[Totient]

I really like this idea and it got me thinking about a lesser, but still bad, disaster:

If all computers were to disappear tomorrow (let's say a super-EMP, or something) how could we quickly restart the digital age? As in, what source code/chip designs would we really wish we had on paper somewhere, so a relatively small team could get modern computing going quickly?

From the source code side, I'm thinking the opcodes necessary for a Forth compiler, a compiler for some restricted version of C in Forth (to keep the source code size down), a quality C compiler written in the simple-C and the source code for some vaguely POSIX compliant system (MINIX, maybe?)

I'm curious if it's at all feasible to put that much source code on paper...

[vinceguidry]

You mean we have the opportunity to rewrite everything with our accumulated design know-how without having backwards-compatibility as a requirement and knowing exactly where the puck is going at all times?

Gimme the damn EMP, I'll set it off myself. I can't think of a more fun way to spend ten years.

[frik]

The computer hardware would be a real problem. Sadly most computer architectures are guarded as a trade secrete. And even early PCs like Apple I and the one that Bill Gates wrote his first BASIC for, were using off-the-shelf CPUs. One of the last wire-based (non ICs) computers with high speed performace (~ 500 MHz) were the Cray super computers. It seems most of the details are lost in history. We should start to reverse engineer the museum pieces and write the knowledge down on paper. Probably it would also help us with current gen CPU design problems.

The software side will be easier. Knowing ASM of the available CPU architecture one could write a C, BASIC or Fortran compiler from scratch and write a operating system either by using source code from books (like Minix), etc.