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Show HN: Compile C to Not Gates

(github.com)
145 points tomhee | 1 comments | 17 Jan 25 19:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source

Hi! I've been working on the flipjump project, a programming language with 1 opcode: flip (invert) a bit, then jump (unconditionally). So a bit-flip followed by more bit-flips. It's effectively a bunch of NOT gates. This language, as poor as it sounds, is RICH.

Today I completed my compiler from C to FlipJump. It takes C files, and compiles them into flipjump. I finished testing it all today, and it works! My key interest in this project is to stretch what we know of computing and to prove that anything can be done even with minimal power.

I appreciate you reading my announcement, and be happy to answer questions.

More links:

- The flipjump language: https://github.com/tomhea/flip-jump https://esolangs.org/wiki/FlipJump

- c2fj python package https://pypi.org/project/c2fj/

1. dingdingdang ◴[18 Jan 25 10:48 UTC] No.42747435[source]▶
It always amazes me that this is possible (to some extend anyway, I mean, the base layer is binary so obviously simpler higher-end CPU instructions are possible!)

Is there any potential performance win in this? What I mean is; since this general direction could, in principle if not in practise, enable the targeting of say, the 5-10 most efficient CPU instructions rather than attempting to use the whole surface area... would this potentially be a win?