Hacking the Book8088 for Better Accuracy
https://martypc.blogspot.com/2023/09/hacking-book8088-for-better-accuracy.html [martypc.blogspot.com]
2023-09-12 04:46
tags:
graphics
hardware
retro
solder
The Book8088 is trying hard to basically be compatible with the original IBM PC, containing some of the same or equivalent chips. It’s natural to want to put it through its paces, and one of the best tests for IBM PC compatibility has to be the 8088MPH demo. If 8088MPH will run we must be operating pretty darn close to the original.
Now, as it turns out, most of the demo does run, albeit in RGBI mode which loses out on all the cool composite artifact color effects. But most notably the famous Kefrens Bars effect does not display - the screen just goes blank. What’s going wrong on the Book8088 vs a real IBM PC 5150?
source: HN
Architecture and Simulation of the Z1 Computer
http://zuse-z1.zib.de/ [zuse-z1.zib.de]
2023-07-29 19:47
tags:
hardware
retro
This collection shows technical drawings of the Z1 reconstruction. The Z1 built in 1938 was Konrad Zuse’s first computing machine. It was a mechanical machine and was destroyed during World War II. From 1987 to 1989 Zuse reconstructed the Z1 from his memory.
The Z1 consisted of different functional units, e.g. the input unit, the output unit, the memory units, and the addition unit. Each of this unit was built for a specific purpose and all units were connected. With an interactive and freely movable 3D simulation the functionality of the Z1 adder is demonstrated and explained. You can calculate with it by entering numbers and observe how the adder operates with the processes emphasized by color highlighting. The simulation is based on the original patent plans by Konrad Zuse.
source: Dfly
The complex history of the Intel i960 RISC processor
http://www.righto.com/2023/07/the-complex-history-of-intel-i960-risc.html [www.righto.com]
2023-07-02 01:13
tags:
cpu
hardware
retro
The Intel i960 was a remarkable 32-bit processor of the 1990s with a confusing set of versions. Although it is now mostly forgotten (outside the many people who used it as an embedded processor), it has a complex history. It had a shot at being Intel’s flagship processor until x86 overshadowed it. Later, it was the world’s best-selling RISC processor. One variant was a 33-bit processor with a decidedly non-RISC object-oriented instruction set; it became a military standard and was used in the F-22 fighter plane. Another version powered Intel’s short-lived Unix servers. In this blog post, I’ll take a look at the history of the i960, explain its different variants, and examine silicon dies. This chip has a lot of mythology and confusion (especially on Wikipedia), so I’ll try to clear things up.
source: HN
Epyc 7002 CPUs may hang after 1042 days of uptime
https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/13wmowy/psa_epyc_7002_cpus_may_hang_after_1042_days_of/ [old.reddit.com]
2023-06-01 18:27
tags:
admin
cpu
hardware
Note that your server will almost definitely hang, requiring a physical (or IPMI) reboot, because no interrupts, including NMIs, can be delivered to the zombie cores: this means no scheduler, no IPIs, nothing will work.
source: HN
Of Sun Ray laptops, MIPS and getting root on them
http://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2023/04/of-sun-ray-laptops-mips-and-getting.html [oldvcr.blogspot.com]
2023-04-28 17:45
tags:
hardware
retro
systems
The bottom line is, as we’ll demonstrate in the next few screenshots, this laptop isn’t just a MIPS laptop: it’s three apparently completely independent RISC systems with their own memory, flash and operating system on an internal Ethernet network. All those NIC and switch chips are the internal communication interfaces from the Au1550 to the IXP425 and the AR2316A, but using the IDE bus lines instead of actual twisted pair. That’s not what I was expecting to find in a Sun Ray!
source: HN
CAN Injection: keyless car theft
https://kentindell.github.io/2023/04/03/can-injection/ [kentindell.github.io]
2023-04-07 15:28
tags:
cars
exploit
hardware
hoipolloi
investigation
security
solder
This is a detective story about how a car was stolen - and how it uncovered an epidemic of high-tech car theft.
Now that people know how a relay attack works generally possible to defeat it: car owners keep their keys in a metal box (blocking the radio message from the car) and some car makers now supply keys that go to sleep if motionless for a few minutes (and so won’t receive the radio message from the car). Faced with this defeat but being unwilling to give up a lucrative activity, thieves moved to a new way around the security: by-passing the entire smart key system. They do this with a new attack: CAN Injection.
Inside the amazingly mechanical Bendix Central Air Data Computer
http://www.righto.com/2023/02/bendix-central-air-data-computer-cadc.html [www.righto.com]
2023-03-25 00:33
tags:
flying
hardware
photos
physics
retro
Determining the airspeed and altitude of a fighter plane is harder than you’d expect. At slower speeds, pressure measurements can give the altitude, air speed, and other “air data”. But as planes approach the speed of sound, complicated equations are needed to accurately compute these values. The Bendix Central Air Data Computer (CADC) solved this problem for military planes such as the F-101 and the F-111 fighters, and the B-58 bomber. This electromechanical marvel was crammed full of 1955 technology: gears, cams, synchros, and magnetic amplifiers. In this blog post I look inside the CADC, describe the calculations it performed, and explain how it performed these calculations mechanically.
The 8086 processor's microcode pipeline from die analysis
http://www.righto.com/2023/01/the-8086-processors-microcode-pipeline.html [www.righto.com]
2023-01-27 18:28
tags:
cpu
hardware
investigation
perf
series
TVA Multifunctional Computer
https://www.behance.net/gallery/124646129/TVA-Multifunctional-Computer [www.behance.net]
2022-05-22 20:04
tags:
design
fiction
hardware
retro
The Apple GPU and the Impossible Bug
https://rosenzweig.io/blog/asahi-gpu-part-5.html [rosenzweig.io]
2022-05-13 23:56
tags:
gl
graphics
hardware
investigation
mac
programming
In late 2020, Apple debuted the M1 with Apple’s GPU architecture, AGX, rumoured to be derived from Imagination’s PowerVR series. Since then, we’ve been reverse-engineering AGX and building open source graphics drivers. Last January, I rendered a triangle with my own code, but there has since been a heinous bug lurking: The driver fails to render large amounts of geometry.
source: HN
NaN Gates and Flip FLOPS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TFDG-y-EHs [www.youtube.com]
2022-05-01 22:19
tags:
compsci
hardware
math
programming
solder
video
A new kind of computer architecture that’s more elegant than 1s and 0s, being based directly on Mathematics.
The digital ranging system that measured the distance to the Apollo spacecraft
http://www.righto.com/2022/04/the-digital-ranging-system-that.html [www.righto.com]
2022-04-24 18:44
tags:
hardware
random
retro
space
The basic idea was to send a radio signal to the spacecraft and determine how long it takes to return. Since the signal traveled at the speed of light, the time delay gives the distance. The main problem is that due to the extreme distance to the spacecraft, a radar-like return pulse would be too weak. The ranging system solved this in two ways. First, a complex transponder on the spacecraft sent back an amplified signal. Second, instead of sending a pulse, the system transmitted a long pseudorandom bit sequence. By correlating this sequence over multiple seconds, a weak signal could be extracted from the noise.
In this blog post I explain this surprisingly-complex ranging system. Generating and correlating pseudorandom sequences was difficult with the transistor circuitry of the 1960s. The ranging codes had to be integrated with Apollo’s “Unified S-Band” communication system, which used high-frequency microwave signals. Onboard the spacecraft, a special frequency-multiplying transponder supported Doppler speed measurements. Finally, communicating with the spacecraft required a complex network of ground stations spanning the globe.
And: https://righto.com/apollo/ranging-xor.html
http://www.righto.com/2022/05/talking-with-moon-inside-apollos.html
The games Nintendo didn't want you to play: Tengen
https://nicole.express/2022/the-center-point-can-not-hold.html [nicole.express]
2022-04-17 20:04
tags:
article
business
development
gaming
hardware
random
retro
Recently, I took a look at Nintendo’s MMC line of mappers, and some other boards. All boards for the NES’ western releases had to be manufactured by Nintendo, and so they generally met certain standards set by Nintendo. But these rules were enforced by technology, not by law. And the company that had previously killed the American game industry decided to break those rules. Madness? No. This… is Tengen.
Lots of custom cartridges here.
Some additional info: https://hackmii.com/2010/01/the-weird-and-wonderful-cic/
source: HN
Harder Drive: Hard drives we didn't want or need
http://tom7.org/harder/ [tom7.org]
2022-04-13 04:29
tags:
hardware
networking
random
retro
solder
storage
video
DDC OLED - The smallest and worst HDMI display
https://mitxela.com/projects/ddc-oled [mitxela.com]
2022-03-31 21:44
tags:
hardware
solder
x11
DDC, display data channel, is a protocol for reading information about what resolutions and so on a monitor supports. It was later extended to DDC/CI, that lets you set brightness and other parameters, but fundamentally, the original idea was to stick a cheap i2c eeprom on each device with some basic info on it. (Technically, the original idea was even simpler than that, but let’s not get into that.)
It began in the VGA days, but has become so entrenched that even modern hardware with HDMI or DisplayPort supports it. That’s right, in an HDMI cable, nestled amongst the high-speed differential pairs, there’s an exceedingly slow i2c bus.
Tiny OLED dot-matrix displays often have an i2c controller, so I had the idea to try and plug one directly into an HDMI port.
source: HN
Another vulnerability in the LPC55S69 ROM
https://oxide.computer/blog/another-vulnerability-in-the-lpc55s69-rom [oxide.computer]
2022-03-23 22:13
tags:
bios
exploit
hardware
security
Last year, we discovered an undocumented hardware block in the LPC55S69 (our chosen part for our product’s Root of Trust implementation) that could be used to violate security boundaries. This issue highlighted the importance of transparency as an Oxide value which is why we are bringing another recently discovered vulnerability to light today. While continuing to develop our product, we discovered a buffer overflow in the ROM of the LPC55S69. This issue exists in the In-System Programming (ISP) code for the signed update mechanism which lives in ROM. This vulnerability allows an attacker to gain non-persistent code execution with a carefully crafted update regardless of whether the update is signed.
source: HN
In-depth dive into the security features of the Intel/Windows platform secure boot process
https://igor-blue.github.io/2021/02/04/secure-boot.html [igor-blue.github.io]
2021-02-15 18:19
tags:
bios
cpu
hardware
security
systems
windows
This blog post is an in-depth dive into the security features of the Intel/Windows platform boot process. In this post I’ll explain the startup process through security focused lenses, next post we’ll dive into several known attacks and how there were handled by Intel and Microsoft. My wish is to explain to technology professionals not deep into platform security why Microsoft’s SecureCore is so important and necessary.
Not exclusive to Windows systems, lots of PC platform details.
source: grugq
Dr. Steve Gass, inventor of SawStop
https://www.machinepix.com/p/machinepix-weekly-30-dr-steve-gass [www.machinepix.com]
2021-02-10 22:59
tags:
hardware
interview
tech
This week’s interview features Dr. Steven Gass, the inventor of the SawStop—considered one of the best table saws (we love the one in our office!). SawStop has a unique safety feature that automatically brakes the blade if a finger touches it.
source: K
Achieving 11M IOPS & 66 GB/s IO on a Single ThreadRipper Workstation
https://tanelpoder.com/posts/11m-iops-with-10-ssds-on-amd-threadripper-pro-workstation/ [tanelpoder.com]
2021-01-30 09:08
tags:
hardware
investigation
linux
perf
storage
In this post I’ll explain how I configured my AMD ThreadRipper Pro workstation with 10 PCIe 4.0 SSDs to achieve 11M IOPS with 4kB random reads and 66 GiB/s throughput with larger IOs - and what bottlenecks & issues I fixed to get there. We’ll look into Linux block I/O internals and their interaction with modern hardware. We’ll use tools & techniques, old and new, for measuring bottlenecks - and other adventures in the kernel I/O stack.
source: HN
Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU
https://rosenzweig.io/blog/asahi-gpu-part-1.html [rosenzweig.io]
2021-01-22 18:59
tags:
graphics
hardware
investigation
mac
programming
series
systems
Apple’s latest line of Macs includes their in-house “M1” system-on-chip, featuring a custom GPU. This poses a problem for those of us in the Asahi Linux project who wish to run Linux on our devices, as this custom Apple GPU has neither public documentation nor open source drivers. Some speculate it might descend from PowerVR GPUs, as used in older iPhones, while others believe the GPU to be completely custom. But rumours and speculations are no fun when we can peek under the hood ourselves!
And part II where it really takes off: https://rosenzweig.io/blog/asahi-gpu-part-2.html
source: HN