6 ms·

Old computer systems are fascinating from many points of view: The article discusses the software used to wring the last drop of performance out of hardware tha

Old computer systems are fascinating from many points of view: The article discusses the software used to wring the last drop of performance out of hardware that we would probably now consider to be inadequate for running a disk controller. It's super cool that many of these systems are now available as emulators! I was a little surprised that the author only got twice the performance of the DtCyber in an emulator until I saw that they were emulating on an 800MHz P3 :) In addition, visiting these old devices IRL is pretty instructive: one thing that always strikes me when I visit the Computer Sheds in Yorkshire (http://www.computermuseum.org.uk/ http://www.computermuseum.org.uk/ - an absolute gem BTW) is the enduring problem of thermal management. Up close, those old mainframes are basically huge air conditioning systems with some chips attached. My understanding is that managing heat is >still< the ultimate factor limiting performance (otherwise we could just stack up silicon in 3D)...

Stratoscope 5y ago
> My understanding is that managing heat is >still< the ultimate factor limiting performance It seems fitting that I'm hearing the fans spin up to full blast on my ThinkPad X1 Extreme laptop supercomputer as I compile some code in an Ubuntu VM while starting up a CPU-hungry Point Of Sale system in a Windows VM, and reading your comment on the Windows host OS. It is nice that I can step away from the computer and just listen for the fans to quiet down again to tell when everything is ready to go.
- bserge 5y ago
  Are you monitoring temperatures on it?
  - Stratoscope 5y ago
    Not specifically, but the top of the keyboard does get warm when all this is going on. Do you or anyone have any recommendations for temperature monitoring software for a ThinkPad running Windows with various other OSes in VMs? In any case I think the POS software may be the main culprit, as it normally runs on a standalone machine and wasn't designed for power savings. I did set the Windows VM it runs in to "Power saver" but it doesn't seem to have helped much. (Sorry if this is off topic for the thread!)
    - listic 5y ago
      SpeedFan? https://almico.com/speedfan.php https://almico.com/speedfan.php
    - nix23 5y ago
      Have you activated VT-x VT-d etc in the bios? If not prepare for a performance boost, and a quiet Fan ;)
      - Stratoscope 5y ago
        Thanks for the tip. Yeah, "Intel Virtualization Technology" and "Intel VT-d Feature" are both enabled by default in the BIOS (in fact it doesn't let you turn them off).
        nix23 5y ago
        Ah ok, i have seen some bios's where both are deactivated plus hyper-threading too :)
    - bserge 5y ago
      NotebookFanControl is the only one that works on newer machines in my experience. https://github.com/hirschmann/nbfc https://github.com/hirschmann/nbfc I'm asking because I'm wondering how often it hits 99 degrees and throttles. And if it doesn't, I really need to take a closer look at it, because that would be incredible. Dell and HP machines have this problem, 6 core Intel processors run slower than 4 core ones because the former always throttle (even though the TDP is supposedly the same). If you want, you can use Throttlestop to set better controls/limits on clocks and power (and possibly undervolt it) for better performance, battery life and temperatures.
    - mobilio 5y ago
      I'm using ArgusMonitor for this: https://www.argusmonitor.com https://www.argusmonitor.com
    - ahelwer 5y ago
      I don't have a thinkpad, but I like OpenHardwareMonitor for my computers: https://openhardwaremonitor.org/ https://openhardwaremonitor.org/
- p_l 5y ago
  Well, at least it's Thinkpad X1E... We had much less going on when we joked that you know who is compiling or running any sort of serious work in the office by hearing whose MBP was whining hard with its fans.
  - Stratoscope 5y ago
    Ah yes, these fans may get loud, but they are nothing like an office back in the day full of hackers on ASR-33 Teletypes! Each one had a noisy keyboard and a noisy printer. The keyboard didn't have a nice click like a modern keyboard, more of a loud scrunchy sound. The printer was even louder and rang a bell if you had a line too long. You could always tell when the mainframe crashed. Everyone's Teletype printer stopped all at once, and everyone started mashing down every key on their keyboard out of frustration.
  - MonaroVXR 5y ago
    Everything that is thin and light is going suffer from heat earlier than a bigger laptop. Game laptops or workstation laptops are better solution(s) but the best is getting a desktop. I'm not joking and I'm aware of taking a device with you everywhere.
BuildTheRobots 5y ago
> hardware that we would probably now consider to be inadequate for running a disk controller. Wasn't the disk controller chip in the BBC Micro significantly more powerful than the main CPU? I think some games used it as a coprocessor.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  That's ludicrous. The 6502 is the best 8-bit processor that ever existed ;-) Now, on a more serious tone, any processor in the machine you could detect could be used to offload some processing from the CPU. I wonder if that wasn't done with 1541 or 1571 Commodore floppy drives. I know there was software that wrote new functionality onto the drive's memory to make disk IO faster. With enough memory, you could sort a text file and write the output to a new file without ever bothering the CPU. I don't think that was ever actually done, but the drives also ran 6502 processors, and the 1571 ran at twice the main computer's clock.
  - BuildTheRobots 5y ago
    There's every chance I'm remembering it wrong - the double the clock speed certainly rings a bell. Got a weekly video call with a friend who still regularly hacks on a Beeb, so will try and clarify and update my comment tomorrow :)
    - rbanffy 5y ago
      The Beeb and the Ataris ran at 2 MHz. Apple II, VIC-20, C64, and 1541 all ran at 1 MHz. The 1571 ran at 2 MHz, same as the C128 (except when pretending to be a 64)
      - forinti 5y ago
        The beeb had an additional advantage: RAM ran at 4MHz, so the CPU and the video chip didn't have to compete for access.
        5y ago

Stratoscope 5y ago

> My understanding is that managing heat is >still< the ultimate factor limiting performance It seems fitting that I'm hearing the fans spin up to full blast on my ThinkPad X1 Extreme laptop supercomputer as I compile some code in an Ubuntu VM while starting up a CPU-hungry Point Of Sale system in a Windows VM, and reading your comment on the Windows host OS. It is nice that I can step away from the computer and just listen for the fans to quiet down again to tell when everything is ready to go.

bserge 5y ago
Are you monitoring temperatures on it?
- Stratoscope 5y ago
  Not specifically, but the top of the keyboard does get warm when all this is going on. Do you or anyone have any recommendations for temperature monitoring software for a ThinkPad running Windows with various other OSes in VMs? In any case I think the POS software may be the main culprit, as it normally runs on a standalone machine and wasn't designed for power savings. I did set the Windows VM it runs in to "Power saver" but it doesn't seem to have helped much. (Sorry if this is off topic for the thread!)
  - listic 5y ago
    SpeedFan? https://almico.com/speedfan.php https://almico.com/speedfan.php
  - nix23 5y ago
    Have you activated VT-x VT-d etc in the bios? If not prepare for a performance boost, and a quiet Fan ;)
    - Stratoscope 5y ago
      Thanks for the tip. Yeah, "Intel Virtualization Technology" and "Intel VT-d Feature" are both enabled by default in the BIOS (in fact it doesn't let you turn them off).
      - nix23 5y ago
        Ah ok, i have seen some bios's where both are deactivated plus hyper-threading too :)
  - bserge 5y ago
    NotebookFanControl is the only one that works on newer machines in my experience. https://github.com/hirschmann/nbfc https://github.com/hirschmann/nbfc I'm asking because I'm wondering how often it hits 99 degrees and throttles. And if it doesn't, I really need to take a closer look at it, because that would be incredible. Dell and HP machines have this problem, 6 core Intel processors run slower than 4 core ones because the former always throttle (even though the TDP is supposedly the same). If you want, you can use Throttlestop to set better controls/limits on clocks and power (and possibly undervolt it) for better performance, battery life and temperatures.
  - mobilio 5y ago
    I'm using ArgusMonitor for this: https://www.argusmonitor.com https://www.argusmonitor.com
  - ahelwer 5y ago
    I don't have a thinkpad, but I like OpenHardwareMonitor for my computers: https://openhardwaremonitor.org/ https://openhardwaremonitor.org/
p_l 5y ago
Well, at least it's Thinkpad X1E... We had much less going on when we joked that you know who is compiling or running any sort of serious work in the office by hearing whose MBP was whining hard with its fans.
- Stratoscope 5y ago
  Ah yes, these fans may get loud, but they are nothing like an office back in the day full of hackers on ASR-33 Teletypes! Each one had a noisy keyboard and a noisy printer. The keyboard didn't have a nice click like a modern keyboard, more of a loud scrunchy sound. The printer was even louder and rang a bell if you had a line too long. You could always tell when the mainframe crashed. Everyone's Teletype printer stopped all at once, and everyone started mashing down every key on their keyboard out of frustration.
- MonaroVXR 5y ago
  Everything that is thin and light is going suffer from heat earlier than a bigger laptop. Game laptops or workstation laptops are better solution(s) but the best is getting a desktop. I'm not joking and I'm aware of taking a device with you everywhere.

BuildTheRobots 5y ago

> hardware that we would probably now consider to be inadequate for running a disk controller. Wasn't the disk controller chip in the BBC Micro significantly more powerful than the main CPU? I think some games used it as a coprocessor.

rbanffy 5y ago
That's ludicrous. The 6502 is the best 8-bit processor that ever existed ;-) Now, on a more serious tone, any processor in the machine you could detect could be used to offload some processing from the CPU. I wonder if that wasn't done with 1541 or 1571 Commodore floppy drives. I know there was software that wrote new functionality onto the drive's memory to make disk IO faster. With enough memory, you could sort a text file and write the output to a new file without ever bothering the CPU. I don't think that was ever actually done, but the drives also ran 6502 processors, and the 1571 ran at twice the main computer's clock.
- BuildTheRobots 5y ago
  There's every chance I'm remembering it wrong - the double the clock speed certainly rings a bell. Got a weekly video call with a friend who still regularly hacks on a Beeb, so will try and clarify and update my comment tomorrow :)
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    The Beeb and the Ataris ran at 2 MHz. Apple II, VIC-20, C64, and 1541 all ran at 1 MHz. The 1571 ran at 2 MHz, same as the C128 (except when pretending to be a 64)
    - forinti 5y ago
      The beeb had an additional advantage: RAM ran at 4MHz, so the CPU and the video chip didn't have to compete for access.
      - 5y ago