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BobHoward posted:It's just a specification document defining what instructions and registers and so forth a physical implementation must have to be called an Arm v9 processor. (Though choices in that spec do affect how easy or hard it is to design highly performant implementations.) How much does ISA design affect computer chip performance? Is it really that important, or is the implementation a more important driver of computer chip performance? Computer-level guys would have you believe that the ISA is maybe the most important thing, but of course, they would tend to attribute successful designs to computer-level concepts.
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Apr 2, 2021 22:30
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Apologies if this was answered earlier and I missed it (didn't see it in previous 10 pages), or should've been directed elsewhere! I have a mid-2012 15" retina MBP that I love dearly (updated OS), but the battery is getting pretty bad, which is to be expected given its age. It's not critical, but it is a touch inconvenient (even with the long cave). I don't want to get a new one just yet (hoping the rumors about mag safe et Al are true), so I'm looking at a battery replacement. Based on what I've found, I'm going to go with either the ifixit or OWC kit. It seems like ifixit has better service but OWC has a better battery (searching leans heavily towards OWC). I was wondering if anyone had any (recent-ish) experience with either that could help with my decision.
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Apr 3, 2021 01:47
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Welp, lol
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Apr 3, 2021 03:05
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Data Graham posted:Welp, lol Bulging battery?
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Apr 3, 2021 03:23
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Yeah, it popped the face right off while I was ordering taco bell 
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Apr 3, 2021 03:27
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Ouch. Evidently looks like that cable cannot support the weight of the screen, not that I thought it would. You can see right where it snapped.
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Apr 3, 2021 03:30
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Yeah, the whole thing popped off at once, there was no dangling by a ribbon or anything. In fact until just now I had thought the whole face was powered by press-fit contact somehow, which is ridiculous what the gently caress.
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Apr 3, 2021 03:34
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silence_kit posted:How much does ISA design affect computer chip performance? This is an incredibly complicated topic and I wrote a book about it which I mostly deleted since I didn't want to post a wall of text that seems a bit out of place here. Have a relatively short piece on decoders. arm64 has a single instruction word size (4 bytes long), requires all instructions to be 4-byte aligned, and has only a handful of instruction word formats. This makes the basline decoder trivial, and decoding multiple instructions in parallel is trivial. You don't have to know anything about instruction N to start work on decoding instruction N+1. x86 has a variable length instruction word, a huge number of possible instruction word formats and sizes, and it's not simple to decode even a single instruction. Just look at the source code for a software implementation of "how long is the x86 instruction at this pointer" in this Stack Overflow answer, and keep in mind that this covers only 32-bit x86. Things have gotten worse. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23788236/get-size-of-assembly-instructions/23843450#23843450 This makes it really hard to do extremely wide x86 decode. Intel typically stops at 4 wide. Apple's M1 has an 8-wide decode unit, and it's probably a fraction the size, power, and implementation effort of a 4-wide x86 decode unit. So yes, ISA design is important. But so is implementation, and implementation can make up for poor ISA design (to some extent). The x86 ISA is kind of a mess, but it's managed to not be so much of a mess that it's impossible to make it work reasonably well. Combine that with a long stretch of Intel manufacturing technology leadership (meaning: they got to have faster transistors than anybody else) and market demand (Windows monopoly effect) and you have x86 succeeding in spite of the ISA's well known flaws.
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Apr 3, 2021 03:42
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https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/04/03/retired-leaker-claims-imac-with-bigger-screen-is-on-the-way l0vetodream, though claiming to be retired now, says the upcoming Apple Silicon iMac will have a screen larger than the current 27 inch model. Here's hoping it gets one of the 16-core GPUs that have also rumored to be in the next Mx iterations.. gonna need it for such a big screen (5K? 6K?) Binary Badger fucked around with this message at 18:05 on Apr 3, 2021 |
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Apr 3, 2021 18:00
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there have been rumours of a shift to 24/30-inch imac sizes. i would personally like to see apple push for a move to higher frame rates; there is a seductive smoothness at going beyond 60
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Apr 3, 2021 18:48
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Proteus Jones posted:It's overkill unless you're a major klutz, working on a construction site, or doing fieldwork. How about living and travelling around Africa
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Apr 4, 2021 16:03
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RoboBoogie posted:How about living and travelling around Africa That's probably not the worst use case for it. You would know best what you're doing, but that case should give you plenty of protection and the ability to set it up just about anywhere.
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Apr 4, 2021 16:42
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So would it be a good idea to buy a Macbook Air now, or would it be better to wait for the next refresh? I realize there is the saying "if you keep waiting for the new version you will be waiting forever", but the new Apple CPU has me worried that the first generation could just be a beta test.
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Apr 4, 2021 20:48
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punk rebel ecks posted:So would it be a good idea to buy a Macbook Air now, or would it be better to wait for the next refresh? You are roughly mid cycle so if you are going to wait it’s going to be till fall (ish) The M1 is fantastic and even if it’s a “beta” it’s pretty drat amazing.
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Apr 4, 2021 20:51
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punk rebel ecks posted:So would it be a good idea to buy a Macbook Air now, or would it be better to wait for the next refresh? I use it daily for zoom meetings, google sheets, office and lightroom and even the garbage 256/8 configuration has been so beyond usable with battery life that still stuns me. If this is their "Beta" then I feel deeply regretful for the entirety of previous laptops I've literally spent thousands of dollars more on.
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Apr 4, 2021 21:06
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haha, yeah I remember when people were calling the M1 a beta product. It's pretty hilarious in retrospect.
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Apr 4, 2021 21:22
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Ok Comboomer posted:let’s all do it and signalboost each other Smutbux still works!
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Apr 4, 2021 23:22
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LionArcher posted:Smutbux still works! cool, let’s start a smutbux podcast where we get stupid preachy about Macs, like Rene does I wanna be able to buy a Mac Pro for shits+giggles and then be able to write it off this post is brought to you by Squarespace
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Apr 5, 2021 00:01
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punk rebel ecks posted:So would it be a good idea to buy a Macbook Air now, or would it be better to wait for the next refresh? It’s been 14 years since Apple made their first SOC and it’s in a chassis they’ve been using for almost a decade, it’s in no way a beta product. I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t update the M1 this year, they still have a lot of product lines left to refresh and wouldn’t want a new “M2” taking away of whatever souped up version of silicon the 4-port MacBook Pro is going to get.
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Apr 5, 2021 00:30
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For what it's worth, the normally pretty trustworthy MacRumors buyer's guide has the Air at a "neutral" right now. If you need to get a new notebook soon, then get it now. If you have no compelling reason to get a new notebook right now, then you might be better off waiting.
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Apr 5, 2021 00:45
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Apple will come out with better processors but I'd guess the Air and Mini will be last to get second-gen updates as they are, frankly, the lowest priority for higher performance
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Apr 5, 2021 01:07
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Might as well wait for WWDC in June if you don't absolutely need the Mac right now. Slight chance there's an update.
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Apr 5, 2021 02:44
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FCKGW posted:It’s been 14 years since Apple made their first SOC and it’s in a chassis they’ve been using for almost a decade, it’s in no way a beta product. The beta part was the software. Specifically Rosetta 2 and how well the ARM chips handle Intel instructions in emulation.
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Apr 5, 2021 16:38
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Uh huh.
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Apr 5, 2021 16:39
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Mu Zeta posted:Might as well wait for WWDC in June if you don't absolutely need the Mac right now. Slight chance there's an update. If there is an update what would they likely add/change?
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Apr 6, 2021 06:00
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punk rebel ecks posted:If there is an update what would they likely add/change? Possibly mini LED screen.
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Apr 6, 2021 14:56
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punk rebel ecks posted:If there is an update what would they likely add/change? moar butans, ports maybe? Personally I'm just looking for an updated case design to differentiate it from the Intels and maybe get rid of the touch bar on the pro. Mu Zeta fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Apr 6, 2021 |
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Apr 6, 2021 18:24
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According to a Surface Pro ad I keep getting served, what they really need is to go full touchscreen!! Why can't they give you a whole touchscreen instead of just this little bitty bar??
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Apr 6, 2021 19:25
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punk rebel ecks posted:If there is an update what would they likely add/change? 14 inch display. Return of some version of MagSafe. SD card slot. Maybe HDMI. No Touch Bar. Maybe better display. It’s the holy grail laptop.
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Apr 6, 2021 19:31
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admiraldennis posted:My brother had (still has!) the 1st gen w/ the mechanical wheel. I always liked the mechanical wheel. I do think the touch wheels got better over time. I had this one as well. It was a situation where a friend owed me money in highschool and offered the iPod instead. At that point it was already really old (this would have been 2010). I honestly kept using it until 2014 at which point it was stolen from the center console of my old beat up Honda accord  I also really liked using the first gen iPod video with Rockbox. Man I never thought I would get all nostalgic for iPods like that. It's crazy to think the 256gb SD card I have in my cheap android phone has 51x the storage of the old mechanical wheel iPod... I couldn't imagine ever needing that much space.
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Apr 6, 2021 20:18
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LionArcher posted:14 inch display. Return of some version of MagSafe. SD card slot. Maybe HDMI. No Touch Bar. Maybe better display. It’s the holy grail laptop. I still kinda wish they had a bigger lower-end laptop, even tho I probably would never buy one (but somebody like my dad probably would!) Imagine a 15” or 16” MBA coming in at like $1200-1700, the same internals as the smaller computer but just with a larger display
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Apr 6, 2021 20:33
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64bit_Dophins posted:Man I never thought I would get all nostalgic for iPods like that. It's crazy to think the 256gb SD card I have in my cheap android phone has 51x the storage of the old mechanical wheel iPod... I couldn't imagine ever needing that much space. When I worked at an Apple store in ~2005-ish all the customers would call it the iPod store. People had no interest in buying the Macs. As a result something like 75% of the store was iPod and iPod accessories.
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Apr 6, 2021 20:37
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And now it's the iPhone store. Also, MAC is the company that makes the computer called an "Apple"
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Apr 6, 2021 20:43
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Ok Comboomer posted:I still kinda wish they had a bigger lower-end laptop, even tho I probably would never buy one (but somebody like my dad probably would!) Well yes. Hell, a 14 inch air with just one more port would be my day one buy laptop. But I’ll take the pro if it’s got those specs and I can grab a 2TB 32 gig one for around $2500
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Apr 6, 2021 20:51
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Mu Zeta posted:When I worked at an Apple store in ~2005-ish all the customers would call it the iPod store. People had no interest in buying the Macs. As a result something like 75% of the store was iPod and iPod accessories. I did not know macs even existed as a kid until my mom bought me an iPod mini when I was in middle school. I then got a first gen white intel macbook as a hand-me-down from my cousin for highschool. At the time Windows PCs really sucked as this was the highest of the "Vista" Malaise. Having a mac was actually really awesome at that point even though pretty much everyone on the internet loved to poo poo on them lol.
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Apr 6, 2021 20:57
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64bit_Dophins posted:I did not know macs even existed as a kid until my mom bought me an iPod mini when I was in middle school. we were a Mac house until 1999. b/w unibody Macintosh—>pizza box style Mac Performa—>DELL XPS—>DELL XPS and then I went to college in ‘07 and got my polycarb MacBook—>MBA—>MBP my first experiences online, playing FPSs (Wolfenstein 3D), messing around w/ KidPix and a bunch of other edutainment (Math Blaster, etc) were all done on that Performa. Hell, my first gaming ever was done on the little Macintosh (BusyTown and Mercer Mayer’s Little Monster, how the gently caress do I still remember this?). Not that switching to a computer that could run Rogue Squadron and Diablo 2 wasn’t revelatory in its own way. I’ve mentioned all of this before, but when the second XPS (purchased ‘04) finally couldn’t be dragged across the finish line to do its job (seriously, it was loving terrible—nigh unusable by like 2006, but my parents insisted on getting 5 years out of it) it was replaced with a 2009 C2D 21” iMac—which is still my parents’ main home computer to this day ( tbf, Dad got in on the ground floor on iPad with iPad 2, and they do the bulk of their home computer poo poo on iOS—especially now that they have Spotify so my dad doesn’t have to pirate all his poo poo from the library
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Apr 6, 2021 21:13
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Ok Comboomer posted:we were a Mac house until 1999. My parents spent a bunch of money on some Windows 95 Dell Machine (came with the altec lansing speakers, monitors and everything) and had no idea how to use it. I used it to play some of those childhood edutainment games for a few years until the thing unceremoniously died. My parents then bought a $400 catalog dell machine that also came with a lovely monitor in 2004 which I used until I got the hand-me-down polycarb mac from my cousin. That dell computer was so awful it forced me to actually learn about computers lol. I upgraded the ram and installed Debian on it. That computer is responsible for exposing my dumb rear end self to the internet so it was either the best or worst thing that has ever happened to me depending on how you look at it 
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Apr 6, 2021 22:31
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64bit_Dophins posted:My parents spent a bunch of money on some Windows 95 Dell Machine (came with the altec lansing speakers, monitors and everything) and had no idea how to use it. yeah, the XPSs died hard but that was also the time period (lol early 2000s internet)- they were pretty beastly when new, though I was almost never allowed to get new PC games that weren’t <$20- or if I did then it meant I couldn’t get an Xbox game. But really I’m lucky my dad was always such a nerd about that and pushed computer literacy in his kids. The ‘99 one had a 17” Trinitron flat panel CRT- that thing was glorious, and like now it’s kind of a holy grail display for hobbyists. Still remember the day we took that (working) CRT to the recycling station because “nobody would want it” My dad is very much an Apple FanDad tho. He wasn’t always like this.
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Apr 6, 2021 22:40
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LionArcher posted:Well yes. Hell, a 14 inch air with just one more port would be my day one buy laptop. But I’ll take the pro if it’s got those specs and I can grab a 2TB 32 gig one for around $2500 This but you know we'll be spending $1K more on that buildout
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Apr 6, 2021 23:21
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Ok Comboomer posted:yeah, the XPSs died hard but that was also the time period (lol early 2000s internet)- they were pretty beastly when new, though I was almost never allowed to get new PC games that weren’t <$20- or if I did then it meant I couldn’t get an Xbox game. But really I’m lucky my dad was always such a nerd about that and pushed computer literacy in his kids. the hot crt is the sony fw900 so mad mine got thrown out by my parents, i'd still be using that sucker today
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Apr 6, 2021 23:46
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