure Common Lisp, mcontext > These kinds of lies just don’t nest. Magic does not layer well.[@28:56](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=1736) Windows Subsystem for Linux WSLillumos on an M1? QEMU, ARM Cortex-M > It’s hard to get the machine really properly emulatedAWS Mac minis[@33:55](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=2035) It’s kind of amazing that Apple has never had much interest in the server space. Apple XserveCHRPThe story of the stolen laptop. Little endian PowerPC OpenPOWER[@37:35](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=2255) Language H! NCRLanguage H: An informal overview ( part 1, part 2)The (other) D language[@39:12](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=2352) AADEBUG’03Postmortem Object Type Identification[@41:31](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=2491) It all comes back to awkBourne shell source code / Algol68 #definesThompson shellBryan’s 2007 Dtrace review, Google TechTalk ~80mins[@48:07](https://youtu.be/85eApYSj3ic?t=2887) Dtrace language inspiration Dtrace clones > It was all based on us exploring some phenomenon, > something being kind of a pain in the ass or impossible, > and inventing something that was easy to use.Architectural review board: “This reminds us a lot of awk..” > What’s the most powerful one-liner you can crank out with awk?CUDA, Bluespec[@52:35](https://...

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: May 17, 2021golang asserts and the PLATO terminalWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers included Adam Jacob, Matt Ranney, Nima Johari, Antranig Vartanian, Joshua Clulow, Tom Lyon, and Bob Mader (and thanks to Jeremy Morris for catching Bob’s profile!).(Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)We recorded the space, but we had some challenges, and we lost the recording when the first Twitter Space died at around 5:30p. We recorded the second half though; the recording is here.Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:Khan Academy blog entry on GoAdam’s blog entry, I Love Go, I Hate Go > I found novelty in the strictures, but objected to some of the specifics[@2:40](https://youtu.be/8tJEwCvZWsg?t=160) Go’s assertion assertionThe Elm Language[@4:40](https://youtu.be/8tJEwCvZWsg?t=280) Lionizing Unix > 7th edition is amazing, incredible, a break through.. > and it’s also kind of a shitty engineering artifact that needed a lot of work.[@6:32](https://youtu.be/8tJEwCvZWsg?t=392) Core dumps[@7:03](https://youtu.be/8tJEwCvZWsg?t=423) Impromptu PSA: Happy 81st Birthday Alan Kay!Alan Kay tribute video to Ted Nelson, including the story of how Alan Kay and his wife – Bonnie MacBird – were brought together by Ted Nelson, and how PARC inspired her to write TRON (!)Bedknobs and Broomsticks (WAT)[@13:18](https://youtu.be/8tJEwCvZWsg?t=798) Brian Dear’s The Friendly Orange GlowThe PLATO TerminalControl Data Corp (CDC)Dr. David Gräper’s GrapenotesEmpire game[@20:05](https://youtu.be/8tJEwCvZWsg?t=1205) Write your own lessons in TUTORDartmouth BASICSNOBOL[@23:12](https://youtu.be/8tJEwCvZWsg?t=1392) Dr. David Gräper’s Grapenotes started in 1977Xerox Alto computer(Did we miss anything? PRs always welcome!)Our next Twitter Space will be on May 24th, 2021 at 5p Pacific! We’ll be kicking off the discussion with Silicon Cowboys (aka the real and sexless Halt and Catch Fire) on the rise of Compaq – and their aspiration to be a different kind of company. Join us; we always love to hear from new speakers!

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: May 10, 2021A Requiem for SPARC with Tom LyonWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space weekly on Mondays at 5p for about an hour. In addition to [@bcantrill](https://twitter.com/bcantrill) and [@ahl](https://twitter.com/ahl), speakers included special guest Tom Lyon plus Joshua Clulow, Dan McDonald, Dan Cross, Tom Killalea, Theo Schlossnagle, Antranig Vartanian, and [@perlhack](https://twitter.com/perlhack).We recorded the space; the recording is here.Some of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:[@2:06](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=126) SPARC 30th anniversary dinner > SPARC was an amazing achievement for its time, > but there were some nasty trade-offs made.[@2:56](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=176) illumos announcement on the end of SPARC supportSPARCstation 2[@4:37](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=277) “There is no photography allowed in the bring-up lab” storySPARCstation 1 (code-named Campus) > They bricked their first CPU..[@6:23](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=383) UltraSPARC-II E-cache parity error[@8:51](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=531) Register windows > Most people don’t know, about that first SPARC, > there was no integer multiply or divide.. > It would trap on the instructions.I feel so decadent, I’ve just been sprinkling multiplications around my code for years.[@9:55](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=595) popc instruction (also called Hamming Weight)IBM Stretch 1961, and the one-of-a-kind IBM Harvest made for the NSAHenry Warren’s 2002 Hacker’s Delight Ch. 5 shows a ~20 instruction algorithm (no branches, only adds/shifts/masks by constants) > Warren: According to computer folklore, the population count function is important to the > National Security Agency. No one (outside of NSA) seems to know just what they use it for, > but it may be in cryptography work or in searching huge amounts of material.According to Agner Fog, Ice Lake performs popcnt with a 3 cycle latency, and Zen 3 with just 1 cycle latency.Phil Bagwell’s 2001 Ideal Hash Trees depend on pop count > Bagwell: Note that the performance of the algorithm is seriously impacted > by the poor execution speed of the POPCT emulation in Java, a problem > the Java designers may wish to address. Persistent versions of Bagwell’s trees are used for the built-in hash maps of Clojure, and in libraries for Scala etc.[@11:39](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=699) This was the debate between Roger Faulkner and Jeff Bonwick: register windowsRoger Faulkner (RIP) thought they were horrific[@12:35](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=755) Register fishing: Bryan’s version and Adam’s version > When you want to know the state of some other process, you have to flush > those register windows to memory to be able to recover the stack trace.[@14:30](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=870) Delay slot > We sat around the lunch table talking about how crazy it would > be to have a branch that executed right after a branch.DCTI couple (delayed control transfer instruction)[@15:31](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=931) “Well, the instruction set doesn’t allow that..” story > Bedlam. As far as Solaris kernel discussions go, bedlam.Leibniz vs. Newton[@20:14](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=1214) Annulled branches[@22:17](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=1337) Praise for SPARCSPARC address space identifiers > When we were porting Solaris to x86, and deciding what fraction of the > address space would belong to the kernel vs the user, it felt disgusting to me.[@25:26](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=1526) Software-filled TLB > They just didn’t have the room to cram a hardware page table walk into the chip.MIPS would give you a trap on a VAC conflict (virtual address cache)[@27:34](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=1654) It was slow, it was late, and it had a lot of problems, it was wrong.UltraSPARC-III, code-named “Cheetah” > It’s weird, I compile this thing over and over, and every 80th time when > I compile and run it, it’s 40x slower..UltraSPARC-IV+, code-named “Panther”[@32:17](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=1937) Does the Viking I-cache bug ring a bell?SuperSPARC, code-named “Viking” > You’d have to DC balance the I-cache. If you had too many zeros, > they’d start flipping to ones.E-cache parity error > It was due to everything but high energy particle strikes.Radioactive boron in our SRAM manufacturing process[@38:52](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=2332) “Move it further from the tube” story > When you’re going to have a customer do something, you have to remember there’s > a human being on the other end of that. You cannot have them chasing your theories. > You need to be transparent and honest with them.[@42:25](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=2545) Micron DRAM story[@44:38](https://youtu.be/79NNXn5Kr90?t=2678) High priced consultants and cosmic rays > They literally lined the roof with lead.. and it didn’t change the error rat...

Oxide and Friends Twitter Space: May 3, 2021Mr. Leventhal, Come here I want to see youWe’ve been holding a Twitter Space 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 May 3, 2021.In addition to Bryan Cantrill and Adam Leventhal, speakers on May 3rd included Laura Abbott, Nate, Antranig Vartanian, François Baldassari, Tom Killalea, Land Belenky, and Sid?. (Did we miss your name and/or get it wrong? Drop a PR!)Before the recording started, we discussed:2011 Solaris Family Reunion video ~20minsKatie Moussouris’s blog entry on the Clubhouse vulnerabilitiesLaura’s blog entry on the LPC55 vulnerabilityLand pointing us to the Atmega 328p MCU in a BK Medical endorectal probeFrançois on the STM32F103 found in PebbleIntel Management EngineSome of the topics we hit on, in the order that we hit them:ASPEED BMC chip[@1:24](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=84) So formal correctness is something that I think we are all very sympathetic with. > It’s very laudable, it’s also very hard.From L3 to seL4 What Have We Learnt in 20 Years of L4 Microkernels? (paper)Who guards the guards? Formal validation of the Arm v8-m architecture specification (paper) > Hardware architecture is an area where formal verification is more tenable, > a level you can readily reason about.Our challenge is how can we satisfy our need for formalism without getting too pedantic about it. You don’t want to lose the forest for the trees. A system we never deliver doesn’t actually improve anyone’s lives, that’s the challenge.[@5:20](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=320) Journal club experiencesBootstrapping Trust in Modern Computers (book) > [@9:45](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=585) > We’ve tried to build a culture of looking to other work that’s been done. > Not because everything’s been done before, but because you don’t want to have to > relearn something that someone has already learned and talked about. > If you can leverage someone’s wisdom, that’s energy well spent.[@11:46](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=706) When systems repeat mistakes, engineers feel deprived of agency: “I suffered for nothing.” > Engineering is this complicated balance between seeing the world as it could be, > and accepting the world as it is. > As you get older as an engineer, it’s too easy to no longer see what could be, > and you get mired in the ways the world is broken. You can become pessimistic.Caitie McCaffrey on Distributed Sagas: A Protocol for Coordinating Microservices (video ~45min)[@14:17](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=857) It’s dangerous to live only in the future, detached from present reality. Optative voice[@16:45](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=1005) At Oxide, we ask applicants “when have you been happiest and why? Unhappiest?” Interesting to see that unhappy is all the same story: we were trying to do the right thing and management prevented it. > When I was younger and maybe more idealistic and willing to charge at the windmills, > I stayed too long with a company. > All the developers that interviewed me were gone by the time I got there. > I should have walked out the door, but I was too young and didn’t know better.[@18:43](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=1123) “How do you and your cofounder resolve conflicts?” > I don’t want to hear about how you don’t have conflicts, tell me about how you resolve them.Folks aren’t able to walk away, they’ve got this commitment both to the work and to their colleagues. I’ve been a dead-ender a couple of times, I’ll go down with the ship.[@20:28](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=1228) In “Soul of a New Machine” (wiki) Tom West says he wants to trust his engineers, but that trust is risk. > I just love that line: that trust is risk. > That’s part of the reason some of these companies > have a hard time trusting their technologists, > they just don’t want to take the risk.People are so not versed in how to deal with conflict, and there’s nothing scarier than salary negotiation.They need you, that’s why you’re here, you’ve made it all the way through the interview to this point, you’ve got leverage, now’s the time to use it.[@23:04](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=1384) Oxide: Compensation as a Reflection of Values > It takes the need for negotiation out, > because it replaces it with total transparency.Sometimes it’s not about what you’re getting paid, it’s about what the other person is getting paid. Not wanting to get taken advantage of.It’s a social experiment for sure.[@28:07](https://youtu.be/h-WSU3kiXVg?t=1687) Steve Jobs famously tried this at NeXT: pay was transparent but not equal.History of compensation at NeXT (wiki) (quora post) > I think that’s the worst of both worlds, a recipe for disaster.If 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!