331
VHDL's Crown Jewel
How VHDL preserves determinism In this post, I would like to talk about VHDL’s crown jewel: how it preserves determinism in a concurrent language. Here is a figure of how it works:
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 4,805 posts.
Hardware & Electronics
Any year
332
New Apple Silicon M4 and M5 HiDPI Limitation on 4K External Displays
A regression in external display support on Apple Silicon M4/M5 generation chips prevents full HiDPI modes on 4K monitors, limiting users to either blurry non-HiDPI or reduced workspace HiDPI.
333
ESP32-S31: Dual-Core RISC-V SoC with Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and Advanced HMI
ESP32-S31 delivers comprehensive multi-protocol connectivity, rich multimedia interfaces, and hardware-accelerated security for next-generation IoT applications.
334
A laser-based process that enables adhesive-free paper packaging
Paper packaging offers a number of advantages over its plastic counterparts: It has a high recycling rate, lower CO₂ emissions, and lower disposal costs. However, it cannot yet be sealed without adhesives or layers of plastic—a disadvantage for manufacturing and recycling processes. In the PAPURE project, four…
335
Bring Back MiniDV with This Raspberry Pi FireWire Hat
In my last post, I showed you to use FireWire on a Raspberry Pi with a PCI Express IEEE 1394 adapter. Now I'll show you how I'm using a new FireWire HAT and a PiSugar3 Plus battery to make a portable MRU, or 'Memory Recording Unit', to replace tape in older FireWire/i.Link/DV cameras. The alternative is an old used…
336
Hold on to Your Hardware
A warning about rising prices, vanishing consumer choice, and a future where owning a computer may matter more than ever as hardware, power, and control drift toward data centers and away from people.
337
Using FireWire on a Raspberry Pi
After learning Apple killed off FireWire (IEEE 1394) support in macOS 26 Tahoe, I started looking at alternatives for old FireWire equipment like hard drives, DV cameras, and A/V gear. I own an old Canon GL1 camera, with a 'DV' port. I could plug that into an old Mac (like the dual G4 MDD above) with FireWire—or even…
338
A nearly perfect USB cable tester
Your USB cables may lie to your PC. Let me show you how to catch those.
339
Running Tesla Model 3's computer on my desk using parts from crashed cars
David Schütz's bug bounty writeups
340
Arm AGI CPU
Arm introduces the Arm AGI CPU to power agentic AI infrastructure with rack-scale performance, efficiency and scalable compute for next-generation data centers.
341
IRIX 3dfx Voodoo driver and glide2x IRIX port
At the moment only SST1 (Voodoo1) is supported on IP32 (O2). Only tested on IRIX 6.5.30 with RM7000C CPU. -driver sources (SST1 and CVG support on IP32) https://github.com/sdz-mods/tdfx_irix -glide2x IRIX port (SST1 on IP32) https://github.com/sdz-mods/glide_irix -hinv wrapper with 3dfx support…
342
Box of Secrets: Discreetly modding an apartment intercom to work with Apple Home
Discreetly modding my friend’s apartment intercom to work with Apple Home.
343
What came after the 486?
Changing from part numbers had benefits for Intel, but it took time
344
My DIY FPGA board can run Quake II
kind of a blog
345
Building an FPGA 3dfx Voodoo with Modern RTL Tools
This frame of Screamer 2 was rendered not by an original 3dfx card and not by an emulator, but by an FPGA reimplementation of the Voodoo 1 that I wrote in SpinalHDL. Available on GitHub .
346
BIO: The Bao I/O Coprocessor
BIO is the I/O co-processor in the Baochip-1x, a mostly open source 22nm SoC I helped design. You can read more about the Baochip-1x’s background here , or pick up an evaluation board at Crowd Supply .
347
How many branches can your CPU predict?
Modern processors have the ability to execute many instructions per cycle, on a single core. To be able to execute many instructions per cycle in practice, processors predict branches. I have made the point over the years that modern CPUs have an incredible ability to predict branches. It makes benchmarking difficult…
348
Write up of my homebrew CPU build
The blog of an engineer from Canada
349
What makes Intel Optane stand out (2023)
Once in a while new hardware is released that makes a difference. Such a device is the Intel Optane series of high-performance SSD’s for professional use, which was released in late 2017. In this case I’m talking about the Intel Optane P4800X and P5800X and their consumer counterparts ( 900P and 905P ). All drives are…
350
Rack-mount hydroponics
how to grow plants in a server rack
351
Starlink militarization and its impact on global strategic stability (2023)
In this piece, two researchers from PLA-affiliated National University of Defense Technology argue that Starlink will negatively impact global stability, in light of its clear military applications, increased risks of accidents and collisions in space, and SpaceX's close relationship with the U.S. military. The…
352
Electric motor scaling laws and inertia in robot actuators
Engineering contraptions
353
Big data on the cheapest MacBook
How does the latest entry-level MacBook perform on database workloads? We benchmarked it using ClickBench and TPC-DS SF300. We found that it could complete both workloads, sometimes with surprisingly good results.
354
Home Assistant waters my plants
Some readers will know, but most will not, that I am a bit of a self-confessed foodie. I enjoy cooking, but especially so when others get enjoyment from it. Be it friends, family, or neighbours, and sometimes all three, I’m always up for putting something together.
355
Kona EV Hacking
Header page for hacks and investigations of the Hyundai Kona electric vehicle
356
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The MacBook Neo
May the MacBook Neo live so long that its name becomes inapt.
358
RISC-V Is Sloooow
143 vs 36 minutes is far too big difference
359
Show HN: How I topped the HuggingFace open LLM leaderboard on two gaming GPUs
ML, Biotech, Hardware, and Coordination Problems. Sometimes I write about hard problems and how to solve them.
360
DDR4 Sdram – Initialization, Training and Calibration
A detailed tutorial on DDR4 SDRAM Initialization, Training and Calibration. Exploring topics such as Read/Write Training, ZQ Calibration, Vref Training, Read Centering, Write Centering, Write Leveling and Periodic Calibration.