On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 4:58 PM, Chris Pile <[email protected]> wrote: > Besides, there's something *pure* about having a chunk of RAM and a CPU - > and not much else!
While it's pure, and the basis for some of the great machines — the Spectrum, obviously, but also the ST, sort of the VGA-era PC and the original Mac (with an extra end-of-scanline byte fetch pushed to a speaker, to give ~20000Hz sampled sound output for almost free!) — I get a similar kick out of the modern, programmable GPUs. Though I guess they largely compartmentalise the RAM + [heavily parallel] processor bit and leave the rest of the system to whatever it likes. I think I'm becoming a big fan of parallel programming in general. I'm very glad I did some LISP stuff at university; not sure how I'd take to it if I was coming over from the purely procedural world.
