Category Archives: Hardware news

A great upgrade for the PCjr: the jr-IDE

Posted on January 14, 2023 by Scali

Adding a hard drive to a PC was a reasonably standard upgrade even in the 80s. And in today’s world of retro-computing, we have the XT-IDE card, which adds proper IDE support to old PCs. Which also allows you to … Continue reading →

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A new MPU-401 solution: The Music Quest clone

Posted on December 18, 2022 by Scali

This is a draft that I have kept around since March 16, 2019, so it is about time I finally finish and publish it. This story started somewhere in 2015, when a user named Keropi posted a thread on the … Continue reading →

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Why AMD should never have made x86 processors in the first place

Posted on December 4, 2022 by Scali

Another draft, this time create on June 22nd, 2016. The title may have been written down in a hurry, and seems a bit click-baity. I suppose it needs a bit of nuance: the point I wanted to make here is … Continue reading →

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The strong ARM

Posted on June 11, 2020 by Scali

I’ve done some posts on x86 vs ARM over the years, most recently on the new Microsoft Surface Pro X, which runs a ‘normal’ desktop version of Windows 10 on an ARM CPU, while also supporting x86 applications through emulation. … Continue reading →

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Windows and ARM: not over yet

Posted on February 2, 2020 by Scali

As you may recall, I was quite fond of the idea of ARM and x86 getting closer together, where on the one hand, Windows could run on ARM devices, and on the other hand, Intel was developing smaller x86-based SOCs … Continue reading →

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AMD Bulldozer: It’s time to settle

Posted on August 29, 2019 by Scali

As you may remember, AMD’s Bulldozer has always been somewhat controversial, for various reasons. One thing in particular was that AMD claimed it was the ‘first native 8-core desktop processor’. This led to a class-action lawsuit, because consumers thought this … Continue reading →

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Zen2: Credit where credit’s due

Posted on July 10, 2019 by Scali

So, AMD has released its new Zen2 architecture, codenamed ‘Matisse’, and now available commercially as the Ryzen 3000-series. And I think I can keep this blog short: Intel has its work cut out, because AMD is back. AMD now has … Continue reading →

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The DreamBlaster S2P: General MIDI from a parallel port

Posted on March 9, 2019 by Scali

In the interest of catching up, here is the second blog that is long overdue. I want to talk about the DreamBlaster S2P from Serdaco. I received mine over a year ago, and it actually was an early prototype. The … Continue reading →

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Intel tries its hand at a discrete GPU again?

Posted on April 30, 2018 by Scali

As you may have heard a few months ago, Intel has employed Raja Koduri, former GPU-designer at AMD’s Radeon division. Back then the statement already read: In this position, Koduri will expand Intel’s leading position in integrated graphics for the … Continue reading →

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The Covox years

Posted on November 28, 2017 by Scali

I have covered various early sound solutions from the DOS/8088 era recently, including AdLib, Sound Blaster, PCjr/Tandy’s SN76489 chip, and the trusty old PC speaker itself. One device that has yet to be mentioned however, is the Covox Speech Thing. … Continue reading →

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