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PRC - Pervasively Reconfigurable Computing

Code, prose, etc. for the project to align computers with their embodiment, bring awareness and tunability to their resource consumption, and produce a platform acceptable to me and a seed SAI.

The directory theory is everything which does not execute (prose), practice everything that does (code). Meta-data and compliance documents (etc.) may not follow this schema.

Developed against GNU Guile.

Released under the MIT License.

In Which an Argument is Made for the Hidden to Become Visible

###Pathos (or, Propaganda and Rationale):

Semantically, the technology stack of a modern computer grounds its validity in the non-linear amplification effect of the transistor phenomenon, which incarnates Boolean logic. Politically, a modern computer grounds its trust in the OEM, who choses how the transistors are arranged. Between these two roots and the owner-operator is a dependency graph of terrific complexity, efforts of which to simplify or clarify have not kept pace with its growth. Such is the ruthless reductionism of digital computation that every addition is ultimately not even a translation, but a transliteration of the ones before it, and thus in thrall to the intercessory de/re/encoders. No amount of semantic hygiene [0] can prevent arbitrary modification of those layers further from the root by those closer to it, through which the former must pass. The most mature efforts toward full-stack transparency, Free Software, Open Source Hardware, Clean Code and literate programming, are socio-cultural ventures, while signed firmware, trusted cryptographic co-processors, and compilation target JavaScript are technological impediments. There can be neither a totally self-modifying artificial intelligence, nor true private ownership of the means of general purpose computation, without a technologically feasible, pervasively reconfigurable computing device, programmatically exposed from the lowest semantic level upwards.

[0] Absent 1. Indistinguishability Obfuscation/Fully Homomorphic Encryption and/or 2. Physically Unclonable Functions.

###Logos (or, Technical Contributions):

The overall Boolean function performed by a network of transistors may be deduced by composing the formal descriptions of individual transistors. How transistors are physically composed requires the auxiliary reasoning of a routing algorithm, because the wiring of the input network wiring between processing elements is a matter apart from the processing elements themselves.

The hardware of a PRC system is a component-wise, organically reconfigurable lattice whose nodes are Universal Cells (UCs), connected to form Geometrically Explicit Logic Circuits (GELCs). A single transistor can be specified such that it embodies a Boolean NOR logic gate, satisfying abstract logical universality. However, composing sequences of transistors requires the auxiliary formalization of power, logic, and (circumstantially) clock signal routing between processing elements.

In constrast, a GELC is deductively and entirely defined by its formal specification of its component UCs. As the semantic bedrock of PRC, a UC supports:

  1. Reversible logic
  2. Asynchronous operation
  3. Explicit signal and power routing
  4. Organic, component-wise reconfigurability

By "component-wise", reconfigurability is an atomic operation; a UC must be the least viable semantic element, such that if it were decomposed further it would not retain the complete set of properties guaranteed above. The process of identifying a suitable physical incarnation of a UC is the search for the least phenomena which most exactly capture the above desired capabilities. At present, a reconfigurable extension of Reversible Elements with Memory (RLEMs) can be put in close correspondence with the behavior of a switchable, latching electromagnetic radiation (EMR) circulator, while conforming to the above criteria.

practice/{3453.scm, 318.scm, and 390.scm} implement Universal Cells (UC) which expose the logical operation of RLEMs 3-453/18/90, respectively.

theory/{gelc-universality.txt, figures.pdf} are a note and associated diagrams describing the relation between RLEMs and GELCs in greater detail, including a proof by construction of the universality of RLEM-based Universal Cells.

###Ethos (or, Prior Work):

While provenancially independent, PRC shares much of its current ideology and abstract model with MIT's Reconfigurable Asynchronous Logic Automata (RALA) project [0]. Kenichi Morita and his collaborators developed Reversible Logic Elements with Memory in several papers over the last 20 years [1]. Switching, latching EMR circulators have been studied by radio engineers since the mid-20th century [2].

theory/history.txt: An oral history of influences during the project's gestation.

theory/literature: Collated relevant existing research.

####Key References in Brief:

[0] Gershenfeld et al. (2011) Reconfigurable Asynchronous Logic Automata

[1] Morita, K. (2013) Reversible Logic Elements with Memory and Their Universality

[2] Siekanowicz, W., and Schilling, W. (1968) A New Type of Latching Switchable Ferrite Junction Circulator

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