Has anyone thought about running Inferno on the Epiphany?

[boris_G]

As topic, throwing the question out there.

I have vested interests in Inferno, and would like to see it fly on a "grid-on-a-chip" so to speak...

As a first endeavour after my purchase of a Parallela board, I would code a simple Styx-on-a-chip implementation, with an algorithm for GNSS signal receiving, and patch the 16 CPU grid to a software defined radio via the GNU Radio framework.

Don't know when I'll be buying a board, we'll see... gotta design consumer electronics products first *sigh*

[9600]

That would certainly be an interesting project! I'm not sure if anyone has considered porting Inferno... So you'd implement a bare metal CPU server that would fit on a core?

It's been some time since I looked at this stuff, but do I remember having a lot of fun playing with Plan 9 many years ago.

Cheers,

Andrew

[boris_G]

Hi Andrew,

I'd do it this way - implement a small subroutine needed for a decoding app I want run in parallel on each of the cores, with each of them passing messages through the matrix by way of Styx/ 9P2000. For those in the know, that passes only files, but it can pass stream files, which is what I'd actually be working with.

Styx-on-a-chip implementations have run on the original Lego Mindstorms RCX brick, Vita Nuova run a robotic clock with the time synchronised over Styx. That was a Hitachi H8 processor, if I recall, in the RCX, nothing special, couldn't even run Linux, unlike later versions.

Once I have proof of concept passing files around the grid/ matrix (is there a correct term? I prefer "grid") I'd go to implementing full Inferno on the cores, Inferno runs very nicely on constrained hardware. I probably wouldn't be able to do that myself physically, but I have a bloke in mind for the coding, I'm waiting on him to return an email, hes in a project at the moment, so I don't see that happening soon. Thats ok though, I've got time.

If anyone else wanted to pick it up, I'd be most happy - my gig is hardware, designing it, to be precise. I always like the least amount of coding for my jobs. My stream decoding application will need a bit of code, and I have some local help for that, even if he doesn't get the point. Thats ok too.

I don't know what kind of other interest there is Andrew, but this could be rather interesting, if done right.

Shane.

[shodruk]

That looks pretty interesting!!

[boris_G]

I got an email back from my fellow I'd contacted, he said he was looking into the SDK for the Epiphany, and was willing to do the project. I'd suggested Styx-on-a-chip to begin with, see how we stretch the Epiphany's legs...!

Can't promise anything yet, of course, only early days, but see how we go...!

[boris_G]

Hi all,

I just posted a general message to the 9fans list - can't promise anything again, their email list is a bit whacky at times... tsk tsk. A number of 9fans have commented on this. However, my suggestion was to implement Styx-on-a-chip, with a payload program, in my case, my stream decoder. Of course, the sky is the limit for a payload.

My application is pretty specific to what I want to accomplish, and some may say its better served by Erlang, or Google Go, or an implementation like that. All good, I just want to see Inferno fly. If it can be done on a small H8 processor, probably without any real floating point or other facilities the Epiphany has, then it can certainly be done on the Epiphany.

Within reason, when orders reopen for the Parallella board, I will purchase one, and attach an SDR to it, see if I can get some kind of GNU Radio implementation running on it. Then it would be a case of, in parallel (so to speak) program the GNU Radio implementation to sink into the FPGA, and develop the Styx-on-a-chip, with its payload program to decode the streams I would be receiving off the 8MHz of bandwidth I'll be working with on an RTLSDR. If this is a success, I will later move to a HackRF, which will give me 20MHz of bandwidth to play with.

I can only imagine what fun it'll be to program my decoder in Limbo, Infernos native programming language... Google Go fans might have the inside loop on me on that one...

There is one other person I can think of to contact, I will contact him now.

[shr]

Plan 9 and Inferno came to mind along with Erlang when I first learned of the Parallella project. Are you thinkig of running Inferno as an Ubuntu application or as the ARM OS?