Notes for the Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul - Rudy Rucker

Notes for The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul, by Rudy Rucker
the languages of humans and computers. In any given human society, children, poets, and
lovers all use the same language; the difference is that they use smaller or larger parts of the
language, with lesser or greater facility. But in the computer world there are strictly distinct
layers of language.
We’ll discuss five levels of computer language: microcode, assembly language, high
level language, object-oriented language, and design language. The higher levels depend
upon the lower levels.
Design Language
Object-Oriented Language (C++, Java)
High-Level Language (C, Pascal)
Assembly Language (Intel Assembly Language)
Microcode (Tells the processor how to interpret Machine Language instructions)
Levels of Computer Language
Microcode and BIOS
The microprocessor chip inside a desktop computer behaves a little like a moderately
intelligent cockroach that scuttles about upon the long ladders of memory inside your
machine. The cockroach microprocessor reads an instruction here, takes in a snippet of data
there, massages the data according to the instruction, and then writes the altered data
somewhere else.
The language that directs these inner workings of the microprocessor is called
microcode. Microcode is the purview of heavy-duty computer engineers who work at the
chip factories; generally a chip’s microcode is developed in tandem with the chip’s physical
design.
If you think of the chip as a little city with electrons racing up and down its streets,
then the microcode is like the program that controls this tiny city’s traffic lights. The
microcode is permanently etched into the silicon at the chip factory; it isn’t something the
ordinary user or even software programmer normally deals with or even thinks about very
much.
There is one exciting (for geeks) exception. If you get deeply involved in upgrading
and tweaking your computer, and start checking for hardware driver updates on the web, you
may from time to time be able to download new “BIOS” code for one of the chips in your
machine, perhaps for the main microprocessor or for a subsidiary processor that handles a
task like graphics. And then, oh joy!, you can “flash the BIOS” which means copying new
microcode onto the processor.
Flashing the BIOS is a slightly risky activity, perhaps on a par with open heart
surgery. A worst-case scenario arises if your computer loses power while in the midst of a
BIOS flash, like if you (duh!) turn off your computer or if you (whoops!) kick the plug out of
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