The Fastest (68k) Macintosh Might Not Be an Amiga Anymore
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The Fastest (68k) Macintosh Might Not Be an Amiga Anymore
Amiga and Atari fans used to lord over their Apple-eating brethren the fact that Cupertino never moved to the most advanced 68k processors — so for a while, thanks to 68060 accelerator cards, the fastest thing running Macintosh software was an Amiga (or Atari). After all these years, the Macintosh community is finally getting the last laugh, as [zigzagjoe] demonstrates an actual Macintosh booting with a 68060 CPU for the first time in a thread on 68KMLA. Video or it didn’t happen? Check it out below.
The Mac in question is a Quadra 650, which is a good choice since it was about the last thing Apple sold before switching to PowerPC, and ran the 68040 processor. [Reinauer] had already produced a 68040-to-68060 socket adapter (the two chips not being pinout compatible), so the hardware part of the battle was already set. Software, however? That was a different story, and where [zigzagjoe] put in the effort.
We’re spoiled by decades of backwards compatibility in the x86 instruction set; Motorola wasn’t as kind back in the day, and the 68060 isn’t fully compatible with the earlier 68040’s instruction set. They did provide a translation that [zigzagjoe] was able to build into his custom ROM, though, which is how he’s able to get the Mac to boot and install System 7.1, the newest version that would boot.
Alas, the full 66 MHz clock speed [zigzagjoe] proved unstable. To make branch prediction work, he had to clock down to 50 MHz. Considering the ‘040 clocked at 25 MHz in the Quadra 650, that’s still a considerable improvement in clock speed.
At 66 MHz and giving up branch prediction, DOOM runs at 16.4 FPS. It slowed down (14.3 FPS) at 50 MHz, and branch prediction. We expected branching to have a greater impact, but apparently not. While DOOM is perhaps not the best benchmark on this hardware, it does answer the most important question you can ask of any bit of kit: yes, it does run DOOM!
While Apple has long since abandoned the 68k in favour of PPC, x86, and finally their own implementation of ARM, there are always enterprising upgraders.
youtube.com/embed/KXSWiKu-ASA?…
Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
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L’Italia è un paese talmente fascista che il vicesegretario di un partito di governo lancia una campagna politica per legalizzare la propaganda neofascista.
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Making a Machine to Sort One Million Pounds of LEGO
You know what’s not fun? Sorting LEGO. You know what is fun? Making a machine to sort LEGO! That’s what [LegoSpencer] did, and you can watch the machine do its thing in the video below.
[Spencer] runs us through the process: first, quit your day job so you can get a job playing with LEGO; then research what previous work has been done in this area (plenty, it turns out); and then commit to making your own version both reproducible and extensible.
A sorting machine needs three main features: a feeder to dispense one piece at a time, a classifier to decide the type of piece, and a distributor to route the piece to a bin. Of course, the devil is in the details.
If you want to build your own, you might want to track the new Sorter V2 that is under development. If you are building V1, you can find what you need on GitHub.
Once you’ve got your LEGO sorted, you’re free to take on other projects such as Building A Drivable, Life-Size 3D-Printed LEGO Technic Buggy, Making Steam-Powered LEGO Machines, and Building The DVD Logo Screensaver With LEGO.
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@ajsadauskas oh, an Indy, we had one at university whose hostname was Cindy
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@ju @Ginocerutti @guardaminfaccia io di solito ho in casa delle caramelle al miele o al miele e erbe balsamiche varie
aiutano, nel senso che nel tempo in cui le succhi e magari per una mezz'oretta successiva (quando va bene) leniscono, ma non è che facciano miracoli
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Il gatto trasforma le emozioni negative in positive. Accarezzandolo ti senti meglio.
Quando si strofina, il tuo spirito si rallegra … https://cctm.website/corrado-debiasi-italia/Corrado Debiasi
#corradodebiasi #gatti #cctmwebsite #anoipiaceleggere #leggere #libri
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Valuta bene i pro e i contro.
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A purple Silicon Graphics workstation cube that's a *lot* bigger than I thought it would be.
Most of Hollywood's '90s CGI special effects were created on SGI machines like this...
On display at https://acms.org.au/
#SiliconGraphics #SGI #computerhistory #retrocomputing #retrocomputer
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@ju @Ginocerutti sono una purista, acqua calda e limone e sto.
Al massimo l'aggiunta di una foglia di alloro, ma quello è il rimedio assoluto per il mal di pancia.
