Pakistan Aims to Double IT Industry in Two Years With Tech Zones: Bloomberg

[Goenitz]

Believe me, it doesn't take a lot of money to devise the two fundamental elements of the classical computer : the microprocessor and the operating system.

For the OS you will need any computer, a comfortable compiler set targeting a processor, the processor's emulator, pen and paper, white board ( if you are a team ) and some sleepless nights.

For the processor, again you need pen and paper, design documentation on a computer, white board etc. Once you are ready with the initial design you will need a FPGA board and a PC to prototype the processor. And if you are collaborating with a college you may get a discount on the FPGA board. This will not be out of reach for any college.

Twice or thrice I have tagged @Baz2020 but got no reply from him. Some time ago he had posted on PDF calling for Pakistanis to contribute to the design of a new, from-scratch-designed Pakistani OS that he called MarkhorOS.

@WebMaster @ps3linux @fitpOsitive @RealNapster @Jf Thunder @Mentee @Zibago @Goenitz, please see if you can contribute to the devising of a Pakistani processor and OS. It will be a great intellectual challenge.

Man... I am not into IT.. However, I think our communication, network systems and internet devices, all are vulnerable. The more we digitise, I think it can turn into a hostage situation. Such as, controlling our power plants with automation system. A virus, or malware can destroy the city power supply.

Then our privacy will be completely dependent on the west/korea/china, and we can easily a digital colony of the system host country.

 

[S.Y.A]

Like I said earlier, the path to Pakistan's progress in computing goes through devising the fundamental elements : Processor and OS.

nearly every university, in Pakistan, offering a course in digital systems design has students designing some sort of a processor, or verification tool chain. the issue is that our investors have never thought about those things, they simply lack the mental capacity to think about anything other than land, wheat, textile and sugar.
The best thing to do is to invite fabless semiconductor companies, and ask them to open design centers here (I currently only know of two small ones: lampro mellon by naveed sherwani in lahore, and think big semiconductors for smart NICs in karachi). there are hundreds, if not thousands of engineers who graduate each year with the required skill set, and usually leave the country because they cant find a job related to this field here. some of them get hired by strategic orgs or private companies offering design services to the military, and that is about it.

 

[jamahir]

Man... I am not into IT.. However, I think our communication, network systems and internet devices, all are vulnerable. The more we digitise, I think it can turn into a hostage situation. Such as, controlling our power plants with automation system. A virus, or malware can destroy the city power supply.

You are correct. And one example of attack on computers was the Stuxnet virus attack on Iranian nuclear centrifuges some years ago. The virus was devised by USA and Israel and targeted Windows OS running on a type of Siemens industrial computer. This was not a network attack because these computers were not connected to the internet. This was what is called an "air gap" crossing attack where the virus was carried on a USB pen drive and infected the computer when the drive was inserted.

Then our privacy will be completely dependent on the west/korea/china, and we can easily a digital colony of the system host country.

Which is why it is important for a country to have its own designed computer systems. Or have a joint collaboration with allies.

nearly every university, in Pakistan, offering a course in digital systems design has students designing some sort of a processor, or verification tool chain.

What processors are these ? Are these processors some implementation of older ones like MIPS, POWER etc ? Or are they new ones ? Do they cross FPGA prototyping ?

The best thing to do is to invite fabless semiconductor companies, and ask them to open design centers here (I currently only know of two small ones: lampro mellon by naveed sherwani in lahore, and think big semiconductors for smart NICs in karachi). there are hundreds, if not thousands of engineers who graduate each year with the required skill set, and usually leave the country because they cant find a job related to this field here.

Why can't these engineers be encouraged to start their own from-scratch design fabless companies ?

And the homepage of Lampro Mellon says the company is into RISC-V based designs. Not from-scratch design.

 

[hydrabadi_arab]

Believe me, it doesn't take a lot of money to devise the two fundamental elements of the classical computer : the microprocessor and the operating system.

For the OS you will need any computer, a comfortable compiler set targeting a processor, the processor's emulator, pen and paper, white board ( if you are a team ) and some sleepless nights.

For the processor, again you need pen and paper, design documentation on a computer, white board etc. Once you are ready with the initial design you will need a FPGA board and a PC to prototype the processor. And if you are collaborating with a college you may get a discount on the FPGA board. This will not be out of reach for any college.

Twice or thrice I have tagged @Baz2020 but got no reply from him. Some time ago he had posted on PDF calling for Pakistanis to contribute to the design of a new, from-scratch-designed Pakistani OS that he called MarkhorOS.

@WebMaster @ps3linux @fitpOsitive @RealNapster @Jf Thunder @Mentee @Zibago @Goenitz, please see if you can contribute to the devising of a Pakistani processor and OS. It will be a great intellectual challenge.

Right now Pakistan efforts in IT is about increasing exports to $10 billion by 2025.

 

[jamahir]

Right now Pakistan efforts in IT is about increasing exports to $10 billion by 2025.

And Indian IT services industry earns lot more than that, but it is mostly nothing innovative. It's all about using Western-designed software and hardware.

 

[TheSnakeEatingMarkhur]

listening about this so called upcoming boom for the last 2 decades.

2 decades and boom in IT industry we have been growing slowly no one claimed boom in IT industry

 

[nahtanbob]

But Linux is complicated hence it is not used in critical sectors. For example, will you trust a Linux-managed nuclear reactor ?



Well, designing that came naturally to me but I will point out a fact : In India more than 160,000 computer engineers graduate from colleges every year and this has been so for at least the last 20 years, so India has at least 3 million computer engineers, yet why is there not a single Indian microprocessor and not a single operating system ?



How do you mean ?

It is obvious you know little about the business & economics of technology

You are correct. And one example of attack on computers was the Stuxnet virus attack on Iranian nuclear centrifuges some years ago. The virus was devised by USA and Israel and targeted Windows OS running on a type of Siemens industrial computer. This was not a network attack because these computers were not connected to the internet. This was what is called an "air gap" crossing attack where the virus was carried on a USB pen drive and infected the computer when the drive was inserted.



Which is why it is important for a country to have its own designed computer systems. Or have a joint collaboration with allies.

You make it sound like the CIA cannot obtain information about native computer system

That first paragraph is a good reason to invest in computer security. I would rather invest there rather than reinvent the wheel on microprocessor/operating systems

You should learn from the Indian experience where the IT industry is mainly services-based to be done for Western clients. The products are mainly e-retail apps and websites for food ordering, taxi ordering, groceries ordering, clothes ordering, spectacles ordering etc ( Zomato, Ola, Big Basket etc ). There are also payment apps. One product from the huge company Infosys is a banking software that works under capitalist, interest-based economic system hence it should not be allowed.

Like I said earlier, the path to Pakistan's progress in computing goes through devising the fundamental elements : Processor and OS.

Storage, Networking, distributed systems, security and databases are all fundamental to computing

 

[xyxmt]

Believe me, it doesn't take a lot of money to devise the two fundamental elements of the classical computer : the microprocessor and the operating system.

For the OS you will need any computer, a comfortable compiler set targeting a processor, the processor's emulator, pen and paper, white board ( if you are a team ) and some sleepless nights.

For the processor, again you need pen and paper, design documentation on a computer, white board etc. Once you are ready with the initial design you will need a FPGA board and a PC to prototype the processor. And if you are collaborating with a college you may get a discount on the FPGA board. This will not be out of reach for any college.

Twice or thrice I have tagged @Baz2020 but got no reply from him. Some time ago he had posted on PDF calling for Pakistanis to contribute to the design of a new, from-scratch-designed Pakistani OS that he called MarkhorOS.

@WebMaster @ps3linux @fitpOsitive @RealNapster @Jf Thunder @Mentee @Zibago @Goenitz, please see if you can contribute to the devising of a Pakistani processor and OS. It will be a great intellectual challenge.

with a help from your instructions, my Computer and micro processor is almost ready.

 

[Kamikaze Pilot]

You should learn from the Indian experience where the IT industry is mainly services-based to be done for Western clients. The products are mainly e-retail apps and websites for food ordering, taxi ordering, groceries ordering, clothes ordering, spectacles ordering etc ( Zomato, Ola, Big Basket etc ). There are also payment apps. One product from the huge company Infosys is a banking software that works under capitalist, interest-based economic system hence it should not be allowed.

Like I said earlier, the path to Pakistan's progress in computing goes through devising the fundamental elements : Processor and OS.

No socialism for Pakistan like you repeatedly harp for India?

- PRTP GWD

 

[S.Y.A]

Why can't these engineers be encouraged to start their own from-scratch design fabless companies ?

And the homepage of Lampro Mellon says the company is into RISC-V based designs. Not from-scratch design.

1. no money, and no support form govt. EDA tools of cadence and synopsis are expensive as hell.

2. no need for "from scratch" designs. why reinvent the wheel? being able to design risc-v based contorllers and processors means one has enough knowhow to design a product that can be used in the field.

 

[jamahir]

1. no money, and no support form govt. EDA tools of cadence and synopsis are expensive as hell.

Just for my own knowledge, at what stage in the design do these tools come in ? I mean if one does prototyping on a FPGA board ( from Xilinx, Altera and Intel ) then these boards come with dev tools, yes ?

why reinvent the wheel?

Mainly as an intellectual challenge but also a matter of prestige and national security.

 

[jamahir]

It is obvious you know little about the business & economics of technology

Educate me then.

You make it sound like the CIA cannot obtain information about native computer system

Well, if the native computer system is not connected to the internet and doesn't use auto-executed scripts then it would be difficult to obtain information.

That first paragraph is a good reason to invest in computer security.

Of course.

 

[nahtanbob]

Well, if the native computer system is not connected to the internet

I see someone has been living in the caves

 

[jamahir]

I see someone has been living in the caves

Why ?

 

[ssethii]

This guy has a fetish for "indigenous" stuff and as far as I have read, this is the mentality of the whole nation. when confronted he cannot even distinguish between asynchronous and combinational design and talks about processor design and stuff. I think he should be banned from all technology-related threads to stop wastage of our precious time and bandwidth. There was another guy who had a fetish for "patents" but haven't heard from him for a while maybe he too is wasting his time to elevate his "prestige" instead of doing something beneficial for society.