Adding UART Specification #45
Conversation
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I suggest we put this on hold until we have any info about IO. |
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Notch did imply there was going to be some sort of network with the computers, and that ship systems would interface with the DCPU in some fashion. So far I have yet to see any other proposal that might suggest how this might be done. My intention of submitting this draft proposal was done with the intention that perhaps Notch (who is completely aware of this repository) might at least consider some of the ideas I put into this proposal. There have been other suggestions on other discussion forums (including both REDDIT and the 0x10^c forum) that some sort of UART ought to be used for raw data communications between components and other computers. Because this is something I happen to have considerable experience at using and programming from my own software development experience, I decided to write up a proposal centered around the DCPU-16 as the target machine, and this is that proposal. I'm certainly willing to tweak this proposal so far as culling some features that perhaps adds too much detail (like bitwise parity scanning), but this proposal at least gives a basis to begin discussion of where to go from that point. If Notch comes up with something else, this draft proposal certainly would be rendered obsolete... but I'm suggesting that something is better than nothing at the moment. I also think hand waving and saying nothing is defined therefore nothing should be proposed is stifling to the standards development process as well... but I'll defer to the standards committee on that issue or even if any exploratory concepts on external peripheral I/O schema ought to be included with this standards group. I really think that is the issue here. |
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@KingKorihor 'Something is better than nothing at the moment'? As much as it may be blunt to say this, but I'd rather nothing than a highly speculative draft that could be very quickly rendered obsolete if Notch wants to do something else. Before something like this is even really discussed, we should have a decent idea of where Notch is going to steer things and I just feel that we're a little bit too uninformed to draft something like this yet, so perhaps keeping this until a later date when we know more should be considered. |
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KK, the suggestion from KK seems to be that by having this document here, we might actually set Notch's course. |
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While perhaps this is putting a previous commit into a position to get removed from the standards list, I also happened to submit a previous standard proposal for hardware that has been at least similarly accepted for draft status. I am asking the committee to decide if standards of this nature even should be considered at all or if this is a proper venue for discussion of ideas that may be implemented as hardware simulation standards in the future. I'll even go so far as a similar standard ought to exist for proposed changes to the DCPU-16 that have not been accepted yet from Notch. I'm not trying to do a scorched earth policy here, but at least admit that a decision to reject this concept is for completely arbitrary reasons that did not apply to other proposed standards already accepted into the repository. |
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@Blecki, perhaps so, although I'm sure Notch would be more appreciative of a document that builds off of what he already has in mind, hence why I believe we should know more before including more things like this. @KingKorihor, I agree with you and am fully aware what has been accepted already, although I feel we've added probably too many speculative things already. @Jarvix has suspended a lot of changes and proposals being incorporated to the main repository purely because he believes we need a bit more information about a lot of things, and a few of our drafts in general are perhaps too presumptive and speculative. |
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@kk- What is it specifically about this particular draft that is a problem then? There have been other speculative hardware drafts that have been added since I made this pull request, so obviously it hasn't become a consistent policy yet to stop those kind of ideas from getting added to the repository. I agree that it would be nice to have Notch come up with some direction on these issues, as it will be him who needs to program this behavior into the game unless some sort of modding starts to happen in the game. Even basic issues like if there will be line noise on network data transmissions or if ASCII is even going to be something used on the screen display (as opposed to EBDIC or Galactic Standard Alphabet) has yet to be settled upon. In that sense, almost everything being done right now is pure speculation. |
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@KingKorihor I think we're still a little bit left in the dark about peripherals (Unless I've missed something important) and IO in general to want to draft something that's so dependent upon what Notch wants to do, and I would prefer Notch to provide some basis which we could then perhaps adapt this to and then we put forward our suggestions to him. I'm not saying that this should be scrapped or anything, I just want to know more about what he's going to do, then debate. I'm not sure why @Jarvix has added other things that, I agree, are just as speculative. Ask him, because if he is letting in similar drafts, this shouldn't really be excluded. I would prefer it all be either excluded or included together. |
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@Jarvix Do you have any commentary on what has been said above? |
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Well: I have not accepted this request for the reason i gave. As far as I know, I have not merged any drafts on peripherals. The HAT FS is quite independent from hardware and I did not accept the draft on the disk controller personally. Someone else did that. All other drafts are on either content of files or about assembly and writing programs. (I also did not merge the OSI stuff AFAIK). So please stop blaming me or come with prove :) As long as notch has not released hardware specs, I am personally not accepting any drafts on it. I can't forbid others doing so. |
I've added a base-line software interface to serial communications devices which might be used to facilitate device to device communications, including peripheral control and network communications devices through the DCPU-16. My hope is that this could be made available for one possible kind of hardware interface for devices of this nature.