* Posts by bhtooefr

59 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Feb 2010

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Turkish groom accidentally sprays wedding guests with bullets

bhtooefr
Grenade

Journalist's Guide to Firearms Identification

http://blog.robballen.com/2009/09/08/p3717-because-im-nothing-if-not-helpful.post

Just because they say it's an AK-47 doesn't mean it is one. Or even close to one.

IBM launches zEnterprise 196 'data center in a box'

bhtooefr

Emulation

I was under the impression that the z/Arch CPUs were modified POWER CPUs anyway, just with different decode front ends and/or microcode.

So, if they're already using a POWER core, but instead running z/Arch instructions in hardware or microcode... that's better than having to translate to POWER instructions, and then to the micro-ops of the real CPU, no?

Pixel Qi releases sunlight-readable netbook screen

bhtooefr

Resolution

Looking at my netbook (which is an Aspire One D250 with a 1024x600 display, and I believe the same as the machine in the photo,) that ain't 1024x600. The icons are too small for that - I've got 3x7 icons on my desktop, and it takes up nearly as much space as the 4x8 icons on that desktop.

Although, who knows, that could've just been a prototype at that resolution, and Acer did sell a 1280x720 D250.

RISC OS runs on fastest hardware ever

bhtooefr

Wimp2

Niall Douglas actually did Wimp2, as well, although it basically needed a whitelist of software that it would work with, and it worked far better if stuff was coded to use it.

That said, I do wonder if adopting Wimp2, and porting as much as possible to natively use Wimp2 may be the best bet - it'll allow poorly behaved apps to run (although they'll be in the CMT environment - Wimp2 runs as a process within that CMT environment, essentially, IIRC,) while making (hopefully) the majority of apps in the future able to run in a true PMT environment.

(Also, extending Wimp2 to natively handle SMP wouldn't be a bad idea - seeing as ARM chips are going multicore, SMP is going to be useful.)

But, none of this is trivial, of course.

bhtooefr

Actually, it is in there

Check the RISC User CD...

Will Google have its chips?

bhtooefr

But modern CISC chips work differently...

Modern CISC chips break the CISC instructions up into RISC-like micro-ops, so unused instructions are just that - unused.

Acer Aspire One 532

bhtooefr
FAIL

1 GiB RAM limitation?

That's a bucket of fail, in 2010...

Although, I've seen some reports that 2 GiB worked. Might be worth trying modules with either more or less chips, could be picky about the organization.

HP slips Intel's desktop Cores into biz laptops

bhtooefr
FAIL

Standard voltage doesn't mean desktop.

The standard voltage parts are what you find in mainstream laptops - think 13.3"+ stuff, not gaming laptops.

In other words, these are still Arrandale, not Lynnfield or Clarkdale. (Nor are they Clarksfield, the quad-core mobile part based on Lynnfield.)

Even gaming laptops, nowadays I'd expect Clarksfield over Lynnfield or Clarkdale, except for the most insane stuff - AFAIK, the only laptop with a desktop i7 chip is the Clevo D900F, with a Bloomfield. Even Clevo's 18.4" stuff that and the Alienware M17x use mobile CPUs. (So, you get to choose between a 2.0 GHz quad-core and SLI, or a 3.33 GHz quad-core and no SLI. And, the 3.33 box could possibly go for Gulftown when it comes out, giving it six cores.)

Intel finds cure for CPU old age

bhtooefr
Alert

So now when newbies say "my computer's running slower than it used to"...

...they'll actually be telling the truth, and it won't just be their spyware infestation.

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