Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #03413



To: beam@corp.sgi.com, "'Jean auBois'" aubois@trail.com
From: "van Zoelen, Bram SSI-TSEA-352" Bram.A.A.vanZoelen@is.shell.com
Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 08:38:05 +0200
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Answer.Tricore info question


Hmm, that also a way how to look at a MicroCore.
I have always explained the working of a MicroCore
for myself like this:

You have a bucket hanging in such way that it only just in balance.
Now the bucket is slowly filled and at some time the bucket will tip over.
The water from this bucket is now slowly flowing into the next bucket
and the same thing happens over and over again around the ring.

Its funny to see that many people have different ways to visualize
things to explain how things could happen.

Sorry for wasting bandwitdh.
Bram


> ----------
> From: Jean auBois[SMTP:aubois@trail.com]
> Reply To: Jean auBois
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 1999 2:39 AM
> To: beam@corp.sgi.com
> Subject: Re: [alt-beam] Re: Answer.Tricore info question
>
> At 8:10 PM -0600 5/19/99, Dennison wrote:
> :Good question! The answer, as I understand it to be, is really infact
> quite
> :simple yet interesting. SEe, when we think about digital logic components
> we
> :tend to think of everything as being in a "perfect world" and as we know,
> :nothing is. Nor is digital logic, we would like to think that when the
> :voltage on the input of an inverter goes high the output instantly goes
> low.
> :But it doesn't.
>
> etc.
>
> However, Nv neurons are differentiators -- it is really the edges that
> count, not how long the pulse lasts (the derivative of a constant being
> zero and all that.) The amount of time spent during the rise/fall time is
> quite a few orders of magnitude smaller than the delay time of a given
> neuron. In a way, there are two interpretations of what a "process" is --
> either it is the time that an LED connected to the output of a neuron is
> 'on' (i.e. low, because the other end is usually connected to Vcc) or it
> is
> the edge itself (which occurs as the output of a 'typical' Nv neuron has a
> rising edge.) Personally, I think that the "lit LED" interpretation is
> sort of confusing.
>
> An Nv loop that has an odd number (n) of neurons can have floor(n/2)
> processes in it. As a result, a tricore can either be quiet (i.e. 0,0,0)
> or saturated (1,0,0 or some variation.) As Sean remarks, the "third
> state"
> can be very useful -- you can get some "dead time" in between two "active"
> states (although I personally think that using a microcore and getting
> dead
> times interleaved between the active states is somewhat more useful.)
>
> And if none of this makes no sense, I'm sure that someone else can explain
> it far better than I.
>
>
> jab
>
>

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