On The Metal | Jon Masters

On this episode of On the Metal, we interview Jon Masters, computer architecture raconteur, microprocessor enfant terrible, and Patron Saint of Lost Computational Causes. Join us as we learn why Jon hates simultaneous multithreading, why he loves UEFI (?!) -- and when we can expect the supremacy of the quantum blockchain.

Show Notes

You can find Jon on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jonmasters.

Some of the highlights of the show include:

"Negative Result: Reading Kernel Memory From User Mode" (blog post from July 2017): https://cyber.wtf/2017/07/28/negative-result-reading-kernel-memory-from-user-mode/
Spectre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(security_vulnerability)
Meltdown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltdown_(security_vulnerability)
Speculative execution: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/261792-what-is-speculative-execution
ICL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Computers_Limited
Hacker News front page, January 1st, 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2018-01-01
Boogie Nights, the death of Little Bill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFX-qfYbHKg
BBC Micro 6502: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro
BBC Master: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Master
Storage Wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_Wars
PA-8000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PA-8000
SPARCbook 3000ST: https://blog.adafruit.com/2019/04/01/sparcbook-3000st-the-coolest-90s-laptop-sparc-vintagecomputing-retrocomputing-eckmeister/
Itanium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium
McKinley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Itanium_microprocessors#McKinley_(180_nm)
Leon Czolgosz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Czolgosz
Humartia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamartia
Transmeta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmeta
Transmeta Crusoe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmeta_Crusoe
Richard (Dick) Sites: https://sites.google.com/site/dicksites/
Dick Sites, "It's the Memory, Stupid!": http://cva.stanford.edu/classes/cs99s/papers/architects_look_to_future.pdf
John Crawford: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Crawford_(engineer)
John Hennessy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Hennessy
Kernel page-table isolation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_page-table_isolation
Hot Chips 30 keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5XzVF0sAZo
Panel at Hot Chips 30 keynote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5XzVF0sAZo#t=1h17m
The Omega Directive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omega_Directive
L1TF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreshadow_(security_vulnerability)
iDRACula: https://www.servethehome.com/idracula-vulnerability-impacts-millions-of-legacy-dell-emc-servers/
MDS, including Zombieload and RIDL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microarchitectural_Data_Sampling
Heartbleed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbleed
Lazy FPU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazy_FP_state_restore
Pentium FDIV bug: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug
Pentium F00F bug: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_F00F_bug
Hyper-threading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper-threading
Acorn Archimedes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes
Acorn RISC machine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture
RISC-V: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V
ARM Thumb: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#Thumb
ARMv8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#ARMv8-A
Chris Celio et al., "Avoiding ISA Bloat with Macro-Op Fusion for RISC-V": https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.02318
Chris Celio, "ISA Shootout": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii_pEXKKYUg
BeagleBoard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeagleBoard
ARM Ares: https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/arm_holdings/microarchitectures/neoverse_n1
SeaMicro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeaMicro
Calxeda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calxeda
AppliedMicro X-Gene: https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/apm/x-gene
UEFI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface
Broadcom Vulcan: https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/cavium/microarchitectures/vulcan
Savaged by Systemd: An Erotic Unix Encounter by Michael Warren Lucas: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36190710-savaged-by-systemd
Coreboot kexec'ing Linux: https://twitter.com/hugelgupf/status/1158466881373630464
IOMMU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input%E2%80%93output_memory_management_unit
Slackware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slackware
U-boot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_U-Boot
TianoCore: https://www.tianocore.org/
NUVIA: https://nuviainc.com/
Gordon Moore, "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits": http://cmore.soest.hawaii.edu/summercourse/2014/documents/Karl_05-27/Moore_1965.pdf
International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Technology_Roadmap_for_Semiconductors
Andy "Krazy" Glew: http://blog.andy.glew.ca/
Cannon Lake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon_Lake_(microarchitecture)
Theodore Wright, "Factors Affecting the Cost of Airplanes": http://www.uvm.edu/pdodds/research/papers/others/1936/wright1936a.pdf
Wright's Law vs. Moore's Law: https://ark-invest.com/research/wrights-law-2
Nano-RAM (carbon nanotube-based memory): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nano-RAM
Phase-change memory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-change_memory
Green500 list for November 2019: https://www.top500.org/green500/lists/2019/11/
Gen-Z consortium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gen-Z
Quantum blockchain: https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.05979
USB frame relay adapter: https://www.advancedrelay.com/downloads/pxsuoverview.pdf
John von Neumann: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
Von Neumann architecture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_architecture

What is On The Metal?

As a part of starting Oxide Computer Company, Bryan Cantrill and Jess Frazelle decided to also create the podcast that they always wanted. Joined frequently by their boss, Steve Tuck, Bryan and Jess interview incredible guests retelling stories of adventure at the hardware/software interface. It’s unapologetically technical and as Jess says, “the nerdiest podcast on the face of the planet” -- but if you're their kind of nerd, you'll find yourself hanging on every word!