Hardware Archive

"In the past five years, flash memory has progressed from a promising accelerator, whose place in the data center was still uncertain, to an established enterprise component for storing performance-critical data. It's rise to prominence followed its proliferation in the consumer world and the volume economics that followed. With SSDs, flash arrived in a form optimized for compatibility - just replace a hard drive with an SSD for radically better performance. But the properties of the NAND flash memory used by SSDs differ significantly from those of the magnetic media in the hard drives they often displace. While SSDs have become more pervasive in a variety of uses, the industry has only just started to design storage systems that embrace the nuances of flash memory. As it escapes the confines of compatibility, significant improvements in performance, reliability, and cost are possible."

AlienWare (so Dell) has just unveiled a gaming PC running Ubuntu and Steam, designed to be hooked up to a TV - essentially a Steambox. "With over 25 gaming titles available and more being added, users can access Steam For Linux to play online games, including your favorite titles like Team Fortress 2 and Serious Sam 3." Everything starts out small, but with Valve going full throttle with this, expect this library to grow.

Steve Mann on his 35-year history building and wearing computerised eyewear. "Was it blind luck (pardon the expression) that I was wearing this vision-enhancing system at the time of the accident? Not at all: I have been designing, building, and wearing some form of this gear for more than 35 years." Glass has the potential to have a huge impact on the world - and just like with the advent of the mobile phone, people are afraid, cynical, and unable to see the possibly huge benefits of systems like this.

"The story of how the Colossus computer at Bletchley Park aided the allied code-cracking effort during World War II is becoming well known. Its claim to be a forerunner of modern-day computers is also well established. What is much less well known is the tale of how Colossus's story came to be told in the first place. It is a tale of how one man's dogged efforts overcame official secrets and official indifference to rewrite computer history. Computer scientist Brian Randell was the man who started uncovering the history of Colossus."

"Dell today announced it has signed a definitive merger agreement under which Michael Dell, Dell's Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, in partnership with global technology investment firm Silver Lake, will acquire Dell." So, Dell has gone private, and Microsoft has contributed a $2 billion loan to the deal.

The title is pretty much self-explanatory - oh UEFI. "You can read more of what is known at H-Online, but the short summary is this: Samsung's UEFI implementation appears to be faulty. It was most likely tested with Windows only and found to work, but thorough testing with other operating systems doesn't appear to have been a priority - or perhaps a consideration at all. At present, the bug appears to affect Samsung 530U3C, 300E5C, NP700Z5C, NP700Z7C, and NP900X4C series laptops; if you have one of those laptops, we recommend you exercise extreme caution if you have a need to boot into a Linux environment."

"The arithmetic-logic unit is a fundamental part of any computer, performing addition, subtraction, and logic operations, but how it works is a mystery to many people. I've reverse-engineered the ALU circuit from the 8085 microprocessor and explain how it works. The 8085's ALU is a surprisingly complex circuit that at first looks like a mysterious jumble of gates, but it can be understood if you don't mind diving into some Boolean logic."

"Acer, the Taiwanese computer maker that's suffered two consecutive annual losses, posted strong sales of notebooks using Google's Chrome platform after the release of Microsoft's Windows 8 failed to ignite the market. Chrome-based models accounted for 5 percent to 10 percent of Acer's U.S. shipments since being released there in November, President Jim Wong said in an interview at the Taipei-based company's headquarters. That ratio is expected to be sustainable in the long term and the company is considering offering Chrome models in other developed markets, he said." HP is also planning a Chrome OS laptop, and it's been at the top of Amazon's charts (whatever that means) for a while now. In case you haven't noticed - the desktop world, too, is changing. Nobody wants Windows 8 (touch or no), so OEMs are finally looking elsewhere. We're finally getting what we wanted 13 years ago.

"In this article, I show at the transistor and silicon level. I've discussed the mathematics of the 6502 overflow flag earlier and thought it would be interesting to look at the actual chip-level implementation. Even though the overflow flag is a slightly obscure feature, its circuit is simple enough that it can be explained at the silicon level."

"Dell, the personal-computer maker that lost almost a third of its value last year, is in buyout talks with private-equity firms, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The shares surged." So yeah, like I said - no wonder Microsoft has entered the hardware business. The PC OEM era is over.

Asus is the company that shook up the laptop market a couple of years ago with their introduction of the EeePC netbook. And with their announcement that they will no longer be producing netbooks in 2013, Charles Arthur over at the Guardian UK has declared that the netbook era has now come to an end. Sad news for those of us who still love our netbooks! Harry McCracken over at Time Mag thinks they'll be back. Anybody who spends time wiping the smears off their tablet's touchscreen might agree.

Last month, I explained why I use generic desktops and laptops running open source software. They're reliable and inexpensive. But this presumes you can fix them. I believe that even those with no hardware training (like me), can identify and fix most hardware problems. To prove it, here's a quick guide. Feel free to add whatever I've missed.

"I was prepared to write that the Windows 8 interface was forcing unnecessary touchscreen controls on people who wouldn't appreciate them, particularly if they were simply grafted onto a traditional laptop. But the more I've used Windows 8, despite its faults, the more I've become convinced that touchscreens are the future - even vertical ones." I can see his point. I, too, have often felt the desire to touch regular and laptop displays, especially when doing things like photo and video.

Something truly interesting is currently happening in the PC space. Ask any random internet commenter how the PC market is doing, and I'm pretty sure you're going to get something along the lines of 'everybody but Apple is failing'. Turns out this isn't the case - Lenovo has just become the world's largest PC and laptop vendor, after three years of steady growth in sales and profits. "During the second fiscal quarter, Lenovo's worldwide PC shipments grew 10.3 percent, in a difficult market that was down eight percent year-over-year, the 14th quarter in a row that the company has grown faster than the PC industry as a whole. In this challenging environment, Lenovo achieved its highest-ever worldwide market share of 15.6 percent, gaining share points in every geography, every product category in which it competes, and in every respective customer segment." Very impressive.