sandwich's avatar
sandwich _@sandwich.farm 2 months ago
While everyone was arguing about an experiment I built a nostr-native RISC-V microkernel that implements a variant of NIP-5D with a native transport. The applet pattern means that nostr applications can be written without in-depth knowledge of nostr protocol. It also means that the nostr connection, key management, crypto and optimization layers remain logically separated from the application layer. Unlike other similar solutions to date, few compromises are made: the application layer can be as creative as it wants and only has to focus on UX, while the shell handles the heavy lifting. I now have two implementations of NIP-5D, one via a web-based shell that has a runtime and another via native shell on RISC-V embedded in a RUST microkernel; with API parity. Both will be released when they are released, I cannot afford that much time for nostr anymore, and I will only release them when they are ready. I will block out some time soon to refine a Nostr Applet possibility.

Replies (20)

semisol's avatar
semisol semisol@nostr.land 2 months ago
What is the point of RISC-V? You are taking a massive performance hit as it is not a bytecode format designed for being portable but a HW instruction architecture. There are intentional tradeoffs such as the mapping of bits as a direct result of this, which is extremely expensive in SW, but is just wire swapping in HW. I would recommend you use WebAssembly instead.
sandwich's avatar
sandwich _@sandwich.farm 2 months ago
You're not wrong, and I had similar thoughts when I started. Reason is I already had a good RISC-V boilerplate for for completely different project and so I took the plunge. RISC-V has clear disadvantages when it comes to performance, but also clear advantages when it comes to licensing and being a significantly more open platform. Crypto related operations are insanely expensive, but a computer module + daughter board with a hardware crypto solution could potentially resolve that. Regardless, this is a proof of concept, conversation piece and exploration in general. I don't really expect this to become production. It has been very fun though :D
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semisol semisol@nostr.land 2 months ago
“clear advantages when it comes to licensing and being a significantly more open platform” What? Both of them are open specifications, that are openly licensed, and I’d say WA is even lower risk than RISC-V in any case
semisol's avatar
semisol semisol@nostr.land 2 months ago
Lockdown mode only moves WA to interpreted instead of JIT which is still orders of magnitude faster than simulating RISC-V, unless you have a trash implementation of “lockdown”
DagzTagz's avatar
DagzTagz Angelicah@primal.net 2 months ago
Normies running proprietary devices all have trash lockdown Who are we building for? Every day the message is more confusing 🫤
sandwich's avatar
sandwich _@sandwich.farm 2 months ago
lol, again not wrong. Live dangerously. I do have a few VisionFive 2's but they are all busy ATM.
sandwich's avatar
sandwich _@sandwich.farm 2 months ago
I am not going to touch that topic right now, what I have to say would piss everyone on both sides off :D
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str4t05 2 months ago
These Muslim spam bots ought to stop. If you want to proselytize, at least have the decency to do your own speaking. Spam replies to unrelated conversations are just rude. I also feel the need to point out, again, that the Bible does NOT deny the divinity of Jesus. Instead, the Bible blatantly proclaims His divinity and is fundamentally incompatible with Islam: View quoted note →
sandwich's avatar
sandwich _@sandwich.farm 2 months ago
Lol, I shouldn't write notes when I'm tired. Re-read my root note this morning and laughed at myself, we totally misunderstood each other that entire thread and the fault is in my root note in the last sentence. Target for the microkernal is physical RISC-V hardware. Think cyberdeck. The kernel itself is compiled RV64 machine code, not bytecode-interpreted. Heaviest ops are RustCrypto and it compiles down to rv64 instructions. Bytecode only enters the picture if I get WASM napplets to a happy place that isn't retarded, and even then, all crypto operations are passed back to host imports.
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