Within ARM's Reach

Here's a short (under two minutes) mini-feature of Sophie Wilson, who devised the ARM processor's instruction set (Prof Steve Furber designed the hardware of the processor) while at Acorn Computers some thirty years ago.

One fun thing I recall from the early 'nineties where this very same individual was demonstrating the Acorn Archimedes series computers at an exhibition, and showed a work colleague of mine what could be done within moments (a rotatable 3-D textual logo, in the Draw and Euclid programs, dragging and dropping from one into the other). My colleague's immediate reaction was "I want one!"

There's some amazing information to be gleaned from this brief clip, which was made over six months ago, such as the fact that by then a good 35 billion ARM chips had been shipped – well beyond the total number of all others ever produced, added together. Also, the sheer reach of the ARMs, almost everywhere in portable and other technology now, some definitely not realised by most people.

The few comments at the video's YouTube page also tell a story or two...

The World Is Fully ARMed

There are now so many ARM processors in the world that it seems now to have completely overshadowed all other processor types/families/designs.

Now, I'm not one for monopolies in any market; but for years we had precisely  that with the old and creaky Intel x86 type (a close clone of which was and is also made by AMD, and once upon a time a third company did the same of code-compatible chips as well).

I always think of them, and the computers with them inside, as 'HGV machines', as per my years-old saying about being like "taking a lorry out to do the shopping", because of the power, memory and other resources they take just to get going, and the heat and noise they pump out as a consequence..

These days the processor chips have silly names such as Athlon and Celeron (Pentium was a much better name!) but essentially they are somewhat distant (by now) cousins of the ancient 386 and 486 processors.

ARM has its own in-brand names such as Cortex, but at least they sound technical...

Anyway, the two important distinctions to make are (a) that the ARM is a much more elegant design, and (b) that it is made under licence by many companies, not just one or two. Indeed, some of those companies, working with the ARM people, have designed their own ARM-based designs, from Digital's StrongARM of 1996 to a Chinese design for a complete System-on-Chip (SoC) on which work started a year or so ago.

There are now billions of ARM chips on the planet; and with the approach of ARM Holdings' quarter 2 results for 2012, due out in a couple of weeks from now, it is instructive to look back at last year's results for the same quarter. There are several interesting facts and figures in the "points of interest" section on the linked page, but the first one tells the main story: 1·1 billion ARMs shipped during those three months last year.

The second point there reflects something I have mentioned before, which is that forthcoming market-leading Operating Systems will be coded to run on ARM systems. This is what I believe is termed "waking up and smelling the coffee" on the part of the likes of Microsoft and Google. The world has moved on, in a positive direction, and they can't afford to ignore or sideline it any longer.

CubeStormers on Show!

Back in March of this year I posted a video of the ARM-powered CubeStormer robot made of Lego that solves standard Rubik's Cubes in just a few seconds.

Since the first model, the team including ARM's David Gilday has developed the range, including the ability to handle larger versions of the cube up to seven-a-side (the original cube was three-a-side; and in fact they go up to at least twenty-per-side), and David will be bringing several along to a computer club event in central London in a couple of weeks from now.

If you're interested, do come along to The Blue-Eyed Maid public house in Borough High Street (London SE1 1HR) on Monday 16 July, where the club will be meeting upstairs from 6 pm (David Gilday's talk/demo event itself starts at 7.45), and I hope to join them on this occasion – which will be the day before I turn 63 years of age – health permitting.

In the meantime, here's another video, this one featuring a seven-per-side cube full solution...

Pi in the Sky

Well, that's what it looks something like on RyanTeck's world map "tracker" of Raspberry Pi computers. They're almost everywhere in the world now – and they've been going out for only a few weeks.

As I write this, North America has the greatest number of Pis, currently approaching 2,000 registered on the map as being located there – by the looks of it, mostly in California, though the numbers seem to go awry when I zoom in for the more detailed figures, so I can't confirm this.

There are also some 1,400 registered in Europe.

It's all happening out there, and this tracker map will be one to watch in order to gain insight into how this little device is storming around the globe as fast as they can be produced and tested.

I bet even Acorn Computers never anticipated anything quite like this when they firstly invented the ARM processor that in a later incarnation would become the heart of the Pi, and secondly even when they jointly formed a company to take their invention into other markets, which has resulted in billions of the things going into mobile 'phones, set-top boxes, tablets and other items needing a low power consumption state-of-the-art processor chip/chipset.

It's a rare example of a British invention actually making it in the world market; and the Raspberry Pi in turn looks set to follow in its own CPU's 'chipsteps'.

Pi Day

Raspberry Pi computers have been arriving all over the place today.

After a change of designation that then required them to have emissions testing, causing a moderate delay, the first batch of Pi's has now gone out and some customers have reported receiving theirs this morning.

At least one recipient has already tweeted from it, others have simply announced the arrival of theirs, one with a photo, and here's another pic, oh and this one has a video.

In the video, note the mention of Element 14 on the instructions, which is the name for what was, once upon a time, Acorn Computers, inventor of the ARM chip of which breed a recent version is at the heart of the Pi...

The device will be featured on BBC Look East this evening, also viewable nationwide on Sky channel 981 or Freesat channel 953.

CubeStormer!

Yet another use for the British-designed (by Acorn, originally) ARM chips is this machine for solving Rubik's cubes. It is not exactly slow!