Hardware Archive

Does the Mac Mini Stack Up?: A Comparison

Guest post by Brian "eXtra heavy" Czarski 2005-01-19 Hardware 258 Comments

I have been an omni-platform user, Windows, OS X and Linux user for some time now. I love different things about each platform and loathe just as much as I like about all three. The release of the Mac Mini at MacWorld really made me wonder if Apple made good move in jumping into the low range market. I decided the best way to see was to compare the Mini to my primary box, a similar system in specifications and price.

Hardware Today: HPC Server Snapshot

Submitted by Ken Farmer 2005-01-14 Hardware 2 Comments

ServerWatch: Vast marketing budgets from the likes of Dell, Microsoft, and IBM ensure the behemoths take much of the server limelight, leaving high-performance computing (HPC) niche players, such as NEC and Bull, to receive scant coverage. Even a company like HP, which spends as much on marketing and public relations as a small country's GDP, hardly seems to give its AlphaServer line more than a mention. Yet, these platforms have a lot to offer and shouldn't be automatically bypassed. Read part one...

Programming the cache on the PowerPC

Submitted by Mai 2005-01-07 Hardware 4 Comments

While many programs can obtain acceptable performance by simply letting the processor manage its own caching, programs with special requirements may obtain dramatically improved performance by giving the processor explicit instructions and manipulating the cache directly. More typically, boot firmware may need to flush and enable the cache.

The Year 2004 in Microprocessors

David Adams 2005-01-01 Hardware 4 Comments

From spintronics to clockless CPUs, 2004 was a year of process and research in the microprocessor industry. As a way to transition into the new year, this article offers a month-by-month look at the highlights of the 2004 microprocessor timeline.

Great Moments in Microprocessor History

David Adams 2004-12-27 Hardware 28 Comments

The microprocessor changed the world: how did we get from the first 4-bit models in the 1970s to today's 64-bit multicore monsters? This article covers the history of the micro from the vacuum tube to today's dual-core multithreaded madnes.

Implications for Power Architecture

David Adams 2004-12-21 Hardware 25 Comments

Major electronics companies have come together to form a new standards body focused on Power Architecture technology. Power.org will create and promote a family of standards, reference designs, and more. Here's a developer's-eye view of the future and implications for Power Architecture standardization.

Interview with VIA Regarding the EPIA Platform

Submitted by Sebastian S. 2004-12-18 Hardware 19 Comments

In the past months we came across a variety of issues that we wanted to discuss with the company that came up with the Mini-ITX form-factor and the EPIA boards. In the past weeks we also collected our readers’ questions and included them in this interview. EpiaCenter.com features an interview with VIA's Werner du Plessis.

Recent HP-Intel Announcements About Itanium

Submitted by Bob Gezelter 2004-12-17 Hardware 18 Comments

Bob Gezelter writes: On December 16th, an article was posted on OSNews that stated, in effect, that HP was "Exiting Itanium". A careful review of the facts suggests that this press report was based upon an incomplete understanding of the HP-Intel arrangememnts. I have just published an article on OpenVMS.org, based directly on public published information, containing a more complete reprise of this week's announcements. Update: HP will be investing $3 billion on its Itanium-based server line.

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InfoWorld Thinks Apple Will Use IBM’s Power5 Sometime in 2005

David Adams 2004-12-16 Hardware 45 Comments

In a special report on IBM's Power5 Processor family, the bigger, badder cousin of the G5 PowerPC processor Apple uses in Power Mac and iMac models, InfoWorld predicts that some form of the Power5 will make its way to a Mac soon."PowerPC and Power form a continuum of compatible, and now open, processor designs," writes reported Tom Yaeger, "and our guess is that the Power5 design will arrive in some form in an Apple machine in 2005.

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HP Exits Itanium Project

Submitted by Tim Hawkins - Rack64.com 2004-12-16 Hardware 56 Comments

There have been several reports that HP has closed the door on Itanium. Officially, HP will no longer contribute to designs of the CPU and Intel will purchase HP's development team to end the joint project.

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Stealth Desktop Part IV: Removable Drives and Scanners

Eugenia Loli 2004-12-11 Hardware 19 Comments

This time Eduardo turns to issues more related to hardware. First we'll see how to enable removable drives in a Slack installation, with especial attention to floppies; and then Eduardo will examine how to setup new hardware, using a scanner as an example, since its setup was tricky. Read the whole adventure at OfB.biz. My Take: Honestly, I hope someone could come up with an administrative GUI for DevFS & uDev so users can set permissions on device nodes without having their heads explode.

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Review: The LC2100 LinuxCertified Laptop

Eugenia Loli 2004-12-06 Hardware 63 Comments

LinuxCertified.com offers a solution for the users who require ultimate mobility: the LC2100 laptop loaded with the Linux of your choice. For more info and screenshots/images, read more.

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Quick Review: PC Chips’ X-Eye Webcam

Eugenia Loli 2004-12-01 Hardware 31 Comments

A quick visit to Frys Electronics last weekend left me with (yet another) webcam. But not an ordinary webcam: this is an utrla tiny cam, created specifically to mount on laptops!

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dmidecode: What’s it good for?

Eugenia Loli 2004-11-29 Hardware 11 Comments

The dmidecode project provides the means to learn exactly what claims your BIOS is making about your hardware. Strange as it might seem, it's useful information, even when it's not 100% reliable.

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LinuxCertified LC2430 Laptop Review

Eugenia Loli 2004-11-05 Hardware 81 Comments

San Jose-based LinuxCertified.com sent us one of their best-selling laptops, the LC2430. We've used it for more than a month with four different distributions and here's what we think about it.

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Processor Fabrication: How a CPU is Built

Submitted by Tudy 2004-11-04 Hardware 13 Comments

While it's nice to just look at the finished product itself, sometimes it's useful to go back and look at how it's made. Especially today in the silicon industry, where both major players in the x86 desktop market are having issues with their top end products. Another large member of the industry, IBM, is also finding the going at 90nanometer a lot harder than they predicted. Today on Sudhian, we'll take a look at just how a processor goes from essentially sand to a fully functioning integrated circuit, and all the steps in between.

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New Nanofabric Could Revolutionize Computing

David Adams 2004-10-22 Hardware 14 Comments

A new type of material, called graphene, is a gigantic wafer-shaped single molocule the thickness of an atom. Graphene is a member of the fullerene molecule family, like buckyballs and nanotubes. It could make a great semiconductor material, allowing for ultra-fast, stable transistors. More at BBCNews.

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Freescale gets back in the game

Guest post by Nicholas Blachford 2004-10-13 Hardware 58 Comments

Apple and PC users alike criticised Motorola when the G4 CPUs failed to keep pace with the aggressive clock speed ramping of processors from AMD and Intel. The newly announced 8641D with dual cores, dual DDR-II memory controllers and more is set to change all that.

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Gumstix and eInk – A glimpse of future plans?

Guest post by Jaapjan Tinbergen 2004-09-15 Hardware 10 Comments

Gumstix is something I've ran into during my ever-continuous search for high tech gadgets in the embedded world. I like staying up to date with Via Mini- and NanoITX boards, iPaq's running Linux and things like Sony Librie and their restrictive DRM. It is an ever changing world out there, especially with the recent rise of iTunes and the MS-music store. These too try new techniques for a good balance between security and piracy. But I wasn't going to go into this. Too deeply. To get back on the road I'll tell you a little secret.

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AMD Goes Dual Core; Sun Offers Opteron Workstations

Submitted by Bascule 2004-09-09 Hardware 8 Comments

AMD demonstrated a dual-core Opteron design a week before Intel was set to demo theirs. In other Opteron news Sun has become the first tier 1 vendor to offer Opteron workstations: the single CPU W1100z and the dual CPU W2100z. Update: AMD Athlon 64 3800 CPU Review.

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