Wroclaw Open Source Meetup #15

To All Open Source Enthusiasts,

Wroclaw Open Source Meetup is back after the summer break! Its 15th iteration has been planned for October 10th so book some time in your calendar. As always, we’ve prepared two technical talks, Q&A sessions and of course a socializing & networking afterparty in Concordia Design till late.

Agenda:

1. The anatomy of a GCC target on the example of PDP-1; Filip Kokosinski, Antmicro

The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is a ubiquitous and versatile tool available to every programmer. Its use can be found from compiling simple “Hello, World!” programs to building complex software projects, such as operating systems. The GCC project uses another commonly known software package, called the GNU Binary Utilities (binutils), as a dependency.

The process of supporting new CPU architectures can be a daunting task. This presentation provides a step-by-step guide on how to navigate the complexity of adding a new target to GCC and its dependencies. This will be demonstrated on the example of a vintage PDP-1 computer. Coming from an era where modern computer science terms weren’t yet well-established, it provides an interesting and non-trivial challenge.

2. How modern CPUs work: Out-of-order execution; Krzysztof Oblonczek, Antmicro

Modern processors can execute instructions in a different order to what was written by the programmer or the compiler, but they still maintain the illusion of executing them in program order. They do this using hardware data structures that construct a graph of data dependencies between instructions and schedule a particular instruction for execution as soon as the hardware resources and operands required for it are available. This technique, called Out-of-order execution, has been ubiquitous in processors ever since the second half of the 90s as it unlocks the potential for great performance gains.

The presentation will focus on describing the inner workings of an Out-of-order CPU core, processes that take place inside it, and lay out some of the problems that engineers who design such microarchitectures must face.

Registration:

Attending the event involves a registration at the entry based on the meetup attendee list. You will be asked to provide your name, surname and affiliation. You have to be an adult to attend. Upon entering the venue, you agree that you might be photographed/filmed.

Schedule:

18:00-18:30 - Registration & coffee
18:30-20:15 - Talks and Q&A
20:15-23:00 - Afterparty

Afterparty:

After the presentations, stay with us for socializing and more discussions at the evening afterparty sponsored by Antmicro with a delicious cold and hot dinner menu, and a selection of regional craft beer and drinks!

Venue:

Concordia Design, Widok hall
Wyspa Slodowa 7, Wroclaw