Hardware Archive

El Reg reviews the Dell Inspiron 6400, and concludes: "With a base price - for the T7200 Core 2 Duo - of GPB 789 inc. VAT and shipping, the Inspiron 6400 is an excellent and affordable route into the Core 2 Duo world. It has all the credentials to be a dependable multimedia companion with its great screen, comprehensive connectivity and decent processing power. But be aware it's neither exciting to look at nor to game on."

"The first One Laptop Per Child hardware devices are still months from deployment, but you can sneak a peek at their Sugar desktop environment and bundled applications by running an OS image under an emulator. It's a great way to finally get some hands-on time with this long-anticipated project, even though it's not perfect."

Azul unwrapped its newest chip the 48-core Vega2 today. It is the successor to last year's Vega1. This Java processor triples performance from the year-old part and has an attractive feature set. Let's start out with the systems. Azul does not sell chips, only complete machines. There is a two-chip, 96 core, 48GB model 3210 and a four-chip, 96-192GB model 3220. Both are 5U machines, with the 3210 pulling about 580W max and the 3220 pulling about 1000W. There will be eight and 16 socket machines coming in 2007.

El Reg has reviewed the Shuttle x100. "The Shuttle X100 is an unusual Windows PC that stands out thanks to its tiny size and stylish looks. It thoroughly deserves to reclaim the many receptionists' desks that are currently occupied by iMacs across the nation and it's ideal for duties in your living room where a noisy beige tower simply won't be tolerated."

"Leather, a material that calls to mind, at one extreme, Diana Rigg, tight thigh-length boots, the crack of the whip and, at the other, well-worn sofas, ancient libraries and the air of long-faded wealth. Somewhere in between sits Asus' latest leather-covered laptop, the W6Fp."

The University of Cambridge have joined forces with Dell to unveil one of the world's fastest supercomputers. The machine, called Darwin, consists of 2340 computers arranged in a cluster. It has been ranked as Europe's seventh fastest supercomputer, and the 20th fastest in the world, according to the top 500 list.

Dell today gave freelance programmer and sysadmin Dave Mitchell, of Sheffield, UK, a refund of 47 pounds (USD 89) for the unused copy of Microsoft Windows XP Home SP2 bundled with his new Dell Inspiron 640m laptop, Mitchell says. Dell also refunded the tax, for a total of GBP 55.23 (USD 105).

As Moore's Law continues to hold, IC designers are finding that they have more and more silicon real estate to play with. David Chisnall hazards some guesses as to what they might do with it.

El Reg reviews the Sony Vaio VGC-LA1, and concludes: "Sony has engineered a superbly attractive piece of kit in the LA1 but at this price point we expect something that is far more serious and ideally has a larger screen. As things stand the price would need to come down significantly to make the LA1 really appealing to anyone who values performance and functionality over looks."

Who makes the most reliable computers? Lenovo, closely followed by Apple, if you believe online service and support company Rescuecom's latest reliability audit, derived from more than 20,000 calls made by the firm's customers during the second quarter this year. Rescuecom assigned a reliability rating to computer vendors. Lenovo, in its guise as provider of IBM desktops and notebooks, scored 243. Apple attained 201. Third-placed HP/Compaq scored a mere 12. Dell's rating was 4, Gateway -12 and all the rest together scored -16.

If the plan is perfectly executed, Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project will deploy 100 million laptops in the first year. In one fell swoop, the nonprofit organization will create the largest computing monoculture in history. Wary of the security risks associated with a computing monoculture - millions of machines with hardware and software of identical design - OLPC officials are seeking help from the world's best hackers to review the full specifications of the laptop's security model.

Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu engineers on Tuesday promised significant performance increases with two next-generation chips, models that they hope will help keep the Sparc line relevant. Company representatives speaking at the Fall Processor Forum promised significant gains over the chips' predecessors - the first Niagara (now called UltraSparc T1) and the single-core Sparc64 V.

"Few computers have more right to the term 'business machine' than the ThinkPad laptop series - and not just because the brand was developed by a company named International Business Machines (IBM). Traditionally ThinkPads have been built for speed and durability, but recently GNU/Linux users have discovered that the ThinkPad is built for compatibility as well. The latest in the ThinkPad T series is a landmark in several ways: it's the first to use a Core Duo processor; the first to be made and sold by Lenovo instead of IBM; and the first to offer official manufacturer support for GNU/Linux."

Imagine a computer formed from a mixture of technologies ranging from relays to fluidic logic. Now imagine being able to create a single piece of such a computer (perhaps as small as a single word of memory) in the technology of your choice, and then using the Internet to run your masterpiece in conjunction with other portions of the system created by contributors located around the world! Author Clive Maxfield explains the creation of just such a computing engine and how you can be involved.