Hardware Archive

ExtremeTech explains how to build a rendering farm out of old computers. "At its core, a render farm is pretty simple: Seven or so machines on a network, a network-accessible storage location, a rendering app, and a queue manager. Putting it all together should be equally simple, right?"

What is slewing? Agere Systems Engineer Sean Schultz demonstrates the LCK4013 clocking device to implement flexible processor-slewing algorithms in a PowerPC 970 environment.

The same principals that brought the Linux operating system to the computer world are helping to propagate a new generation of computer hardware. Numerous processor designs are now being made open for anyone to modify and use. Examples are organizations such as Power.org, OpenCores.org and SPARC International.

If you are not lucky enough to have access to a 64-bit computer, you might be wondering about some of the implications of having a 32-bit environment alongside the 64-bit one. Read on.

It's only a matter of time before Sun Microsystems starts helping AMD enhance the Opteron chip, at least according to Sun. David Yen, executive vice president of the scalable systems group at Sun, said that the collaboration between the two will lead to cooperative efforts on AMD's flagship processor.

The floppy disk was well intended, but its usefulness is now gone. Now, over 30 years later, the floppy disk needs to go for good.

Scientists at Hewlett-Packard said that they had developed a new strategy for designing a quantum computer composed of switches of light beams that could be vastly more powerful than today's digital electronic computers, which are constructed from transistors.

There are increasing rumors that Alpha might be brought back to life. The Inq sets the big 'if' aside and explores the possiblities: "What if there really is a will to get Alpha back into the changed market? What sort of chip would it have to be to have that good chance of success, if any?"

In about three months, a little-known company called Novatium plans to offer a stripped-down home computer for about $70 or $75. That is about half the price of the standard "thin clients" of this kind now sold in India, made possible in part by some novel engineering choices.

Roomba manufacturer iRobot has released a new, programmable vacuuming robot with a "virtual walls" feature to keep the little guy penned in to a particular area. A $60 software/hardware upgrade is also available to late-model Roomba owners. Also from iRobot comes PackBot, a small reconnaissance robot for military use.

Are sub $300 PCs the wave of the future or is this just another fad? Flexbeta examines the effects cheap PCs may have on Microsoft, hardware vendors and the rest of the computing industry.

VIA issued a press release on Friday announcing their new C7 Processor. Noteworthy PVR related features include its low power consumption (2.0GHz at 20W, idle at 0.1W) and support for SSE2 and SSE3 (in addition to existing MMX and SSE support). In the crypto department, they've expanded their PadLock™ hardware crypto/security suite with this CPU by adding in full hardware SHA-1 and SHA-256 (20BGps), hardware assisted RSA (hardware Montgomery Multiplier), a beefed up RNG that feeds directly into the SHA units, and the NX bit.

We got in a new loaner from LinuxCertified.com, the brand new LC2210D model: a Centrino 1.80 GHz CPU, 512 MBs of RAM, Intel Extreme gfx card, 40 GB drive and a 14" XGA TFT screen. The laptop comes with the latest Ubuntu installed and sells for $1249. Read more for our review.

In a world of serial and parallel, it would not be simple for a new device connection to make its mark. Follow the USB standards success story to witness how this meritorious technology carved a place for itself. USB provides many benefits to users and vendors, but also see where it missed the boat.