Chris Williams

@diodesign.org

460 Followers 231 Following

Fun: https://diodesign.org/ & https://diosix.org/ Work: Technical editor at https://google.com/ Previously: Editor-in-chief of https://theregister.com/ Wear sunscreen.

Screenshot of debug output from running an x86_64 guest on a 64-bit RISC-V hypervisor using emulation. The Linux guest's console output is mixed with the hypervisor's trace logs. The output shown includes: tb_gen_code: translating guest TB at pc = anyopaque@ffffffff8128b283 tb_gen_code: translating guest TB at pc = anyopaque@ffffffff8128b287 [ 0.000000] Linux version 7.0.10 (chris@violet) (x86_64-buildroot-linux-gnu-gcc.br_real (Buildroot 2026.02.3) 14.3.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.44) #2 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue Jun 30 22:46:55 PDT 2026 tb_gen_code: translating guest TB at pc = anyopaque@ffffffff8128b2e4 tb_gen_code: translating guest TB at pc = anyopaque@ffffffff8128b2ee [...] tb_gen_code: translating guest TB at pc = anyopaque@ffffffff818bfc0e [ 0.000000] Command line: console=ttyS0 earlyprintk=serial,ttyS0,115200 root=/dev/ram0 rw [ 0.000000] Disabled fast string operations [ 0.000000] x86/CPU: tb_gen_code: translating guest TB at pc = anyopaque@ffffffff8128b2d9 model not found in latest microcode list [ 0.000000] BIOS-provided physical RAM map: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [gap 0x0000000000000000-0x0000000007fffffff] [ 0.000000] tb_gen_code: translating guest TB at pc = anyopaque@ffffffff818bfe96 [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000080000000-0x000000009fffffff] System RAM [ 0.000000] printk: legacy bootconsole [earlyser0] enabled tb_gen_code: translating guest TB at pc = anyopaque@ffffffff81325af9 tb_gen_code: translating guest TB at pc = anyopaque@ffffffff8132622d
Photo of a Spacemit K3 Pico-ITX RISC-V development board with a clear plastic covering on the cardboard box it shipped in. The motherboard has multiple IO ports, such as USB and Ethernet, other connectors, and chips.
The word 'sinclair' stylized as the 1980s Sinclair Research logo, center, white on black, surrounded by tiled copies of the word in grey on black.
Textbook cover in the style of a Dabs Press publication, which reads: Mike Ginns RISC-V Assembly Language The Complete Programming Course New architecture edition covers RV32I & RV64I Dabs Press (With a wireframe drawing of someone's arm as an illustration)
A frame from the start of a 1980s Computer Chronicles episode, with host Stewart Cheifet sitting in front of a background featuring the show's logo: the computer chronicles
View of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco on a clear sunny day, from the Baker Beach trail
OpenSBI v1.5.1 ____ _____ ____ _____ / __ \ / ____| _ \_ _| | | | |_ __ ___ _ __ | (___ | |_) || | | | | | '_ \ / _ \ '_ \ \___ \| _ < | | | |__| | |_) | __/ | | |____) | |_) || |_ \____/| .__/ \___|_| |_|_____/|____/_____| | | |_| Platform Name : riscv-virtio,qemu Platform Features : medeleg Platform HART Count : 1 Platform IPI Device : aclint-mswi Platform Timer Device : aclint-mtimer @ 10000000Hz Platform Console Device : uart8250 Platform HSM Device : --- Platform PMU Device : --- Platform Reboot Device : syscon-reboot Platform Shutdown Device : syscon-poweroff Platform Suspend Device : --- Platform CPPC Device : --- Firmware Base : 0x80000000 Firmware Size : 319 KB Firmware RW Offset : 0x40000 Firmware RW Size : 63 KB Firmware Heap Offset : 0x47000 Firmware Heap Size : 35 KB (total), 2 KB (reserved), 10 KB (used), 22 KB (free) Firmware Scratch Size : 4096 B (total), 244 B (used), 3852 B (free) Runtime SBI Version : 2.0 Boot HART ID : 0 Boot HART Domain : root Boot HART Priv Version : v1.12 Boot HART Base ISA : rv32imafdch Boot HART ISA Extensions : sstc,zicntr,zihpm,zicboz,zicbom,sdtrig,svadu Boot HART PMP Count : 16 Boot HART PMP Granularity : 2 bits Boot HART PMP Address Bits: 32 Boot HART MHPM Info : 16 (0x0007fff8) Boot HART Debug Triggers : 2 triggers Boot HART MIDELEG : 0x00001666 Boot HART MEDELEG : 0x00f0b509 [ snipped ] virtio-blk: capacity is 0 bytes file: hello.txt, size=83 file: meow.txt, size=6 > hello Hello world from shell!
Still from Displaced Gamers' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G6vkRz-_0I video that depicts a frame from the NES game Metroid overlaid with statistics and a list of subroutines called in the game loop. The statistics show the percentage of time per frame spent in each subroutine as well as total frame counts and rendered frame counts.
A large display in front of Manchester Piccadilly Station, England, shows a Windows blue-screen-of-death. Source: https://www.theregister.com/2016/08/29/bsods_at_scale_we_laugh_at_your_puny_five_storeys_heres_our_six_storey_fail/
RISC OS 7 post-boot showing its initialization messages and then a list of available OS-level modules. Taken from http://shell.riscos.online/
Kylie Minogue on stage at the Chase Center in San Francisco with a disco ball lighting up the whole scene.
Still frame from the linked YouTube video of now ex-Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, in 1988, showing his name and job title: Microprocessor Project Manager
Screenshot showing some of the heap allocation code and diosix running in a terminal showing debug output to the serial port: qemu-system-riscv64 -nographic -machine virt -smp 4 -m 2G -bios none -kernel zig-out/bin/vmdiosix Visit https://diosix.org for usage, copyright, and distribution. Version 0.3.0-zig (95dba5e) Tue Dec 24 11:01:17 AM PST 2024 riscv64 Device tree at 0xbfe00000 CPU core ID 1 waiting for work... CPU core ID 3 waiting for work... CPU core ID 2 waiting for work... CPU core ID 0 waiting for work... QEMU: Terminated
Screenshot showing the following terminal output: % zig-build % qemu-system-riscv64 -nographic -machine virt -smp 4 -m 2G -bios none -kernel zig-out/bin/vmdiosix xint: initialized xint: initialized xint: initialized xint: initialized hypervisor: CPU core ID 0 initialized hypervisor: CPU core ID 2 initialized hypervisor: CPU core ID 3 initialized hypervisor: CPU core ID 1 initialized
Terminal showing the following text: % zig build % qemu-system-riscv64 -nographic -machine virt -smp 4 -m 2G -bios none -kernel zig-out/bin/vmdiosix Hello world from CPU core 0!!
Screenshot of the following zig code in a purple-themed Visual Studio Code window: export fn main() void { const uart: *volatile u8 = @ptrFromInt(0x10000000); const hello: []const u8 = "Hello world!!\n\n"; for (hello) |c| { uart.* = c; } while (true) {} } And the execution of that code in a terminal below: % qemu-system-riscv64 -nographic -machine virt -smp 1 -m 1G -bios none -kernel zig-out/bin/vmdiosix Hello world!!
View from the crowd looking toward the stage where Orbital were playing live at the Midway in San Francisco.