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ARM Mac: Why I'm Worried About Virtualization
It's late 2020 and you just got a brand-new Mac with Apple's own ARM processors. Exciting! But what will development be like?
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The case of the missing WAV audio files on the FAT32 SD Card
Buckle up kids, as this is a tale. As you may know, I have a lovely podcast at ...
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Write your own Virtual CPU in C++ (2014)
I've previously covered writing my own virtual CPU , but I never really fleshed it out and it was never a real thing... For a while, wel...
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Looking inside a vintage Soviet TTL logic integrated circuit
This blog post examines a 1980s chip used in a Soyuz space clock. The microscope photo below shows the tiny silicon die inside the package, ...
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The core memory inside a Saturn V rocket's computer
The Launch Vehicle Digital Computer (LVDC) had a key role in the Apollo Moon mission, guiding and controlling the Saturn V rocket. Like most...
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CERN at Home: Building a Particle Detector
What do you do when you’re stuck at home with a 16-year-old son during a pandemic lockdown? Well, the first answer is that you build a gaming PC. That was a good project with a lot of incentives to complete, but that also meant it was soon over. So, what next? I spotted a post about an outreach project from CERN to…
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Google Pixel Buds
Google Pixel Buds, available now with high-quality sound, clear calls and a sleek design for a great truly wireless earbuds experience.
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Turning the Raspberry Pi 4 into a Mini Server
Since the Raspberry Pi 4 came out last year, we now have an excellent candidate to base the mini server on. The faster processor and option for up to 8GB of RAM opens up more possibilities for what you can do with it, including now being more than capable as a general Linux desktop system, so with all that in mind…
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New MacBook Air released, pricing now starts at $999, features Magic Keyboard
Apple today updated MacBook Air, with faster performance, the new Magic Keyboard and twice the storage. It’s available for just $999.
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Upgrade Raspberry Pi 4 with a NVMe boot drive
You can upgrade the storage in your Raspberry Pi 4 with an NVMe drive using USB3 to get more reliable storage and faster I/O than an SD…
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Amazon RDS on Graviton2 Processors
I recently wrote a post to announce the availability of M6g, R6g and C6g families of instances on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). These instances offer better cost-performance ratio than their x86 counterparts. They are based on AWS-designed AWS Graviton2 processors, utilizing 64-bit Arm Neoverse N1 cores…
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DisplayPort and 4K
The Problem Video playback looks better with a higher scan rate. A lot of content that was designed for TV (EG almost all historical documentaries) is going to be 25Hz interlaced (UK and Australia)…
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Nvidia Releases Low-Cost, Open-Source Ventilator Design
Bringing together the world’s brightest minds and the latest accelerated computing technology leads to powerful breakthroughs that help tackle some of the biggest research problems....
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I made a macro keypad with 3D-printed switches
Latest on the 3d-printed keyboard switch project: I've reached a switch design that I think is probably reliable enough, and I've put 3 of them together to form a macro keypad just to see how it all goes together before I commit to a full keyboard. I don't have a number for how many presses the switch lasts, other…
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Extracting ROM constants from the 8087 math coprocessor's die
Intel introduced the 8087 chip in 1980 to improve floating-point performance on the 8086 and 8088 processors, and it was used with the ori...
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Pixelopolis, a self-driving car demo from Google I/O built with TensorFlow-Lite
Pixelopolis is an interactive installation that showcases self-driving miniature cars powered by TensorFlow Lite. Each car is outfitted with its own Pixel phone, which used its camera to detect and understand signals from the world around it. In order to sense lanes, avoid collisions and read traffic signs, the phone…
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PokéWalker hacking: A complete device takeover and ROM dump using infrared
Dmitry.GR: Complete device takeover by blinking at it!
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Physicists Build Circuit That Generates Clean, Limitless Power from Graphene
Researchers harnessed the atomic motion of graphene to generate an electrical current that could lead to a chip to replace batteries.
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The Intel 8086 processor's registers: from chip to transistors
The Intel 8086 microprocessor is one of the most influential chips ever created; it led to the x86 architecture that dominates desktop and...
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My New FreeBSD Laptop: Dell Latitude 7390
A few months ago, after my System76 Galago Pro had its second experience with a dead/swelling batery, I decided that it was time to replace it. On February 15th, I ordered a Dell Latitude 7390.
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Building a PC, Part IX: Downsizing
Hard to believe that I’ve had the same PC case since 2011, and my last serious upgrade was in 2015. I guess that’s yet another sign that the PC is over, because PC upgrades have gotten really boring. It took 5 years for me to muster up the
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Lasers etch a 'perfect' solar energy absorber
The same technology Rochester researchers used to create unsinkable metal structures can also be used to create highly efficient solar power generators.
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Next-generation solar cells pass strict international tests
Light-weight, cheap and ultra-thin, perovskite solar cells have promised to shake-up renewable energy for some time. Research by Professor Anita Ho-Baillie from the University of Sydney means they are ready to take the next steps towards commercialisation.
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Breaking Samsung Firmware, or Turning Your S8/S9/S10 into a DIY “Proxmark”
This post is a companion to the DEF CON 28 video available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLe-xW-Ws4c Breaking the Firmware of Samsung’s NFC Chips Recently I have been looking into how to push the capabilities of my old smartphones beyond what you could traditionally do just by rooting it. Smartphones contain…
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Exciting Days for ARM Processors
Introduction ARM CPUs have long dominated the mobile world, nearly all Apple and Android phones and tablets utilize some model of ARM processor. However Intel and AMD still dominate the laptop, des…
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Restoring a 37 Year-Old IBM F Mechanical Keyboard
I wanted to share my journey from start to finish to restore a 1983 IBM Model F XT mechanical keyboard to it's former glory. It includes...
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A 189 Year Old Limitation on Inductor Size Has Been Broken (2018)
One of the three basic circuit elements just got a lot smaller for the very first time, in what promises to be a trillion-dollar…