Better Computers

Reduce complexity, increase reliability and ease of use.

Computers have become too complicated. I've been working on a simplified computer system based on the Project Oberon 32-bit RISC chip designed by Prof. Wirth and a very simple OS based on a programming language called Joy.

I wrote an emulator for the RISC CPU, an assembler, a crude Forth, and the beginning of a native Joy in Forth.

I'm creating simple but useful computer systems that are small enough to easily understand yet powerful enough to do real work.

As a demonstration application I'm creating a kind of ecological incubator that combines a plant nursery with a semi-closed aquaculture system.

I have microcontrollers, a CPU (ESP8866), servo motors.

I need sensors, tubing, web cams, and a AVR programmer (I have one but it seems to be broken.)

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100 words or so

Better Computers

I'm making a computer system that's very simple so it's easy to understand and use. I'm using the Joy programming language, which is simple and elegant. The UI is also very simple and elegant.

Techno-conservative

"Like Amish, not Luddite"

I want to have a considered and principlaed relationship to technology that reflects all of my values not just convenience and economy.

Buy one of those small desert plots (a few $K for a couple of acres) and bring a kind of "seed" package there that includes enough infrastructure and biomass to start a modest homestead along ecological lines.

You start by digging a hole and erecting a greenhouse/shadehouse over it that retains moisture. Put a atmospheric water condenser (a dehumidifier optimized to collect water) in the hole and power it from solar panels. Next you would put about 0.5 meter deep of wood chips, straw, etc. and introduce the chickens. You need "protein generators" for the chickens (mealworm/darkling beetle colonies, etc.) Micro-greens in towers, aquaculture for fish and nutrient cycling, compost heaters and biogas generators for heat and energy and compost. Once you've got some topsoil growing you start introducing your plants, potatoes, beans, etc. at first, (potatoes for eating beans for nitrogen fixing (and eating)) then you basically mimic ecological succession at an accelerated rate to create a "food forest".

I'm kind of a recluse, so I don't mind the idea of living by myself out in the desert, but part of the idea is to eventually generate the materials to start copies of the system. (Obviously not all of the materials. I don't imagine starting a foundry, for instance, but I do want to experiment with things like fungus leather and bio-plastics.)