Swizzle Sticks and Software Stacks (Bedrock 1.19.40)

Channel:

TheMindVirus

Subscribers:

278

Published on November 2, 2022 6:54:06 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VhidWk2e-w

Duration: 9:43

5 views

0

Minecraft got a silent update 9 patch versions ahead, doing only 1 thing:
It breaks Redstone contraptions deliberately. Not good from Microsoft.

The machines require a patch to circumvent an issue where a wire placed on a block does not normally power the Redstone Lamps next to it when powered from only Redstone Dust also next to it - only when there is a piece of Redstone placed on top, facing Dust also placed on the Lamp.
This gave the option of only powering certain adjacent lamps.

The new behaviour completely breaks the old behaviour and necessitates a complete redesign of the machine with the patch included. This is not the first time this has occurred on the same minor version silently.

The patch involves replacing the newly lit Lamp with a solid block, extracting the Redstone Dust from the other properly powered Lamp and bringing both Lamps outwards.

The patch will vary from machine to machine and will take longer to fix on larger machines - especially ones where this mechanism is nested on the inside of the machine making it more difficult to patch, changing the internal dimension requirements of the inside by 1 block and forcing everything to be shifted outwards in all directions.

This kind of silent breakage has the unnecessary side-effect of destroying multiplayer communities who are now on incompatible versions of the game and are trying to connect to "outdated servers". More server-side tolerance is required than what is currently being enforced and demonstrated if games like this are to be a success within a community of players and admins.

Now to the description of the machine itself, this follows another of Microsoft's silent errors but this time within the design of the Raspberry Pi RP2040's Programmable Input/Output (PIO) state machine.

While it is perhaps patchable in python, the current behaviour of loading bytes into the registers occurs in a "swizzled" pattern from the assembly.
The pattern is as follows: 1~2, 2~4, 3~6, 4~5, 5~1, 6~3 (2, 4, 6, 5, 1, 3)
(With no greater than or less than because YouTube uses an XML Parser).
This behaviour is good for spherical harmonic distortion for grub textures.

Swizzle Sticks and Refreshers used to be a brand of hard confectionery, which are still being manufactured in lower volumes than previously.
Software Stacks are as large as they are due to having to fix many
architectural flaws or mishaps lower down in the design layers.

There are hidden ops for which the design files must be released to the public and made open source for inspection and proper implementation.
Making things open source is a double-edged sword for big corporations.

If they close it, they prevent everyone from maintaining it in the long term.
If they open it, they prevent everyone from maintaining it in the short term.
If they keep it closed until such a point where it is ready to be made open,
this obtains the best of both worlds, but it remains to be seen and proven.