O.k. I admit it, the sheer performance of video calls on current notebook processors made me go for a new instead of a used notebook, as incidentally, a couple of other unforeseen developments required the move anyway. So instead of buying a used Lenovo X270 with a 7th generation Intel processor from 2017 with 2 … Continue reading My New Thinkpad X13 with 16 CPU Threads – First Impressions
Now that I have my ZFS filesystem spanning several drives in place on my Z440, I wanted to get an idea of how this setup is performing together with the underlying LUKS encryption. And while I am at it, the other questions I had in mind were: How does this compare to the ext4/LUKS combination … Continue reading SSD, ZFS and VM performance – Workstation Power At Home – Part 12
I’m quite amazed I am already into part 8 in this series of exploring the limits of using a headless workstation as a ‘power booster’ next to my notebook. The next thing I have taken a closer look at is the connection between the notebook and the workstation, a 1 Gbit/s Ethernet link. That’s good … Continue reading 2.5GbE Network Performance – Workstation Power at Home – Part 8
In addition to running computing intensive applications on my new (refurbished) HP Z440 workstation the other main use case for me is to offload the virtual machines I am running on my notebook today. While I do have 16 GB of RAM in my notebook it becomes more and more difficult to run two virtual … Continue reading Remote Visual Computing with RDP – Workstation Power At Home – Part 5
After a closer look at how to program the 4-Bit Nibbler CPU and how to cope with its intentional limitations it was time to go one step further and have a closer look at how the hardware works one layer further down. To see the signals and how they propagate through the system a logic … Continue reading The 4-Bit Nibbler CPU and Bitscope for Layer 1 Logic Analysis Fun
Time flies but it still seems like yesterday when I discovered "But How Do It Know", the must-read book if you want to understand how a CPU works, the central piece of electronics in any electronic device today be it a SIM card, a smartphone, a notebook or a supercomputer at a large computing facility. … Continue reading Nibbler: The 4-Bit Self-Made CPU
Looking at historical computing educational kits that explain how computers work rather than 'only' how to work with and program computers I started thinking a bit about the different levels of abstraction on which people understand computers. Here's what I came up with: The Working Level Understanding: This is how most people understand computers today. … Continue reading The Computer – Levels of Understanding – And Building My Own CPU
When it comes to computers I always had something of a blind spot: I know how memory works, what Boolean logic is, how a computer adds and subtracts, I know what a bus is, what registers are, how to program in machine language, etc. etc. However, I never really quite figured out how the CPU … Continue reading The ‘Must Read’ Book If You Want To Understand How A Processor Works
So how exactly did we end up with graphical user interfaces, touch screens and shell windows? Apart from improving my understanding of how a CPU really works, understanding the evolution of how users interact with a computer with a keyboard and screen, or a touch sensitive screen on mobile devices, and how this maps into … Continue reading From Teletype to Touchscreen
In the past, I liked buying used notebooks and use them as my day to day workhorses. It felt good from an environmental point of view and they were significantly cheaper compared to new notebooks, particularly when it came to business notebooks like the Lenovo Thinkpad series. But in recent years, prices for used notebooks … Continue reading Running Ubuntu Linux on Bleeding Edge Hardware: Lenovo E14 Gen 4