Computers

Computing technology in Ill Bethisad differs quite a bit from the mainstream *here*. This page is an overview of some of the technical aspects behind it. They are protected by the curious Inventor's Licence.

Architecture

Whereas computing technology *here* concentrated on making fast serial computers, *there* the aim was to produce small, low-power devices that could easily be networked parallelised. The typical microprocessor in IB has more in common with microcontrollers, Chuck Moore's MISC stack machines, and the Transputer, or IBM's Cell processor.

Each processor is a simple stack machine with a communications port, fast stack, and a chunk of onboard memory. The processing capacity of these computers there compared to here depends on how many of them you throw together. However, one of the most commonly-used low-cost, low-power units has about the same processing power as your typical 68000 *here*, maybe slightly faster.

The size of an IB processor is about that of a fingernail. The average computer contains quite a few of them, and they are typically also used for things you'd use custom chipsets for here. Think of it: a fully programmable video subsystem!

Transistors and CMOS fabrication are the standard. Vaccum tubes? That's 30 year old technology! While IB's technological level was somewhere equivalent to 20 years ago (1980s) in 2005, it has been catching up. It is expected that IB and *here* will reach parity by 2025.

Origins

The origin of IB's contemporary computer technology has its origins in the development of the vacuum tube-powered "Colossus" computer and other efforts to crack the infamous German "Enigma" code. Contributing scientists included Neumann János and Alan Turing, who developed the modern foundations of computer technology. The efforts proved a success, and soon vacuum-tube computers such as ENIAC in Philadelphia spread to laboratories and research institutions across the Western world. Although vacuum tubes enjoyed a brief vogue as the primary devices used in computer technology, they were soon replaced by the transistor in 1948, and the last vacuum tube computer was built in 1963 at Osage University in Louisianne. However, despite the massive advance in technology and increased stability offered by the transistor, it was largely unable to solve the problem of size in computers, as transistors and other components still had to be wired together in complicated discrete circuits. As a result, computers remained large, clunky devices confined to universities and research laboratories--that is, until the invention of the integrated circuit.

This design originated in AÉ during the late 1960s, primarily through the work of Evan Ó Ceallaigh and other members of General Instruments' Irish branch, who hold the primary inventor's licence for it. The integrated circuit allowed for computers to finally become reasonably sized devices, and soon various technology companies were performing their own elaborations on General Instruments' original design in order to allow for use under the Inventor's Licence. By the 1980s, several companies had developed processor systems based on GI's basic design; the most successful of these would be Solas Teoranta's system, which hit markets in the 1990s. Owing to the flexibility of their basic design, and how widely it is used and licensed throughout the world, Solas has become quite wealthy and is one of the world's most important research labs and IT companies. Alternative computer processor designs have been developed in countries like Japan (which is not bound to the distinctively Hiberno-European Inventor's Licence) and elsewhere, in order to circumvent the cut of profits that Solas gets under the Inventor's Licence.

Usage

Computers are critical in space exploration and in Particle Physics, and are one of the largest use of computers in the world to date. Solas Teoranta maintains close ties with the major particle physics laboratories, and many of the innovations seen in computers are due to the efforts of Solas Teoranta in giving the particle physics labs the computing power they feel they need.

Keyboards

The Asdui Keyboard Layout

In IB, while the QWERTY, QWERTZ or AZERTY keyboards are prominent, a hybrid keyboard between the QWERTY and Dvorak keyboards dubbed "ASDUI" has formed as a happy medium between the two. Some analaysts suspect that the ASDUI keyboard will actually rise to prominence over the Dvorak or QWERTY keyboards, given time, as it increases typing speed and data entry and is not as difficult a change as from QWERTY to Dvorak. Japanese and Corean keyboards are based on cana and Hangul, respectively.

Text

Like *here*, the most common text encoding is 8-bit. Where it differs from Latin1 and it's ilk *here* is in how it copes with diacritics.

Unlike *here*, the big countries in the computing industry happen to be ones with languages whose orthographies that make heavy use of diacritics. Like ASCII, the IB text encoding has control characters in the bottom 32 slots. One of these characters is called combining character (actually the code for a backspace but as with the linefeed character here, its meaning altered with time), and is followed by two more codes: the base character and the diacritic character. Diacritics form a parallel character set to the base character set, so the the sequence "A" CC ACUTE might have the codes 21 01 21 (in hex). There are five diacritics that are historical exceptions to this rule: GRAVE, ACUTE, TREMA, CIRCUMFLEX, and PUNCTUS DELENS. This is owed to their presence in Brithenig, Kerno, Gaeilg (a variant orthography is sometimes used in Scotland and Uladh where a GRAVE accent is used in place of the standard ACUTE accent).

The base character set covers the latin, greek, and cyrillic alphabets.

Parallel systems here are ISO 5427 and ISO 6937.

Owing to the difficulty involved in writing languages that don't use the latin, greek or cyrillic alphabets, there is an effort to produce a character encoding better suited to dealing with the likes of Arabic, Devangari, and others.

Binary	Oct	Dec	Hex	Name
010 0000	040	32	20	Underscore
010 0001	041	33	21	Less than sign
010 0010	042	34	22	Greater than sign
010 0011	043	35	23	Number sign
010 0100	044	36	24	Currency mark
010 0101	045	37	25	Percent sign
010 0110	046	38	26	Ampersand
010 0111	047	39	27	Backslash
010 1000	050	40	28	Open Bracket
010 1001	051	41	29	Closed Bracket
010 1010	052	42	2A	Open Brace
010 1011	053	43	2B	Closed Brace
010 1100	054	44	2C	At sign
010 1101	055	45	2D	Comma/Cedilla
010 1110	056	46	2E	Full stop
010 1111	057	47	2F	Slash
011 0000	060	48	30	0
011 0001	061	49	31	1
011 0010	062	50	32	2
011 0011	063	51	33	3
011 0100	064	52	34	4
011 0101	065	53	35	5
011 0110	066	54	36	6
011 0111	067	55	37	7
011 1000	070	56	38	8
011 1001	071	57	39	9
011 1010	072	58	3A	Open square bracket
011 1011	073	59	3B	Closed square bracket
011 1100	074	60	3C	Exclamation mark
011 1101	075	61	3D	Semicolon
011 1110	076	62	3E	Colon
011 1111	077	63	3F	Question mark

Binary	Oct	Dec	Hex	Glyph
100 0000	100	64	40	Cue
100 0001	101	65	41	A
100 0010	102	66	42	B
100 0011	103	67	43	C
100 0100	104	68	44	D
100 0101	105	69	45	E
100 0110	106	70	46	F
100 0111	107	71	47	G
100 1000	110	72	48	H
100 1001	111	73	49	I
100 1010	112	74	4A	J
100 1011	113	75	4B	K
100 1100	114	76	4C	L
100 1101	115	77	4D	M
100 1110	116	78	4E	N
100 1111	117	79	4F	O
101 0000	120	80	50	P
101 0001	121	81	51	Q
101 0010	122	82	52	R
101 0011	123	83	53	S
101 0100	124	84	54	T
101 0101	125	85	55	U
101 0110	126	86	56	V
101 0111	127	87	57	W
101 1000	130	88	58	X
101 1001	131	89	59	Y
101 1010	132	90	5A	Z
101 1011	133	91	5B	Double Quote/Umlaut
101 1100	134	92	5C	Trema
101 1101	135	93	5D	Vertical Bar
101 1110	136	94	5E	Plus sign
101 1111	137	95	5F	Space

Binary	Oct	Dec	Hex	Glyph
110 0000	140	96	60	Asterisk
110 0001	141	97	61	a
110 0010	142	98	62	b
110 0011	143	99	63	c
110 0100	144	100	64	d
110 0101	145	101	65	e
110 0110	146	102	66	f
110 0111	147	103	67	g
110 1000	150	104	68	h
110 1001	151	105	69	i
110 1010	152	106	6A	j
110 1011	153	107	6B	k
110 1100	154	108	6C	l
110 1101	155	109	6D	m
110 1110	156	110	6E	n
110 1111	157	111	6F	o
111 0000	160	112	70	p
111 0001	161	113	71	q
111 0010	162	114	72	r
111 0011	163	115	73	s
111 0100	164	116	74	t
111 0101	165	117	75	u
111 0110	166	118	76	v
111 0111	167	119	77	w
111 1000	170	120	78	x
111 1001	171	121	79	y
111 1010	172	122	7A	z
111 1011	173	123	7B	Acute accent/close quote
111 1100	174	124	7C	Grave accent/open quote
111 1101	175	125	7D	Circumflex accent
111 1110	176	126	7E	Dash