Hardware Archive

How to Integrate SATA and IDE Drives

Howard Fosdick 2012-02-29 Hardware 15 Comments

Current computers use SATA disk drives. Pentium IV's and earlier computers used the IDE drive standards. How can you intermix SATA and IDE disk drives? This article discusses the options. It is the next in my series of articles on computer refurbishing.

Dell unveils new servers, says not a PC company

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-28 Hardware 23 Comments

"Dell launched a new line of servers for enterprise customers, boosting its corporate business unit and shifting its focus further away from consumers, who are increasingly choosing such devices as Apple's iPad. Chief Executive Michael Dell said his namesake company is no longer a personal computer company and has transformed itself into a business that sells services and products to corporations, a lucrative market that he said is worth $3 trillion." PC has become a dirty word. All part of the war on general purpose computing.

We can do no Moore: a transistor from single atom

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-20 Hardware 28 Comments

"A group of researchers has fabricated a single-atom transistor by introducing one phosphorous atom into a silicon lattice. Through the use of a scanning tunnelling microscope and hydrogen-resist lithography, Martin Fuechsle et al. placed the phosphorous atom precisely between very thin silicon leads, allowing them to measure its electrical behavior. The results show clearly that we can read both the quantum transitions within the phosphorous atom and its transistor behavior. No smaller solid-state devices are possible, so systems of this type reveal the limit of Moore's law - the prediction about the miniaturization of technology - while pointing toward solid-state quantum computing devices."

The Transparency Grenade

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-20 Hardware 62 Comments

No matter where you look these days, there's a profound sense here in the west that the people no longer having any tangible control over what our governments do. Sure, we are allowed to vote every once in a while, but effectively, most of our countries are governed by backroom deals and corporate interests. If matters really do get out of hand, how do we fight this? Well, with technology of course!

Engineers boost computer processor performance by over 20%

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-08 Hardware 13 Comments

"Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique that allows graphics processing units and central processing units on a single chip to collaborate - boosting processor performance by an average of more than 20 percent."

Raspberry Pi To Hit Store Late February

Thom Holwerda 2012-02-07 Hardware 10 Comments

Big news from the Raspberry Pi front today - they have a manufacturing date. "The boards will be finished on February 20. Eben and I may be going to China to make sure that the boards can be brought up properly for that date if necessary. We'll be airfreighting them to the UK immediately, so you should be able to buy them before the end of the month."

Submitted by sawboss 2012-01-31 Hardware 11 Comments

When the Raspberry Pi ships later this year, it will be delivered to your door as a finished unit. The more adventurous tinkerers among you, as well as adept system builders, have asked the Raspberry Pi Foundation why they can’t get them in kit form instead. The reason why that wasn’t considered is demonstrated in an image released by Broadcom . . . they are tiny. And unlike a typical system build using an x86 chip that just slots into place, installing these chips requires a very steady hand and just the right amount of solder.

CPU Startup Combines CPU+DRAM – and a Whole Bunch of Crazy

Thom Holwerda 2012-01-23 Hardware 22 Comments

"The CPU design firm Venray Technology announced a new product design this week that it claims can deliver enormous performance benefits by combining CPU and DRAM on to a single piece of silicon. We spent some time earlier this fall discussing the new TOMI (Thread Optimized Multiprocessor) with company CTO Russell Fish, but while the idea is interesting; its presentation is marred by crazy conceptualizing and deeply suspect analytics."

Submitted by Elv13 2012-01-11 Hardware 48 Comments

"Raspberry Pis started being made a couple of days ago, but I was forbidden to tell you about it until signed contracts and receipts for payment had arrived - it's been killing me, especially since I've had tens of you asking me when manufacturing would start every day for the last few weeks. I am not good at keeping secrets." No more secrets to keep, Liz! I can't wait to place my order.

Vizio Enters PC Market with Beautiful All-in-one, Laptop

Thom Holwerda 2012-01-09 Hardware 60 Comments

The news I've seen coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show this year isn't particularly breathtaking or awe-inspiring. Phones, tablets, faster, thinner, yes, yes, we've all been here before. There is one piece of news, however, that stands out from the crowd. The best-selling TV maker in the US, Vizio, is entering the PC market. Stunning designs for both laptop and all-in-one - and buried deep within the press release lies the creamy nougaty centre that makes me want to buy one even more: a Windows 7 install optimised by Microsoft, free of crapware.

CPU IO Ports on Non-x86 Architectures

Neolander 2011-12-30 Hardware 75 Comments

In the world of alternative OS development, portability across multiple architectures is a challenging goal. Sometimes, it may be intrinsically hard to come up with hardware abstractions that work well everywhere, but many times the core problem is one of missing information. Here, I aim at learning more about the way non-x86 architectures deal with CPU IO ports, and in particular how they prevent user-mode software from accessing them.

EXOdesk: Surface for Everyone

Thom Holwerda 2011-11-21 Hardware 23 Comments

Okay, I think we can all agree on the fact that while Microsoft's Surface machines might not be particularly useful for most of us, we all secretly want one, or something similar. Thanks to EXOPC, you'll now be able to: for $1299, you'll have a 40" multitouch interactive desk.

Submitted by lucas_maximus 2011-11-03 Hardware 127 Comments

A big issue right now in the world of operating systems - especially Linux - is Microsoft's requirement that all Windows 8 machines ship with UEFI's secure boot enabled, with no requirement that OEMs implement it so users can turn it off. This has caused some concern in the Linux world, and considering Microsoft's past and current business practices and the incompetence of OEMs, that's not unwarranted. CNet's Ed Bott decided to pose the issue to OEMs. Dell stated is has plans to include the option to turn secure boot off, while HP was a bit more vague about the issue.

ARM To Move to 64bit with ARMv8

Thom Holwerda 2011-10-28 Hardware 63 Comments

Big news from ARM over the past few days. The processor architecture, once strictly an embedded affair for low-power devices, is going big. Not only has ARM announced it's going 64bit, HP has announced it's going to build servers with ARM processors. It seems all the pieces are now in place for ARM.

Submitted by jefro 2011-10-13 Hardware 16 Comments

According to physorg.com (via popsci), the Cray Inc. XT5-HE supercomputer (Jaguar) is getting updated. The Department of Energy's Jaguar computer will be renamed Titan. This reported $97 million upgrade will be using AMD CPUs and NVIDIA Tesla GPUs and is claimed to "be at least twice as fast and three times as energy efficient as today's fastest supercomputer, which is located in Japan." Good news for gamers.

Nvidia’s Kal-El Tegra To Pack Five Cores

Thom Holwerda 2011-09-20 Hardware 9 Comments

"Nvidia has released a few technical details of its upcoming 'Kal-El' Tegra processor, including a secret it's done well to keep under its hat thus far: it's a five-core, not four-core, chip." This fifth core is low-power, and can be used for remedial tasks. Clever, although, as the article notes, not new.

Raspberry Pi Playing 1080p Video

Thom Holwerda 2011-09-08 Hardware 41 Comments

Remember the Raspberry Pi ARM board we talked about last week? Well, while running Quake III is all fine and dandy and illustrates the board is capable of something, it didn't really tell me anything since I'd guess few people are going to use such a board for gaming. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Raspberry Pi team posted another demo today - running 1080p video for eight hours straight. The chip was still cool to the touch. And just to reiterate: $25.

Raspberry Pi ARM Board Demonstrated Running Quake III

Thom Holwerda 2011-08-28 Hardware 48 Comments

We all know platforms like the Beagleboard, which are cheap hardware platforms which can be used in all sorts of projects. A new entry into this market is Raspberry Pi, a British ARM board which is slated to be released in the fourth quarter of this year. For a mere $25, you'll have a fully-configured ARM-based 1080p-capable mini-motherboard. The device is still in development, and only a few days ago, the alpha version of the board was demonstrated running Quake III.

Razer Blade: Superthin, Innovative Gaming Laptop

Thom Holwerda 2011-08-26 Hardware 74 Comments

The race to the bottom has wrecked havoc in the PC industry. The only PC maker with decent margins is Apple, and even they aren't doing anything particularly innovative. Razor, though, wants to buck the trend. After a ballsy marketing campaign, the company has unveiled the Razer Blade. The Razer Blade is what you get when you combine the team behind OQO, add some engineers from Dell, Apple, and others, and tell them to design the thinnest, most stylish gaming laptop - no questions asked. The result is striking.

Breaking: HP ‘Discontinues Operations for webOS Devices’

Thom Holwerda 2011-08-18 Hardware 128 Comments

Major bombshell, and sorry, but this certainly requires a breaking tag as well: HP has announced it is discontinuing operations for webOS devices - effective immediately. Just like that... The TouchPad and Pre 3 are dead. Eh. Raise your hands if this brings back those painful memories of that infamous 'Focus Shift'. In addition, the company also announced its intention to sell its personal computer business.