The Intel Enigma - <AUTHOR> http://www.mondaynote.com/2014/12/14/the-intel-enigma/ <comment><USER2> A few things to note:

\- Intel benefits from mobile growth even if it's not selling the phone hardware. Each of those phones needs to connect to back-end servers for almost everything, and those servers run X86. Every time they connect to a server, it generates data, and that data is analyzed and monetized by servers that, again, run X86.

\- Fabs, and by proxy fab time, is super expensive (and growing superlinearly as process size shrinks). They may have made a strategic decision that they'd rather be pumping out Xeons for backend servers with that capital than Atoms for phone clients, except to the extent that they design and produce enough to "stay in the game" should they wish to change direction.

\- Judging from the rate of improvement of the Intel low-power CPUs and GPUs, they are on a relatively short path to being extremely competitive with ARM and the associated graphics chipsets.

\- Intel has a lot of experience writing "sufficiently smart compilers", and doing CPU / GPU integration. Both of those are extremely handy for low-power graphics-heavy environments.

I think this is just one of those things where it doesn't look like a trend until it's inevitable.

<comment><USER3> Sufficiently smart compilers never showed up where it mattered most for Intel:

Turning branchy C/C++ system and apps code into explicitly parallel instructions.

And arguably, they can't.

Sufficiently smart compilers for GPUs aren't sufficiently smart. They work by imposing sufficiently dumb limits on programmers instead.

<comment><USER2> Interestingly, Intel spends a lot of die budget on on-chip instruction level parallelism, and their major instruction set-level enhancements have been increasing vector operation lengths. They've also invested somewhat heavily in GPGPU-style vector coprocessors in their Xeon Phi's.

<comment><USER3> Right. But the whole point of EPIC was to do away with that part of the die budget entirely, and a lot more besides.

GPGPU programming has worked because nobody proposed to run general code on it from the beginning. It just so happens that there are some workloads that fit the vector processing model.

But lots still don't. Lots and lots and lots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Jean-Louis raises some good questions about Intel. They aren't new questions, and the shape has changed, but they are good ones. When I worked there in the 80's I was validating a graphics chip (the 82786) which was a really cool video chip. And tried to get Intel to consider these "Unix workstation" things and they couldn't see past the risk of harming their Microsoft relationship.

To be fair, Intel has made a ton of money and they are widely regarded as the premier chip manufacturing company, standing strong while people like Motorola (the Freescale part of it), TI, NEC, Fairchild, and National faded. And by that measure they are an unqualified gorilla in the market place.

So it is interesting to see things like ARM effectively encroaching into their markets. I'm typing this on a desktop with an x86 processor, but I have way more machines interacting with me running some OS on an ARM processor in my house than I do a x86 machines. That bodes ill for the future.

I've been playing with a Lenovo x86 based Android tablet. Its nice, but it is no better nor worse than an ARM based tablet. And apparently Lenovo was being paid $51 each for them to make these. You cannot retake market share being 'just as good as' and a bribe. You really need a compelling reason to get people to switch to your processor. I wonder what that will be for Intel.

<comment><USER5> > And tried to get Intel to consider these "Unix workstation" things and they > couldn't see past the risk of harming their Microsoft relationship.

and by not listening they made how many billions?

<comment><USER4> That is kind of the point. They _have_ made billions, an unqualified success, and they have triumphed over all of their rivals of the day. The only problem is the one the Jean-Louis points out, they are running out of road.

I was at Sun in 1988 when they decided to "go enterprise" in a big way. The focused on killing DEC and all the other workstation vendors, and partnered with AT&T to make UNIX a real Enterprise OS, combining System V, and BSD 4.2 (aka SunOS) into Solaris. It made them many billions of dollars, heck it paid for most of my house! But that road did not lead to them being a force in the Linux/*BSD world, nor supplying computers for that word. That was lost to the other server manufacturers and Sun Microsystems ran out of road. Long before Sun was effectively dead, they could have moved into a new space. They did not. Now they exist only as assets in the Oracle ledger.

Jean-Louis points out that Intel could be headed this way. They say big things but they seem unable to face the reality that the microprocessor world is changing in fundamental ways that make it hard to have giant gross margins on a single chip.

Intel has done great things, its a wonderful company, and it will die if it cannot figure out how to compete with ARM.

<comment><USER6> Do you have any thoughts on the future (or lack there of) of AMD?

I thought it was very interesting that they won both the Sony Playstation 4 and the XBOX One - in my eyes the first win for their long transition towards "real" on-die GPUs.

I'm thinking that they'll now have the whole game industry making graphic engines that work great on their stack (both major consoles, and on PCs). If they can leverage some of that towards tablet/mobile -- that could be interesting.

So far it seems that Nvidia is winning there, though.

(Obviously, while I have a bit of a crush on AMD as the underdog, and love their push for better open source drivers -- I don't really want to see a new monopoly emerge. But anyway, I'd be curious to hear what you think?)

<comment><USER4> I like AMD. I told the CEO of NetApp he must fire me if going with an AMD processor (Opteron) in the high end (aka most profitable, flag ship) filer turned out to be the wrong decision. That said, I hate AMD, they can't execute for crap.

It wasn't for lack of vision. Fred Weber, their CTO at the time, had solid ideas about moving AMD into the lead for x86 scale chips. AMD kept thinking they were a chip making company and didn't unload what became Global Foundries fast enough. Not to mention that everyone who has to play with x86 is playing with the deck stacked against them. Massive memory machines are coming, all the cool kids are over at HP building one on "the machine" project. AMD could have built that machine 10 years ago, or at least laid the ground work for it. AMD owned a huge chunk of the FLASH market, they could have spun silicon in a way that would allow for mixed FLASH and DRAM on the "north bridge", it would have changed a lot of the economics of things. But when you're constantly about to die, it is really really hard to make strategic moves. So unless AMD stops perceiving itself as being on life support it won't be able to muster the courage to move forward on things where it could make a huge difference. And its not clear to me if it has fallen under the power curve or not. Fred took a huge risk when they did the Sledgehammer (aka Opteron) architecture. And I watched how much pain people went through trying not to piss off Intel to use it (including NetApp). And got to see how it totally stomped the living crap out Intel's Netburst designs. (Intel was pushing Itanium as their 64 bit / large memory answer, which also underperformed Opteron machines)

But the reverberations of that triumph were not good, AMD's inability to execute meant they stumbled on the next few bits. They got the jitters, canned Fred, and went for something "safe". Not a good plan for world domination.

<comment><USER7> "AMD kept thinking they were a chip making company and didn't unload what became Global Foundries fast enough"

Ah but they were only capable of do that after their settlement with Intel (I mean, the Intel anti-trust settlement)

Before that if you wanted to make x86 chips the condition is that you manufactured the chips or something like that

<comment><USER4> Very valid point. The albatross of x86 licensing/patents is a hard one to git rid of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Apple might feel that Intel's process needs to mature before it can deliver > 300M units.

We don't have to wonder about that at all. Apple will either use Samsung's 14nm or TSMC's 16nm (or both) for its chips next year.

It's funny that Intel keeps bragging about its process advantage, yet even with that process advantage they have _no real advantage_ over the 28nm planar ARM chips in terms of performance/power consumption (sorry, Anand, it seems the "x86 myth" hasn't been "busted" after all. Otherwise Atom on 22nm FinFET should've _wiped the floor_ with _any_ 28nm planar ARM chip. But it doesn't. Not even close. In fact many current high-end ARM chips on older process beat Atom on the newer process).

Instead they have to beg tablet makers to take their chips away for free (or they _pay them_ to take the chips).

Also, Intel's actions speak volumes. They've started _licensing out_ their Atom micro-architecture to Rockchip and Spreadtrum. Think about what that means for a second - it means Intel thinks it _can 't_ succeed in the mobile market _making its own chips_. Instead it has to give their designs out as IP, just like ARM, so _other companies_ make Atom chips. Even if Intel is "successful" with this strategy, they'll be making pennies on the dollar in mobile, just like ARM Holdings does (ARM is totally fine with that, given the company structure - I doubt Intel would be).

Oh - and those companies aren't going to use Intel's "huge process advantage" either. They're going to use TSMC's 28nm planar process - late next year. If Intel is doing this then Intel must think that having others make Atom chips on an obsolete 28nm process (while ARM chip makers move to 20nm and 14nm FinFet next year), is going to be "more successful" than themselves making them with that "huge process advantage". Let that hopeless Intel strategy sink in for a moment.

<comment><USER9> While I personally am confused about this part of Intel's strategy, I can't avoid the feeling that Intel (and Rockchip) know something I don't.

Maybe it's some kind of "white-label" conspiracy - Intel wanting to sell Atoms cheaply through a 3rd party so they don't need to dilute the Intel brand (and Wall-Street observed profit margin).

Maybe they are planning subsidies for the next 20 years (Intel was always playing the long game), and this is their way to avoid anti-trust, which would surely hit if they are actually successful.

They are at a huge disadvantage in the market, and they seem to have no technical advantage in mobile and tablets so far. But this does not seem like a desperate strategy - it seems the goal is different than "sell more now". It might just be red queen style "keep running in order to stay in place until we can figure out something else".

HP RISC cpus are gone. Alpha AXP is gone. AMD is mostly playing catch-up. IBM Power cpus are sort-of alive, but it is not an Intel competitor at this point. I hope Intel's dominance wanes and competition arrives again - but I'm not holding my breath.

<comment><USER10> Making ARM chips for low/medium end tablets is a cut throat market. Rockchip did well initially but now Allwinner has passed them, and they seem to be in a challenging situation. Just look at Allwinner vs. Rockchip growth. Not to mention Mediatek that will eventually come with integrated cellular (including 4G). So for Rockchip, it may simply be a defensive move: life is too hard and competitive on the ARM side, so try to find a niche in the x86 side. I'm very doubtful it'll work out: the volume is in the low/mid tiers, and the average consumer doesn't care about the CPU architecture. It's just a basic Android tablet, period. I don't see a worthwhile differentiation on Intel side, except the current crazy subsidies but those can't last forever. And this market is not faithful: the chip makers need to provide mostly everything to the ODMs (Mediatek is quite famous there, providing even the production and test process and tooling ready to deploy), and this makes changing chip provider rather easy. There is no loyalty, only a focus on low prices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Itanium was not "an adoption" of PA-RISC. It was a completely novel design co- developed with HP after HP researchers argued that VLIW was the next step forward.

It did, however, manage to kill several of Intel's potential high end competitors with nothing more than hype.

<comment><USER9> > nothing more than hype.

at least $10 Billions of dollars (still bleeding, though at a much lower rate these days), some goodwill from customers, and letting AMD become the premier 64-bit platform from a couple of years and having to play catchup -- Intel was practically forced to adopt the AMD64 architecture or they would have lost the lucrative market for PCs and servers.

All things considered, I'm not sure that the price Intel paid for killing PA- RISC was good value for money - it was a lot more than hype, even if in the grand scheme of things it wasn't much.

<comment><USER3> They spent billions of dollars on a dream that didn't pan out. And, in retrospect, was a bad idea.

And maybe a few hundred thousand on press junkets to hype the dream. Millions, tops.

Given that Alpha and MIPS dropped out before there was anything at all concrete, I'd say that hype was the one that mattered.

But I guess it's easy for me to say that in hindsight.

<comment><USER9> Oh, it was a bad idea from the get-go. That was the sentiment I had myself, and heard from everyone who had actually looked at the details -- long before actual hardware was available.

The market did NOT want Itanium, and Intel knew that - but intel believed that they were strong enough to dictate. They weren't, and their internal culture made it hard for them to accept that for a long time.

I actually find it fascinating - Intel had an OO processor (name escapes me now) between the 286 and the 386 that has a story surprisingly similar to the Itanium: Radical departure towards unproven instruction set which, when arrived, delivered too-little-too-late, causing the company to scramble into retrofitting the older cash-cow for the future before someone else manages to eat their lunch.

History does not repeat, but it often rhymes.

<comment><USER11> It was iAPX 432. IIRC, its main problem was that it was ahead of its time. It was complex, and the manufacturing process was not developed enough, so it had to be manufactured as _three_ separate chips. This made motherboards more complex, and also performance suffered.

<comment><USER9> I don't think "ahead of its time" is a good description (or, alternatively, it was so far ahead that its time had not yet arrived).

There was one CPU architecture designed since, that I'm aware of, that has OO baked in as well as a stack-machine model (the defining features of the software side of the 432, even if the hardware was perfect). The Java CPUs faired about as well as the 432, which is "not well at all". I think "bad architecture" is a better description than "ahead of its time", which is just as true for the Itanium.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A bit surprising that Jean-Louis confused Itanium with PA-RISC. Itanium was started at HP as a successor to PA-RISC and provided an emulation mode for PA- RISC legacy users but it's EPIC (VLIW) architecture was pretty much a clean slate.

<comment><USER13> I noticed this too, and thought it was especially funny considering both names are linked to their respective Wikipedia entries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder why Intel doesn't just design their own custom Arm core like Apple and Qualcomm do. Why so focused on moving manufacturers to x86?

<comment><USER15> They had it (XScale) and sold the unit, maybe due to internal politics.

<comment><USER16> I'm surprised that so many people don't know this. Back in the day, StrongARM and XScale were used in most (if not all?) of the PDAs. Intel could've easily had a monopoly today if they continued developing the technology.

<comment><USER17> Except that they didn't own the technology like they own x86.

<comment><USER16> Well, they don't own x86-64, either - and that worked out incredibly well for them :-)

<comment><USER17> Actually they do. AMD licenses x86 from Intel on which x86-64 is based.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Isn't it the case that Intel Atom has been just that little bit too power hungry compared to Arm chips? They can't quite convince anyone to use them without large subsidies.

I know they've been making some headway in this regard, but the perception is still there that Atom is too heavyweight to stick in a phone.

</comment><comment><USER19> The danger Intel faces is at what point are ARM chips "good enough" to encroach on the PC and server space. At some point the billions Apple and Samsung are spending to improve manufacturing and R&D will likely make ARM chips fast enough to handle all kinds of general usage in laptops and servers.

If Apple took their PC business away from Intel, they might not care, but if Samsung decided to start selling $10 desktop ARM chips while the equivalent PC chip was $100, that would potentially put a huge dent in Intel's core business.

I don't know if this will happen soon, but the economics of it are not in Intel's favor. If I were Intel, I'd be more worried about ARM encroaching on desktop and server than getting a foothold in mobile. That is the risk Intel faces.

</comment><comment><USER20> > _I see three possible answers._

How about a fourth option? Intel's organizational structure doesn't really allow it to build profitable mobile chips that are competitive with the ARM chips, $51 subsidy notwithstanding.

This is company that has gotten used to having literally thousands of engineers work on each processor. And note this is a single _processor_ not an SoC, and going from a processor to an SoC is a ton more work. I think they simply don't have the organizational dexterity to effectively compete with the lean and mean ARM shops.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm surprised there was no mention of POWER8 and IBM's adoption of the licensing model, similar to ARM. For the first time in at least 5 years, Intel has a Xeon competitor.

</comment><comment><USER22> If Intel thinks a 65% margin for IoT silicon will be achievable, they'll probably lose again.

<comment><USER23> The new strategy in the IOT isn't to sell silicon - they try to create higher value goods - an IOT gateway with secure software, wearables, smart glasses together with famous optical brands, etc.

They're probably hoping to create some value due to hardware software integration, ALA apple. But hardware integration(from the hardware side) played only a small part in apple's success,at least as far as i understand it.

So we'll see about intel.

<comment><USER22> _Intel_ might want to enter the IoT market this way, but all the other chipmakers I've seen aren't going this route. They're trying to drop the power consumption and cost as fast as they can and let someone else design the fancy glasses.

Intel's record in consumer electronics to date is, well, pretty awful. So the expectations are pretty low here. And, again, nobody gets 65% margin on consumer products.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Or Intel is still betting on x86 and thinking ARM is "just a fad"

A lot of companies went down because of similar thinking

</comment><comment><USER24> "Essentially no revenue for Mobile and Communications"

While technically correct, this misses the fact that Intel has been making some huge inroads into mobile (particularly tablets). This isn't reflected in revenue because Intel has quite literally been giving them away, lubricating their use to make up for the industry being heavily ARM-centric.

[http://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-to-hit-40-million- mobile-...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-to-hit-40-million-mobile-chip- units-with-aid-of-subsidies/)

There are tens of millions of devices out there running Intel chips, and it is lubricating the world for the platform. Right now there are people who are running Android on Intel devices and they have absolutely no idea that they are -- the various Memo Pads, for instance. The Dell Venues.

The Memo Pad ME572C runs an Atom Z3560, a 64-bit x86-64 processor with four cores, SSE4.2, and a powerful onboard graphics solution.

Intel is laying groundwork. Anyone who looks at the revenue number and counts Intel out is being fooled. In a few years I suspect that many of the same people will be crying foul about Intel having bought themselves into a market they missed.

<comment><USER8> How can you "make inroads" into a market, when you're _giving away your product_ in a non-sustainable way. Sure, tablet makers will take Intel's "just as good" 0$ Atom chip. But will they take it when it's "just as good" for $30 or $40?

<comment><USER9> They might be trying to get some "lock-in" back, though I have no idea how.

Ballmer's Microsoft apparently missed the Mobile/Tablet revolution assuming that the desktop lock-in they still have could be leveraged. That didn't work for years, but seems to have been ignored until Nadella came in.

Intel might be trying to gain a lock-in by somehow putting the familiar x86 into mobiles/tablets, in the hope that developers would release x86 binaries that would make ARM undesirable. But that's an 80 degree inclination uphill battle. They either have a crazy card up their sleeve, or are unable to respond properly (and the $0 cost + $50 subsidy) is the best they can do at present while trying to craft that crazy card.

<comment><USER24> Quite the opposite: It's eliminating lock- _out_ , which is where Intel was in an ARM-only mobile world.

Intel has the most advanced fabs in the world, and the limits of their own devices has primarily been their concern about competing with themselves (which I'm sure is still the case. With each new chip they probably have internal negotiations about how to ensure it doesn't threaten their desktop and server chips). If Intel isn't disadvantaged in mobile, only a fool would count them out.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your computer setup? - <AUTHOR> Personally I have a self-built AMD dual-core, 4gb ram, archlinux & gnome/openbox (looking into using awesome wm, any suggestions?), a 17" and a 19" monitor.<p>What do you hack on? <comment><USER3> I bought a little 12" Lenovo X60 off eBay to take with me on the road. It was the top of the line executive machine a few years back, and they're coming off lease and being refurbished now so you can get one for like $300. Add $100 for a big fast drive, 4GB memory and a new battery and suddenly it's a crazy fast dev machine that you can use on a chicken bus and not sweat too bad when it gets stolen by those Jamaican pickpockets from the American Express commercial (cause hey, it least it wasn't my $2k dev box).

The plan was to give it to the girlfriend now that we're home, but I'm finding it hard to go back to my big ol' Dell Latitude. It's tiny, it's fast, it logs me in by reading my fingerprint. She can't haves it. It's _mine!!!_

</comment><comment><USER4> Before I list my setup, I'd like to ask: What's with all the laptops?

I worked off a 15-inch laptop for several years, but after using a desktop, I've completely converted. Laptops give you less screen space and less computational power, and in general I've never liked their keyboards. They're also more expensive (I think?) and trickier to self-build. The only advantage I see is portability, which is understandable, but I think it's more that they're becoming the new default computer type for everyone, rather than having people choose between them and desktops.

Anyway, mine:

I put together the desktop a couple months back: AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3.6GHz, 4GB RAM, and an SSD for the OS and programs. I decided to future-proof myself, after living off that laptop for too long. It's connected to two Acer monitors - one 24-inch, one 23.6-inch, leaving a difference that's enough to irritate me every time I try to align things perfectly. It runs Windows 7 for general use and a virtualised Arch Linux machine for development work. I've tried setting up Windows the way I like it, but when Linux is available I don't think it's worth the effort. The VM does nothing but run Emacs in seamless mode, so everything still works together, and I don't have to worry about window managers.

I type in dvorak on a Kinesis Advantage (the black one). I've never had recurring hand problems, but the keyboard setup feels so much nicer to use, I stick with it. That, and a Logitech mouse that I'm ambivalent about.

My phone is an HTC Dream (aka the G1), running Cyanogen 2.1. It's been outclassed several times by today's standard of phones, but I'm waiting until it fully breaks down before replacing it. Not sure what with yet, which is a shame, because I like the design, even if the hardware space bar is already starting to go.

All in all, I'm happy with what I have.

<comment><USER3> This:

[http://photos1.blogger.com/photoInclude/x/blogger/5478/1688/...](http://photos1.blogger.com/photoInclude/x/blogger/5478/1688/1600/522049/chamonixoffice.jpg)

and this:

[http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/04/west-coast- mob...](http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/04/west-coast-mobile- office.html)

Granted, they sell desktops in France, and you could technically put one in a van, but the experience of taking off for a month-long road trip to get some work done is a definite perk.

<comment><USER5> It's a nice picture, but how can you see anything on the screen in that much sunlight?

<comment><USER6> Well it rules out a glossy screen, but as long as you've got one that's LED- powered it's fine. Course it's nicer in the shade, but it still works in the sun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sheesh. Okay, here we go:

 _Hackerspace Kit_

      ASUS 1000HA
        2gb RAM upgrade
        BT4 / Windows Dual Boot
      Arduino Diecimella

_Freelance / Personal Kit_

      MacBook Pro 2,2
        2gb RAM
        ATI Radeon x1600
        Boot Camp / VMWare Fusion XP Dual Boot

_Gaming Kit_

      Custom Built i7 Rig
        i7 920
        6gb RAM
        Nvidia GTX 260
        Dual 19" WS Monitors from Dell
      Dell Docking Station

_Work Kit_

      Dell D830
        Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz
        3.5gb RAM
        Nvidia Quadro NVS 140M
        Win XP
      Dual 19" 4:3 Dell Monitors
      Dell Docking Station

<comment><USER8> Try harder.

<comment><USER7> Not sure I understand what you're saying. It sounds snarky, but that doesn't fit the HN modus operandi, so I'm hoping I missed something. :)

<comment><USER9> I think maybe he is impressed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A Macbook Pro. That is all.

<comment><USER11> A Macbook Pro 13". That is all.

<comment><USER6> I was really surprised by the weight of this machine. It's also very low- resolution. But the build quality is much-improved over precedessors. If Apple started to compete based on weight and resolution I might consider them, but who knows--maybe they're trying to avoid impinging on the lower-level ipad market.

<comment><USER12> 2kg? Positively or negatively? My sister bought this dell ([http://www1.la.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx...](http://www1.la.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/vostro-v13?c=br&l=pt&s=bsd&cs=brbsdt1)) and its 1.6kg. Everyone loves the weight.

<comment><USER6> The 13-inch Macbook Pro is just a lot heavier than it looks. It's much smaller than the 15-inch, but not much lighter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I use awesome wm on archliux, and I HIGHLY recommend it. Definitely go for it.

You can pretty much do everything very efficiently from the keyboard, which just "feels right" to me (not to mention being way more convenient). You can also manage way more windows in an efficient way. The previous two sentences could probably be said about a lot of "tiling" window managers, honestly, but I think awesome is a great choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any specific tweaks/hacks/configs I should look at? Otherwise I'll just dive in ... and hope for the best. =)

<comment><USER13> I'd say, just dive in.

Be sure to read man awesome.

You'll want to customize things a bit, most likely... rc.lua (the config file) is very hackable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Time and again I find myself getting back to my Thinkpad X31. It's 2004 vintage, past its five-year extended warranty, and has an Intel processor from back when their top of the line was still branded as a Pentium. It's the size of a university notebook and weighs 1.6 kg. It's as good as I can expect from the form factor.

I have a Thinkpad T60p with a gorgeous UXGA IPS I'm looking to sell because it's too much computer. I have a Thinkpad R50p with a gorgeous UXGA IPS screen I'm going to use instead, but haven't gotten around to setting it up properly yet. I have a desktop with some low-end AMD dual-core, 4 GB of RAM, and a 23" Samsung 16:9 TN screen I've been trying to use as a VM and file server, but the process isn't quite done yet either. Yes, there is a pattern.

I have a couple of Nokia tablets (N800 and N810) I use when travelling. The N810 with Opera Mobile comes decently close to duplicating how I use my X31 (after obvious allowances for size difference), but it's been going through some software and perhaps hardware difficulties lately. Still, I was impressed — it got me through two weeks without an x86 machine pretty well.

I'm currently considering removing Windows 7 from the X31 (aided by its efforts to implode and steal my files) and replacing it with a basic Linux- based OS like easypeasy. 7 is pretty great when it isn't breaking, but it's almost too much OS for my use.

One of these days I'll build my laptop for the ages: a X61s loaded up with 4 or 8 GB of RAM, a nice SSD, and a 1400x1050 IPS screen swapped in. Not yet.

</comment><comment><USER15> Okay, after reading through this thread, there seems to be an interesting trend. Almost everyone has beefy processors and lots of memory .... but it is all hooked up to a 19" monitor. Sure, there are people with the 27" iMacs and 30" monitors, but they sure seem a lot less than I would have guessed.

For those of you still using laptop screens, 19" monitors or even 22" monitors, have you tried something bigger? The difference in my productivity between a 30" or 2x24" monitors and the screen on my laptop is palatable. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that given all the cloud computing these days, I'd take a slow system without much memory as my local box if I could get a bigger monitor for it.

<comment><USER16> I'm the other way, 24 and 22inch monitors with a relatively average machine these days.

<comment><USER17> Definitely one of my most productive upgrades has been more monitors, I run a 24" in portrait to my left, great for text editing and reading, centre I run a 24" in landscape, to the right I have a 20" attached to a different system and a 8 inch mimo under the center screen to throw media onto, the whole lot rigged to a powered sit/stand workstation :)

Downside is power consumption, upside is I don't have to use the light switch as it never goes dark in here...

Here's a bit from m$ on the benefits of multi-screen; <http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/vibe.aspx>

I remember reading somewhere else that the results of m$'s study into the productivity benefits of larger or more screens did not hit an upper limit.

I also design websites now and again and it's great to just drag a page around and preview it on different screen sizes in 'reality', mapping the 'visible' window on a larger monitor is not quite the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _What do you hack on?_

Today; our biggest distributed cluster (several thousand machines, 4 heads). Which is very fun :)

Usually I hack on various computers; either a water cooled Amd Opteron [the older ones that overclocked like stink] or Intel Core 2 Duo based machines. OS is usually Feodra core 11/Ubuntu (at work) or Mint (at home).

Synced with Dropbox, shared KB/Mouse using Synergy.

<comment><USER19> I think you officially win the thread....

</comment></comment><comment><USER20>
       Asus Eee PC 1000HD
       * 1.6Ghz Atom
       * 1 GiB ram
       * 10" 1024x600 display
       * OpenBSD (recent snapshot)
       * StumpWM is the window manager
       * emacs is the editor

I use it as terminal to login to my ps3 running Debian sid for cell processor development. I use profont to let me fit a lot of code on the small screen.

<comment><USER4> I've heard some people say that only being able to see a small amount of code at a time forces good programming practices, compared to what you'd be able to do with a large monitor. Do you think that having such a small screen helps in this way?

<comment><USER21> I would say that's bullshit.

Tried using a netbook to do some web development, and the small screen, keyboard and lethargic hardware made it very frustrating. Horrible compared to using a big monitor and powerful desktop.

<comment><USER22> I bought an Asus Eee several years ago for writing away from home, but discovered too late that the keyboard is much too small for me to type comfortably.

<comment><USER20> Was it the 10" model? I found the keyboard on the 7" to be too small to touch type but the 10" is just large enough after some adjustment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Self-built computer: AMD 2.8 GHz quad-core, 4 gig ram, running Ubuntu 10.04 .

Keyboard: black Unicomp SpaceSaver (<http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/en104bl.html>).

Mouse: Microsoft SideWinder gaming mouse ([http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft- HKA-00001-SideWinder-Gaming-...](http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft- HKA-00001-SideWinder-Gaming- Mouse/dp/B000TTQFIS/ref=sr_1_cc_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1278943278&sr=1-3-catcorr)). 2x 21.5" emachines 1920x1080 monitor (<http://emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=E211H_bmd>).

The only important user-facing software on my machine: Emacs, Firefox, Pidgin, VLC. I installed Stumpwm (<http://www.nongnu.org/stumpwm/>), but went back to Gnome until I have the time to learn, and am less ego-depleted.

</comment><comment><USER9> Well, the day job has a 13" aluminum macbook pro. Very nice, outfitted with everything ruby, blackbag, clojure, sbcl, external kenisis keyboard.

Home has another white 13" macbook used for time on the train with one of them there usb cellular thingies. Big development system is 8 gigs two core 400gig asus MB driving a samsung 204bw, running ubuntu next-to-latest, intel gig nic. Second montior driven by a 900mhz amd with 200gig drive, running ubuntu latest on another 204bw. The windows box is a 64bit gigabyte MB running 32 bit w2k with bunches of scsi drives and a scsi DAT tape drive.

In the basement are six $300 systems (asus mn2k or such) with dual or single core, 2 gigs (one with 4 gigs), dual intel gig nics, one inboard nic each, ubuntu latest or next to latest. And there is a cluster driven by a caos 2gig 3-nic box, with 7 diskless work nodes with 2 gig ram, 2 nics each. With something like $400, proximity to Tiger Direct, a monitor, keyboard and a mouse, you can build a very respectable development system the next day with one hour of assembly time.

Then there are the recycled bunch, two running openbsd for firewalls. These are two generations ago, castoff from friends who bought their kids new boxes. One bsd box that used to run the church website, a FIT pc running latest ubuntu that I thought might be useful (might be using it for day job if it weren't for VM Fusion--load it up with backtrack 4). Then there are two recycled "media" pcs, 32bits, one of which drives the TV, and the other that, well, i think it is running ntp, and maybe a website for some friends.

With all this, you would think I am a system administrator, but the closest to being an SA was when I wrote the first version of the Mark Williams Coherent Administrator's Guide. If Erin were to check my homework, I would certainly flunk.

What is fun at parties is to fire up the 40 inch TV with the media PC behind it and ask your dinner guests' address, and show them the bird's-eye-view of their house. Oh, and be cautious about pulling it up with zillow. That could get to be a not-so-positive experience at dinner time.

</comment><comment><USER24> You can see my setup here: <http://jseliger.com/2010/05/02/writing-space-2010> . You can see a 24" iMac (the screen space is, to my mind, more valuable than the processor speed) with an external monitor and a Kinesis Advantage). [EDIT: Note also the desk -- a Maxon 1000 series with a Humanscale keyboard tray. It's a good combination because you can adjust the tray to keep your arms at a 90 degree angle and the desk is really solid.)

My family's space is here: [http://blog.seliger.com/2008/06/15/tools-of-the- trade%E2%80%...](http://blog.seliger.com/2008/06/15/tools-of-the- trade%E2%80%94what-a-grant-writer-should-have/) .

<comment><USER25> +1 for the Kinesis, great keyboard, fixed my wrist pain!

<comment><USER24> I'm a fan too; you can see from this review: <http://jseliger.com/2009/07/20/kinesis-advantage/> that I was initially somewhat ambivalent... until I switched back to a normal keyboard, at which point I realized just how nice the Advantage is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Primary: Thinkpad W500. Core2 Duo T9600 (2.8 GHz, 6M cache), 4GB memory, 15" 1680x1050, Ubuntu 10.04. I only have a couple complaints about this machine. The big one is that the screen can't compare to the 1600x1200 IPS panel of my old T60p. Yes, I did prefer the 4:3 aspect ratio. The audio ports being located on the front is also annoying.

Secondary: Mac Pro (borrowed). Two dual-core Xeon 5150s, 5GB memory, headless most of the time. I use this machine to do the heavy lifting for my text classification work. My experimental data set fits in memory on my laptop, but leaves uncomfortably little free space. It also makes my lap warm. The Mac being about 50% faster in practice than my laptop is a nice perk.

</comment><comment><USER27> Desktop: Intel i7 980x 6 core cpu, 6GB ram, Nvidia 480gtx, Intel 160 GB SSD drive + 2x1TB HDD running Windows 7 64-bit with a 30" Monitor flanked by a pair of 20" Monitors in portrait mode (4960x1600 screen space).

<comment><USER28> This is my exact setup! (minus the 2x1TB HDD)

<http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/5986/imag0011w.jpg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> a fast-enough computer with ubuntu 10.04... that's all I need.

<comment><USER30> Yeah, I've got a cheap-ass Compaq laptop, that cost like $400 a year ago with Ubuntu 10.04 on it. 2 GB ram and a dual-core 64 bit AMD processor is plenty to get work done efficiently, especially with Vim + Bash as my primary work environment. I can run Windows XP in a virtualbox instance without issue for IE testing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Since January I've been using an Apple iMac 27inch, 2.8GHz quad-core Intel core i7, 8GB ram, 1TB hard disk, Apple GB keyboard (not wireless) & Magic mouse running on Snow Leopard (Mac OSX 10.6).

Before January it was an original Intel iMac 24inch running Tiger (Mac OSX 10.4) which I'd been using for over 3 years: [http://transfixedbutnotdead.com/2006/12/14/my-workspace- with...](http://transfixedbutnotdead.com/2006/12/14/my-workspace-with-my- shiny-new-apple-imac/)

</comment><comment><USER32> 1\. Macbook Pro 13". I prefer it to the 15" I used to have, as the most important factor for me is portability. The 13" is effortless to tote, and fits comfortably into even small bags.

2\. Core i7-860 based hackintosh, Samsung 24" monitor. It's essentially a cheap Mac Pro. It has all the power and screen real-estate I need to complement the laptop, especially for 3D work (Silo, Maya), and music production (Logic). I write music that is heavy on complex effects chains, and I like to keep it all realtime, so I definitely appreciate the extra power, which I wouldn't be able to afford in a _real_ Mac desktop.

Speaking of music production, I use a Focusrite Saffire soundcard, for its nice-sounding mic preamps, and KRK Rokit 8 studio monitors, which sound pretty decent. I've got some M-Audio MIDI controllers which are of decent quality and not too pricey.

Also, a friend gave me his unused Apple Keyboard, which I use with my desktop. I know, it's a small crappy keyboard, but that's the best part, it is a much more dynamic element of my desk space than a big, bulky keyboard would be. Also, I like the fact the layout is identical to that of the Macbook keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER33> Lenovo W500, 4GB, 15", Windows 7 x64. Laptop screen size doesn't matter as I have two 24" Samsung 2433BW LCD monitors mounted on an Ergotron Dual Side by Side LX adjustable arm kit. The second monitor is hooked up via Lenovo's USB DisplayLink adapter, which works quite well.

I can't recommend the Ergotron mounting kit enough. One of my LCDs is rotated to a vertical position for web browsing, documenting and coding.

</comment><comment><USER34> ZaReason Strata Pro 13" w/Core 2 & SSD.

Just fast enough for my needs, a ULV processor so I can feel good about not sucking too much energy (the SSD makes up for the lack of CPU power, it still feels 'fast'), and Ubuntu FTW.

Eminently portable (3.5lbs), decent resolution on the screen and a nice keyboard (on par if not a little better than my old MacBook Pro's keyboard).

I love it as it has just enough of everything I need and not too much.

</comment><comment><USER35> Thinkpad R51 with 1GB of RAM, 1.5GHz single-core processor and 40GB storage. It's running Windows XP.

An external WD disk and an external laptop mouse for when I am editing images.

I have the most spartan setup out among all the programmers that I know, but I have made wonderful things with it.

My fiancee jokes it's a piece of junk, but I tell her that we made $1020 for every dollar we spent on the laptop, used ;-)

</comment><comment><USER36> At home, I have a Core i5 desktop with 4GB of RAM and dual 22" monitors running Windows 7, and also a 13" unibody MacBook which I bought back in October 2008 -- on the day they were released, actually.

In the past I used the desktop for quite a bit of gaming as well as remoting in to my work PC with Remote Desktop. These days I find I don't really game very much anymore, and I can connect to my work VPN/RDP through the Mac anyway if I need to work from home. Consequently, I'm on the MacBook almost 100% of the time. I'm actually considering getting a Mac Mini, moving the big HDDs out of the desktop into external enclosures attached to that, then getting rid of the Windows box and the older 22" display. I suppose I could also just get a NAS, but I like knowing I have a spare machine around in case my MacBook dies.

Work is a Q6600 with 3GB of RAM running Vista Business, since I'm currently working with mostly with .NET.

</comment><comment><USER37> At work: slightly old Centrino Duo laptop with I think 2GB ram (due to be upgraded very soon), 1280x800 screen plus 2x 1280x1024 external screens. Runs XP SP2 (SP3 failed to install for some reason, maybe I'll try again in safe mode...).

At home: Athlon II x4 with 8GB ram (I usually seem to use around 4GB of that), SSD (one of the Indilinx Barefoot ones) plus large platter drive, 2x 2048x1180 screens. Runs Debian Testing/Unstable, plus occasional VirtualBox instances.

I also have an almost-netbook running XP SP3, which is too underpowered to do much local development on or watch high-res youtube movies but makes a nice web+ssh terminal for lighter tasks or travel. It's fairly small, and has about 7 hours of battery life (getting decent CPU power with similar size and life would have been way out of my budget, especially since that's what the desktop is for).

</comment><comment><USER38> My main machine for the last 6 months has been a EeePC 1000HE netbook. I keep an Athlon 64 3200+ in the basement thaat has extra storage and a larger monitor for design work, but it rarely gets used anymore. My at work machine is a Pentium D with 2 23" screens in landscape.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm writing this on a current-gen MacBook Pro 13", which replaced a Samsung NC10 Hackintosh, which I absolutely loved and really wish Apple had made so that it would work properly.

Despite being almost the same spec-wise, apart from the much smaller screen, it's almost entirely replaced my 24" iMac pretty much solely because I can hack from the sofa which is a bit more social and also a lot more comfortable.

I recently replaced my colocated server with a Dell R210, which I think might be my new favourite rack server. It's so tiny and cute - and draws hardly any power. Sure, it's only a single-socket board with four DIMM slots, but that's just enough for me. And who would have expected TWO internal USB ports and an eSATA port? Nice little touches, there.

</comment><comment><USER40> i7 920, Windows 7 64 bit 12G RAM nVidia 275 (Almost 2G of RAM) 22" Monitor ATM, as the wife is using the other one) 320G primary Drive, 1TB slave, 1.5 TB backup Plantronics Wireless Headphones 3 Printers. Yes, 3. 1 Canon Jet, 1 B/W laser w/fax/scanner, 1 laser color. Really, don't ask. Blame my wife for them.

The most difficult thing at the moment is the single monitor at only 22". Really looking to invest in a nice 27", but with so many other things needing doing, I really can't justify it at the moment.

It's a nice system. Before this, I was usually a generation behind. This was the "let's really splurge and go all out" system. =) Encouraged very much by the wife. And yes, I do end up using the system and it's resources quite heavily at times for video rendering while still using the computer.

It's a funny story how I got this system. See, my wife is a Mac Geek. And she's not some clueless Mac Geek. She was installing and running Debian back in the 90s. She knows her networking, hardware, and computers. Her Mac love came about when she went back to school for compute graphics. Anyways, she's a Mac Geek, so for several years now, our home has been a Mac v.s. PC environment. Good forbid something happens with my PC (or her Mac), as the other won't waste any time before coming up with some snarky comment. She's really good at this.

Anyways, when I saw the new iMacs, the 27" i7 version caught my eye. With the constant struggle of getting a Mac and PC to work together, I finally informed my wife that I would be getting a Mac, selling my PC, and moving to Apple.

She rejoiced.

We made plans, but with me starting a new job, and with wanting to wait until after the new year to give them time to fix any potential first-run defects, we planned to get one in January.

However, come December 25th,I learned she decided to buy me Windows 7 (which I had yet to pick up, mostly because I'd just been too lazy to do it). This resulted in me deciding that I should upgrade my computer, and that, as we say, is that. She had her chance.

Anyways, sorry for the long post, and the rambling. >_<

<comment><USER41> I've decided that the splurge method is the way to go. I spent almost $3000 on this machine 2 years ago, and it has yet to even flinch at any of the new games or software I throw at it. Much better than buying a new $1000 system every year that makes you want to buy something new only a few months in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Work: custom-built dual quad core Xeon firstname.lastname@example.com, 12 GB RAM, dual 22" dell monitors (Ubuntu Lucid)

Home:

* custom-built quad core AMD Phenom (Ubuntu Lucid), 8 GB ram, single 22" monitor

* Lenovo T400s (Ubuntu Lucid)

* Macbook Pro (rarely used, bought during period of irrational exuberance on potential app store sales)

</comment><comment><USER43> Sorry if this is a bit OT, but does anyone have any experience using panasonic toughbooks? I travel fairly extensively and my MBP is basically in tatters (I have enjoyed it immensely, but the hardware has been subpar - <USER2> exploded, screen went dead, power plug nearly caught on fire, HD failure, etc. I've noticed the new ultralight toughbook is out, and thought this loaded with Linux might be an ideal solution. I have no problem paying premiums for tools that work (my assumption with the MBP) but also obviously don't want to buy something that doesn't return the appropriate value. Anyone with any experience with these tools?

<comment><USER44> I am a big fan of the Panasonic business series. They were originally called "Lets Note" in japan but rebranded with "toughbook" in the US as the business ultralight series.

I have a Y4 currently. It is somewhat rugged, but the most important part is that it has every attribute I want: 3.5 lbs, 14" screen at 1400x1050, built-in DVD/RW, 5-7 hour battery life. The keyboard is quite nice also. Basically, I had a Macbook Air with more features in 2006.

[http://rdist.root.org/2008/02/07/panasonic-cf-y4-laptop- disa...](http://rdist.root.org/2008/02/07/panasonic-cf-y4-laptop-disassembly/)

If you want to replace the hard drive, you have to disassemble the whole thing. RAM upgrades don't require that though. I'm quite familiar with the BIOS and it's one of the better ones. It works fine with Linux and FreeBSD.

They stopped making the Y series with the Y7. The replacement (F8 and F9) annoys me a little because they went to widescreen. I hate widescreen. What you want as a programmer is as many vertical rows as possible, not horizontal. The F9 is 1440x900. You gain 40 horizontal pixels but lost 150 vertical! It also has that weird handle thing but you can ignore it.

I'm still happy enough with my Y4 that I haven't replaced it. It's such a good combination of build quality and firmware quality that I'm afraid of anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> A Macbook Air (Gen 2) with the SSD. Sometimes connected to a screen + bluetooth magic mouse & keyboard. I sold my more powerful 15" MacBook Pro because it was too heavy. The Air is powerful enough for what the java dev and iphone + web app tinkering that I do. I really love the freedom afforded by the light weight. It makes it much easier to program and procrastinate away from the desk (in bed, armchair ...). I just wish it didn't overheat so easily, especially in bed, but flashblock and click2flash help a lot.

I am trying to use a fixed height stand up desk, but I don't feel I have the correct height yet.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is an interesting question after reading your box. I started off with my computer infatuation with a setup very much like yours. But lately, I am so much more interested in portability that I have gotten rid of everything except for a HP dv4 (ADM dual-core, 4GB RAM) that I run Ubuntu on th ssh into my webfaction hosting account and writing my thesis in latex.

The size can't be beat, and it does everything I need it to without being the size of a house (granted I don't game on it...) Maybe if I had more space than a 600sqft apt, I would still have a mini-supercomputer, but laptops are amazing lately.

</comment><comment><USER47> Laptop : MacBook 13" Unibody (late 2009) 2Ghz, 4GB RAM, 500GB Seagate "Hybrid" (4GB NAND).

Desktop #1 : Win7-64 - 23" LCD 2048x1152 Core i5-750(Quad 2.5Ghz), 8GB RAM, ATI Radeon 5770 1GB, 1TB Seagate System drive, 1.5TB Seagate Storage

Desktop #2 : MacOS 10.6.4 (Hackintosh) - 23" LCD 2048x1152 Intel Q6600(Quad 2.4Ghz) 8GB RAM, Nvidia 8800GT 512MB, 1TB System Drive, 1.5TB Storage

Fileserver : Windows Home Server 1.4Ghz AMD Geode 1GB RAM 160gb System drive 8TB of total storage space.

My two desktops have my 23" LCD's side by side and I control both with one keyboard/mouse (Win7-64 machine is the server) via Synergy+ with an SSH tunnel.

I'm really happy with this setup.

</comment><comment><USER48> I basically buy everything Apple releases. So I've got an 8 core Mac Pro loaded to the hilt and.. it's sat in my shed unused for the past 9 months! Once the new 27" iMac came out, that was it. Perfect form factor, "fast enough", a far better screen than my 30" ACD.. so it turns out a machine half the price of my Mac Pro set up totally replaced it. And as there's no market for used Mac Pros, it seems, I now have a full Mac Pro + 30" setup sitting around entirely unused (and a 17" MBP - once I realized I don't really like or need a notebook).

<comment><USER32> You're in England, yeah? Surely there's some music types around who would buy a used Mac Pro... here in Perth, Australia, I know a few Drum & Bass and Dubstep producers who are gagging for one, they're just more expensive here.

<comment><USER48> The problem, it seems, is that if you have the budget for a Mac Pro, you're the sort of person who'd just buy a new one.

The odd thing, though, is that the 8 core Mac Pro I have has held its value well in the sales I've seen because it's still faster than the current 4 core, yet was considered the entry level one at the time..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49>
      Quad core Q5550 , 8GB ram, Vista x64
      cygwin with extensive use of mintty
      Eclipse for everything
      2 * 24" Monitors
      Microsoft X6 Keyboard
      Taskflash LED readout [I make this ;) ]
      Velociraptor 300GB + ~3TB of sundry disk space
      LTO-2 tape drive (unf, requires SCSCI card too)
      VMWare used extensively for linux dev
      Linode for internet accessible hosts
      Virgin Media 50Mbit cable internet

      --

      Also a Thinkpad W500 with an Intel X-25M for when my baby comes along in October and I'm kicked out of my home office

</comment><comment><USER41> Custom-built: * Intel Core2 E8600 @3.33Ghz * 1 GB ram (so behind I know) * Vista but soon to be Win7 (tried linux but it was disappointing) * Two 22inch Samsung monitors @ 1650x1080 * Crazy video card that is louder than the rest of my computer (when the fan starts up)

It's almost 2 years old now, but still fast enough to run all the latest games on max settings without flinching. I don't play as many games though lately.

I've also got some crappy gateway laptop with a buggy touchpad driver that I only use when my desktop is on the fritz.

</comment><comment><USER50> Refurb HP 2.6 GHz machine with XP that I got cheap from TigerDirect a couple years ago. There's also a server on the network running FC5, but I don't remember its particulars.

Hanging off the HP are a single 19" monitor, original IBM 5150 keyboard, B&W laser printer, Atmel AVR In Circuit Emulator, AVR ISP programmer, serial cable for whatever hardware I need to talk to at the moment and a Bluetooth Class 2 dongle for my Bluetooth-enabled hardware projects.

I keep meaning to build a USB-controlled desk lamp, but never have the time...

</comment><comment><USER51> I use a Dell Latitude D630 as my primary/only machine. It has a dual-core 2.4GHz Intel, with 4GB of memory. Serves my needs well - which include a lot of Chrome tabs open (around 30), development in Eclipse with some decent size projects. I also develop using vim/gcc, but that's generally lighter-weight relative to Eclipse.

I like having only one system to do all my work. I don't have to sync across multiple machines. I do take backups every week and use external keyboard/monitor to round it off ergonomically.

</comment><comment><USER52> I have a Toshiba Satellite (Dual-Core 1.6 GHz) with Ubuntu 10.04 extended on an external monitor (19") and an old Compaq desktop (Dual-Core 2.0 GHz) with Windows XP on a 26" monitor.

</comment><comment><USER53> Main: 13" MacBook, with snow leopard, and VM's for Ubuntu and Windows. This gets hooked up to externals wherever I am (Office, home, coworking). This gets paired with a Magic Mouse (best groomsman gift ever), and it has been a solid laptop since I got it.

At home, I also have my girlfriends old Dell E1505 laptop that I am converting to a torrent and media center, which will live under the flatscreen.

Not noticing too many people using a laptop stand. I have a cheap one from Ikea, which really works well.

</comment><comment><USER54> <http://jcs.org/notaweblog/2010/03/28/the_setup/>

i think it would be neat if _the setup_ (<http://usesthis.com/>) had a version where anyone could submit their responses and people could vote them up. a lot of the people they "interview" are really uninteresting and i'm sure there's a lot more unique setups out there being used by people that aren't famous.

<comment><USER6> > i think it would be neat if _the setup_ (<http://usesthis.com/>) had a > version where anyone could submit their responses

The nice thing about the Web is that it's distributed:

<http://technomancy.us/137>

Spoiler: Thinkpad X200s, standing desk, vertical-orientation external display, custom keyboard setup attached to my pants.

<comment><USER54> i created a setups subreddit to post them to, but for some reason it got banned. i'm trying to get a reddit moderator to help.

<http://reddit.com/r/setups/>

<comment><USER54> it's been unbanned, post away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> HP Z800 with 2 x X5560 Quad core CPU, 24GB ECC RAM coupled with an NEC 2690WUXi2 26" monitor.

That's for home hacking.

The work one is a Mac Pro with similar spec.

The home system is dual-booted to Windows Server 2008 and Ubuntu. I do this so that I have a work mode and a play mode... play being Ubuntu. Firing up Windows means I only do SharePoint work and since rebooting isn't instant I keep working. I realise I could just install Ubuntu in a Hyper-V but I purposefully don't do that so that I get things done.

</comment><comment><USER56> 17-inch MacBook Pro with RAID 0 Intel SSDs: [http://paulstamatiou.com/how-to- apple-macbook-pro-raid-0-arr...](http://paulstamatiou.com/how-to-apple- macbook-pro-raid-0-array-with-2-intel-x25-m-ssds)

and a small Asus EEE PC (1005HA) with Ubuntu 10.04 for commuting/etc, usually tethered to my Nexus One with froyo.

[http://paul.posterous.com/reading-and-taking-notes-on- abooka...](http://paul.posterous.com/reading-and-taking-notes-on-abookapart)

</comment><comment><USER57> Primary non-development machine (gaming/entertainment): i7 920 @ 2.8ghz, 6gb ddr3 1600, XFX Radeon HD 5770, Win7 Pro

Laptop (most of my dev and schoolwork is done on this): Thinkpad SL500 (2.0ghz Core2duo, 2gb ram) Dualboot ArchLinux (main/default) w/ Awesome/Xmonad and Win7 (for visual studio and dj software).

Netbook (eeepc 900A): ArchLinux, mostly used for IRC/web when on the run.

Much of my web and non-gui programming is done via ssh to my server in vim, so OS doesnt really matter to me.

</comment><comment><USER58> 27" i7 iMac with 8GB RAM, attached to a 30" Dell display (3007WFP). I switched about a month ago from a MacBook Pro (attached to the same Dell display), and it's phenomenal. It's the first setup I've ever had that actually feels fast enough to run everything I need (iTunes, Word, Excel, and Windows running in VirtualBox, along with a few instances each of iTerm, Chrome and Textmate) without skipping a beat.

</comment><comment><USER59> Corei7 930, 12G Ram, RAID mirror 2x 140GB 15K rpm drives + 1TB storage, NVidia GTS 250 (Bought pre-fermi will update to a tesla soon), 24" Synchmaster

</comment><comment><USER12> What would you buy today, a Macbook Pro 13" or 15" ? I ask because the processor is very different (Core 2 Duo vs I5/7)...

Also, can a 13" drive an 30" cinema display?

</comment><comment><USER60> I don't hack nearly as much as I would like to so that wasn't the deciding factor in choosing a box to work on, this machine is as big as it is mostly because of my browsing habits.

Hundreds of tabs open is not rare at all when I dig in to a subject and I've seen the browser top 10G resident. Amazing how much memory it will eat up.

And when I do program (especially if it is in java) the IDE will use what the browser doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER61> Work: Dell Optiplex 960 x3 on a KVM. Room(Afghanistan): Dell Mini 10v Hackintosh / Asus EEE Box PC running Win 7 / Ubunutu 10.04 Home: iMac 20" from a couple of years ago / PowerBook G4 12"

The worst of them all is the freakin Dell Optiplex's at work, but what can I do? I love the portability of the Hackintosh and am thinking of installing Ubuntu on it as well, but I do love my Mac OS X.

</comment><comment><USER62> My main is an old desktop, amd athlon xp 2400, nvidia nforce2 motherboard, and nvidia fx 7600 graphics card, dual 17in monitors, running win7. 5 years old, still does everything i need like a champ. My laptop is a 6year old off brand celeron 1.7ghz processor, running debian stable. Still works fine, albeit a little big. I will upgrade when things break.

</comment><comment><USER63> At work, dual 27" iMacs (one with the Core i7 option + 16GB of RAM, and the other a base 27" model in Target Display Mode) as my workstation, and several XServes and custom Fedora boxes in 3 racks.

At home, a first-generation 15" unibody MacBook Pro (2.2ghz C2D, 4GB RAM) hooked to the 24" LED Cinema Display. I also use a last-generation Mac Mini (pre-unibody) as an HTPC.

</comment><comment><USER64> A Macbook (black) with a triple-monitor display (internal display + 2 x 24" Acer 1080p monitors on either side).

I'm using the EVGA UV Plus+16, which is a USB-to-DVI adapter for the second external monitor, which is really nice, but it only allows the one monitor to go up to 1680x1050, so I just use that monitor for email, IM, IRC, etc, where it doesn't really matter.

<comment><USER53> Are you happy with the EVGA adapter? I have been looking for a solution to do exactly what you are doing.

<comment><USER64> Yes, it works exactly as advertised, and my humble little macbook doesn't seem to have any problems processing with it.

The text is a little fuzzy, though, because the UV16 only goes up to 1680x1050 in widescreen format, while my monitor is 1080p. But apparently EVGA recently came out with the UV19 which says it supports 1920x1200, and Buy.com has it cheaper than I paid for the UV16, so I'm strongly considering upgrading.

<comment><USER53> Thanks a ton. Do you find that two externals really help?

<comment><USER64> That seems like a loaded question ;-) It helps tremendously for me, but everyone is different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Trusty little white MacBook 2.1GHz/4GB running Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Lucid. I have an external full sized Apple keyboard, mighty mouse and Raindesign MStand, and I swapped out the 120GB drive for a faster 500GB one - and that's it. I'm looking for a good 1920x1200 screen, that's the most my MB will take, but there's no hurry.

</comment><comment><USER66> 15" MBP(2.8GHz core 2, 8GB ram, 500GB 7200RPM seagate) w/ 30" Dell Ultrasharp.

Magicmouse with magicprefs to allow for the middle mouse click.

USB adapter to PS/2 Natural Keyboard.

Sizeup and cinch for keyboard window management. (makes me feel like a robot, but in a good way.)

xGestures for mouse gesture support. I cannot live without this utility.

This is by far the best setup I have ever worked on.

</comment><comment><USER67> I have 3 MacBooks (Pro, Air and unibody white), and use as a primary machine the one that works (i.e. not in repair) -- currently, MacBook Air. I had to underclock it with CoolBook to 800 MHz so that it could work without overheating. I can't believe I spent more than $7500 for something like this.

</comment><comment><USER19> Until last week's unfortunate beer spilling incident, I was using a macbook, along with a long standing server instance running Gentoo on RackSpace, with further instances spun up and then disposed of as needed.

I have to say I find it kind of amusing how many people on HackerNews use Apple gear.

<comment><USER53> Using the Gentoo instance like a VM?

<comment><USER19> Nope, just SSH into it, treating it as if it where a plain old hosted box.

<comment><USER53> I see i see. I love having boxes to do that with. Never tried Gentoo-whats the draw to that?

<comment><USER39> I used Gentoo four/five years ago, and the draw was the amount of optimisation available. Everything's compiled from source with optimisation flags for your specific hardware rather than the generic 'works pretty much everywhere' options that are used for pre-built binaries with most distros.

The down-side is that it was - at that time, at least - a huge nightmare to maintain and do major upgrades. Almost as bad as CentOS. Waiting for things to compile every time you install something also got boring pretty quickly. I moved to Ubuntu, and I'm now considering moving to just Debian for future VMs I build.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Dell Latitude with Ubuntu. Fairly high res display (1920x1200) is the only real distinguishing feature, other than that, it's a pretty average machine. I don't think you need anything that fancy for most programming work these days. More memory is always good, of course.

</comment><comment><USER69> Quad core 2.8Ghz, 8GB RAM, 2TB internal, further 2.5TB in rats nest of external disks. 2 x 19" monitors. Running W7 and Snow Leopard via VM for iDev,

Plus a crappy old laptop I had to upgrade to 1.5GB RAM after it came with 512MB and Vista. Used only in cases of extreme laziness.

</comment><comment><USER70> Noisy HP laptop, Core 2 Duo T5550, 3 GB RAM, dual Win 7/Ubuntu.

Speaking of computer setups, if anyone is interested in helping my friend obtain one (her old laptop broke), you can read more at <http://www.philipfund.com>

</comment><comment><USER71> An old laptop (not working at the moment) and an old desktop both running Ubuntu 10.04. When I say old, I mean 3+ years old. Planning to buy a new one some time soon, probably with the low-med spec range. Don't need much really.

Also nice to see this many Ubuntu users.

</comment><comment><USER72> Office hardware: Dual Nehalem Xeon 2.4Ghz with 12GB RAM and two RAID'ed Cheetah SAS drives, all in Supermicro chassis. make -j 16 all the way!

Travel hardware: ThinkPad T61

Software on both: 64-bit Debian unstable with xorg/sawfish wm (no Gnome or KDE), emacs, screen, g++, make, etc.

</comment><comment><USER73> Work: Dell Precision M6400 - Core 2 Duo T9900, 8g RAM, 250g SSD, 1920x1200 17", Win7 64bit Dell 20" LCD Lab full of systems: VMWare ESX, Solaris, Linux, AIX, and more

Personal: Asus 1201N - Atom 330 (1.6GHz dual-core), 2g RAM, ION + HDMI, 1366x768 12.1", Win7 32bit

</comment><comment><USER74> Personal:

Stock Dell Mini 9 (originally planned to go Hackintosh route, but never got around to it. UNR 9.04, use VIm for most everything)

Older freecycled Dell Inspiron desktop (~2.0 GHz P4, 512 MB RAM, Ubuntu)

Work:

Lenovo Thinkpad (Core Duo, 2 GB RAM, WinXP)

2x Dell Optiplex desktops (ditto, one has a 17" display, other is dual 17s)

</comment><comment><USER75> 13" MacBook (first unibody model) driving a 24" Dell U2410. Microsoft Natural 4000 Ergonomic Keyboard. I just started trying to go mostly mouseless using Optimal Layout and vimperator, which together cover about 85% of what I ever need one for.

</comment><comment><USER76> My only machine is an 11.6" Acer Aspire AS1410. It's a great machine, especially for it's very low price. Plus an external 27" display and a few 2.5" hard disks that's all I need.

My DE is Gnome, at home and at work. I live mostly in Emacs & chromium anyway.

</comment><comment><USER77> I have a 15" Dell Inspiron 6400, given by my school for free 3 years ago. 1.6 GHz Centrino Duo 2gb ram ubuntu 10.04 gnome+xmonad as window manager internal hard disk space is absurdly low(80gb, I think), I have a 500gb external drive, though.

<comment><USER78> free with paid admission, that is ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> 15' Macbook Pro with 27' Dell monitor for work. Would love to stick 4 additional gigs of RAM and SSD into macbook :)

Previous Mac Mini with Time Capsule, Creative EMU USB soundcard and 37' samsung full hd display for home and media content.

PS3 for gaming, Kindle for reading.

</comment><comment><USER80> ZaReason UltraLap SR (c. 2008)

      2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo
      4GB RAM
      250GB hard disk
      iwl4965 802.11n wifi
      Intel 965 graphics (yay open drivers!)
      13" 1280x800 screen
      best laptop keyboard there is (clicky! like a Model M! *heaven*)

</comment><comment><USER81> MacBook Pro 15" with i7 processor and 8GB RAM, 24" Apple Cinema Display at a standing desk, Logitech Nano mouse, Rode Podcaster USB condenser mic, Wacom Intuos 3 tablet, and Canon Vixia HV40 straight into Quicktime via firewire for video.

</comment><comment><USER82> Self-built desktop with a Q9550 CPU and 4GB RAM running Kubuntu. Dual 23" LCD montitors. I can dual-boot into Windows XP when I get gaming or flight-sim urges.

I also have a Dell E1505 laptop (also running Kubuntu) that I use when I need to be mobile.

</comment><comment><USER83> 2.66GHz i7 15" Macbook Pro, 4Gb RAM, 24" monitors at home and work. Mac keyboards, MS mice, a few TB of external HDs, wireless headphones.

Used to be into self-built machines, but prefer stuff with a combined warranty that 'just works' nowadays.

<comment><USER84> Another MS mouse mac user! I absolutely love MS mice and have two identical models at home and work. Their OS and office software may suck but the mice are awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> For god's sake man, upgrade those monitors!

You don't actually do development on 17" screen do you?

<comment><AUTHOR> whoops... meant 17" and 19".

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> Home couch-hacking: Dell XPS M1530, T8300 (2*2.4 GHz), 4 GB ram, 15" 1920p screen, 7200 rpm disk, Vista 32-bit (so yea, only 3,5 GB ram..).

Work: HP with about the same specs but with external keyboard and 24" monitor and slower disk.

</comment><comment><USER87> I'm surprised there are only two references to BSD so far.

NetBSD -current on ThinkPad T410, dwm, Xemacs, xterm

I probably could suffer to build a desktop for farming-out builds to, etc., but I haven't. _Always_ want portability, though :)

</comment><comment><USER88> Fast enough quad-core proc, 8 gb ram, 24" monitor, xmonad on ubuntu.

Will probably end up with another monitor here soon, just haven't decided if I should get another 24 or something smaller that I can run vertically.

</comment><comment><USER89> Work: Dual-Core Power Mac, 5GB RAM, Snow Leopard, 24" Dell Monitor

Home: 13in Macbook Pro, 4GB RAM, Snow Leopard, 24" Dell Monitor.

Before I bought the Macbook it was a 15" Ubuntu/Win7 Gateway Laptop with 3GB RAM.

</comment><comment><USER90> a 13.3" Aluminium MacBook with Snow Leopard, 4GB ram, 24" Philips TFT, Magic Mouse and a Logitech DiNovo keyboard in combination with a Webfaction account and a Linode VPS.

</comment><comment><USER91> Home: (Coming today) AMD 2.8 GHz 6 core, 4GB RAM, Ubuntu 10.04. 23" and 15" monitors

Mobile: Asus EeePC 900 with EasyPeasy

Work: some Intel quad core, 4GB RAM, Ubuntu 10.04, 21" monitor

On the way: AMD 48 core machine

</comment><comment><USER92> Desktop: Core 2 Quad + 8GB RAM with 22" and 24" monitors IBM Model M keyborad + Sun Type 7 mouse (previously I had Type 7 keyboard)

Laptop: ThinkPad T60 with Core Duo and 2.5GB RAM

</comment><comment><USER93> A 7 year old (do I win?) IBM R31. 384MB RAM, ~1GHz single core. Debian + XP (for gaming only). I'm planning to switch to xmonad once I finish learning Haskell.

</comment><comment><USER94> 13.3" MacBook Pro (2010) and a 23" external display (1080p)

</comment><comment><USER95> Amusingly enough, I too have a self-built AMD dual-core but with 8GB ram, Debian stable lenny (using the stock gnome) and a 24" WUXGA (1920×1200) monitor.

</comment><comment><USER96> 17" MBP (8GB RAM, 256 Corsair SSD) running OS X 1.6, laptop stand, 30" Apple display, keyboard, mouse, speakers, Phillips color LED for bias lighting.

</comment><comment><USER97> 13" MacBook Pro + iPad + Bose speakers + iomega backup drive. I will eventually buy a new monitor or two and use a keyboard and mouse at the office.

</comment><comment><USER98> For ASP/Windows Dev: An AMD quad core cobbled together from spare parts. Cost about $300 and works like a charm.

For iPhone and Android programming: MBP 13.3"

</comment><comment><USER99> Three things actually:

2.33 GHz Dual Core Dell with 2gb RAM and Win 7

1.6 Core 2 Duo Systemax laptop (15.4 widescreen) with 4GB ram and Win 7/Zenwalk Linux

Dell Mini9 with 2GB and Zenwalk Linux

</comment><comment><USER100> HP Pavilion dv6000 running Windows Vista (gaming) and Ubuntu 10.04

Would love to get more boxes to play around with, but as a broke student, VMs help.

</comment><comment><USER101> Desktop: Quad Core 2.5Ghz, 8GB ram, 6TB raid-5, arch linux running xmonad.

"Old" laptop: Macbook Pro, 4GB ram

"New" laptop: Asus EeePc 1201N running arch linux.

</comment><comment><USER102> 13.3 MacBook Pro, 4GB ram with Snow Leopard

</comment><comment><USER103> e8400, 4GB Ram, 9800GT, Windows 7 x64, 22" Dell 2209WA, happy hacking keyboard <3, razer diamondback

But I'm hoping to be able to replace that machine in the near future with a `smarttop', preferably something like the marvell ebox or similar spec-wise (hopefully cortex a9)

My wm of choice has always been 'pekwm'

</comment><comment><USER104> Hardware:

\- Core i7 920

\- 6gb DDR3 RAM

\- ATi 5970 for graphics - currently RMA'd

\- 19" HP Display awaiting upgrade.

Software:

\- Ubuntu for working (GNOME)

\- Arch for hacking (GNOME)

\- Windows 7 for games

Portable:

\- Dell Mini 10v base model with Ubuntu

\- College issue Core 2 laptop with Arch

</comment><comment><USER105> i7-920 (overclocked to 3.8Ghz), 12GB RAM, 160 GB Intel SSD boot + 2TB Hitachi for storage, 2 x 24" Samsung monitors, Windows 7 Ultimate 64. 4TB HP windows home server for storage and backup. Dell XPS M1330 laptop for the road. (Time for an upgrade)

</comment><comment><USER106> i7 15" (HR) MacBook Pro with SSD. Most expensive, albeit best, thing I've ever bought.

</comment><comment><USER107> Seriously, no one has a Commodore? I figured there had to be at least one....

</comment><comment><USER108> Homebrew i7/24" LCD running Ubuntu 10.04

Dell XPS1530 Running Ubuntu 10.04

</comment><comment><USER109> Intel Core i7 930, Archlinux + openbox, 13" Macbook

</comment><comment><USER110> my setup <http://www.flickr.com/photos/ioctl/4566368145/>

</comment><comment><USER111> Dual-core Acer notebook, Gentoo, stumpwm, Emacs.

</comment><comment><USER112> Mine is SOTEC laptop I bought at Nakano, Tokyo.

</comment><comment><USER113> HP mini note 2133

</comment><comment><USER114> 15" Macbook Pro i5 and 24" iMac Core 2 Duo

</comment><comment><USER115> A dell vostro 13 with Ubuntu 10

</comment><comment><USER116> 2 notebooks, 2 desktop pc

</comment><comment><USER117> 15" Macbook Pro

</comment><comment><USER118> 13.3" MacBook Pro, running OS X 10.6. I gave up stationary computers almost 6 years ago, and haven't looked back once.

</comment><comment><USER119> HP AMD 64 dual core 4gm ram 400 gig hd 19" LCD Logitech Mouse and Keyboard

OS; Ubuntu 10.04

My next workstation, I am building myself.</comment>


Knit – A Scripting Language - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nilput/knit <comment><AUTHOR> This is a scripting language i've written in C.

It has a surprisingly decent performance compared to other interpreted languages.

This could be partly attributable to the fact that the whole language is written in headers, so everything is available to the compiler where it can inline and do all kinds of optimizations, additionally the language is small and doesn't require much during initialization (the benchmark is ran 100 times with perf).

There's a benchmark in examples/bench/ where it beats PHP7, Python, Perl, and PUC Lua

<comment><USER2> I hope you keep working on this. I think there is a definite need for something very small and simple that can be embedded into other tools, to squeeze out extra performance in critical spots without resorting to the nitroglycerin of C/C++.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks great, but why would I prefer this over say Lua or Wren? Yes, the benchmarks look nice, but not extraordinary. What is the killer argument/advantage here? What is the use-case?

<comment><AUTHOR> There isn't a killer argument, the project is in its infancy and i created it for experimentation, there are many directions that could be taken, if i were to go with a scripting language for something like a game engine or a similar C or C++ project that needs scripting i'd definitely go with Lua because of how popular and mature it is.

in terms of benchmarks alone languages with JIT compilers will definitely beat this, that's one possible direction to go with (there are great projects out there that make adding this capability potentially easier, MIR for example), another feature would be a C FFI rather than just a C API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can these scripts be compiled into executables?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, You'd need a small wrapper in C that just includes the language's header and calls two functions to initialize it and provide the script code to be executed.

i added a tool that does that: [https://github.com/nilput/knit/blob/master/scripts/knc](https://github.com/nilput/knit/blob/master/scripts/knc)

a slightly better way of doing this would be implementing a way of exporting the scripts' bytecode and executing it as that is currently being done only in memory, this would avoid the need to reparse it and hides the script's source code.</comment></comment>


Inside the ALU of the 8085 microprocessor - <AUTHOR> http://www.arcfn.com/2013/01/inside-alu-of-8085-microprocessor.html <comment><USER2> When I crafted my MIPS subset dual core CPU in a senior design class, I chose the 6502 method. That is, perform ADD, OR, XOR, etc in parallel at word width (that is 32 bits x the number of operations) and select the correct output using a multiplexer. The 8085 method seems smaller but I wonder how much delay it adds to the circuit.

[edit]

Here is my MIPS-- ALU in VHDL: [https://github.com/jevinskie/mips--/blob/master/project4/sou...](https://github.com/jevinskie/mips--/blob/master/project4/source/alu_r.vhd)

Quite simple, really. The hard part is the control lines and the cache!

</comment><comment><USER3> It can also be enlightening to study 1-bit architectures. The lower limit of processor complexity. This wiki-page <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_MC14500B> has links to the data sheet and a high quality applications handbook.

<comment><USER4> Wow, that MC14500B (from 1977) is interesting. It really is a 1-bit microprocessor, with 1 input bit, one register bit, and 1 output bit. It's not a bit-slice processor, intended as a building block for a larger processor, but is designed for really simple industrial logic, such as "turn on pump if inputs A, B, and C are closed". It normally works with input and output latch chips, so you can use more that one input and output, and they get processed one bit at a time. Strangely, the program counter is on a separate chip (MC14516B), which is just a 4-bit binary counter. The application handbook explains how to do addition with the chip - by the time you deal with carries, single-bit addition takes 12 instructions! It's amazing that people actually could do useful things with a one-bit processor.

<comment><USER3> It is Turing complete. In principle it can do anything.

 _the program counter is on a separate chip_ so you can make it as big as your program demands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I decided to write a gnu as x86 interpreter, now 700 lines later, I realize that I know nothing about assembly / CPUs and should have never started. I keep going until "hello world!" works but it's really depressing to realize that you underestimated the complexity of something. This picture reminds me about the complexity.

<comment><USER6> Thats because x86 is an insanely complex architecture. Try one of the pseudo RISCs, e.g. ARM.

<comment><USER7> Check the _MIPS R4000 Microprocessor User's Manual_ by _Joe Heinrich_ to get a glimpse of a truly inspiring processor architecture and its implementation: [http://groups.csail.mit.edu/cag/raw/documents/R4400_Uman_boo...](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/cag/raw/documents/R4400_Uman_book_Ed2.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Building a CPU in a circuit simulation framework[1] was one of my favorite, and most illuminating, projects I've done.

A great book to learn more: [http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems- Programmers-Perspecti...](http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Systems-Programmers- Perspective-Edition/dp/0136108040/)

[1] [http://tams-www.informatik.uni- hamburg.de/applets/hades/webd...](http://tams-www.informatik.uni- hamburg.de/applets/hades/webdemos/index.html)

<comment><USER2> Did you ever run the HDL on an FPGA? That is half the fun/battle/frustration! =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's another ALU example in Verilog that I've found useful: [http://lgjohn.ecen.ceat.okstate.edu/4243/lectures/aludesver....](http://lgjohn.ecen.ceat.okstate.edu/4243/lectures/aludesver.pdf)</comment>


Rate my App: Tea for iPhone--getting quantitative about tea - <AUTHOR> http://www.teaapp.com <comment><USER2> Best app I've seen in a while on HN -- targeted directly at me, lots of geeky features, very cool interface, the video leverages my enthusiasm for tea into a purchase decision, and easy to buy for my iTouch.

Congrats on the great job, siglesias. I'm buying it right now, and I'm looking forward to hearing what kind of market traction you get!

Also, at a meta level, at some point I'd like to learn more about how iPhone app developers manage so much functionality for so little real-estate. There was a lot going on in this app for only 6-10 very simple screens. Did you mock it up on paper first? Wire frame it? Use an online tool? Details here would be interesting.

<comment><USER3> This is a really useful looking app for interactive mockups - <http://keynotopia.com/>

<comment><USER4> Currently $80 off at AppSumo: <http://appsumo.com/keynotopia-special-promo/>

I haven't used it but I like the idea. Being able to create your idea in programs your comfortable with (photoshop) and then actually clicking and feeling the design is a valuable thing.

<comment><USER3> Oh that's where I found it, but thought the deal was over! Thanks for pointing it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can you integrate and partner with a internet tea seller?

I know nothing about tea, but I know I could appreciate it. If you made it even easier for me to get good tea, I think that'd be a great feature. In addition, your app would know what I'd ordered, and you could leverage that info. Definitely not a MVP feature, but definitely one that I think could be useful and profitable.

As it stands, it's a great looking app and I think it's a great example of finding a niche and creating something compelling to serve it.

 _Edit_ : I just noticed the adagio teas coupon on your site. While this may be a simple affiliate link, maybe you've already begun trying to forge a partnership with them whereby you could offer in-app purchasing of their products (or a selected subset). Hopefully so!

</comment><comment><USER6> Mac Tyler here, designer of Tea, thanks for all the kind words about the design! I'd be happy to answer questions about the design/process if you have any. I plan on writing some blog posts soon explaining some of the fun stuff like app icon and basic UI. Once again, glad you guys are enjoying it and please help us spread the word all you can!

</comment><comment><USER7> First, a comment: Friggin' awesome!

Second, a list of (hopefully helpful) criticisms:

(1) Re: Intro video. Way too long. Don't need to see the face of the founder. How can you use an ordinary hot water heater and discuss water temperature? At least pretend to stick in a thermometer -- or, better, use a Zojirushi or equivalent.

(2) Should probably have preset times/temperatures for different tea types that can be edited, to facilitate data entry (maybe you do, but I didn't quite pick up on this in the video).

(3) Perhaps I'm the only one, but I find data entry (including tasting notes) to be a major pain on an iPhone. I used to keep my cheese tasting notes on mine but gave up since I hated doing it that way. I suspect that people will not continue using the app if they find the most useful features require significant data entry.

(4) Key and very useful feature(brewing timer) is already included as part of the free Teavana app. Also the Teavana app has nice music while you brew.

(5) Killer feature would be tea ratings and the ability to share. You might also want to rate them based on vendor. Or, potentially very profitably, allow direct buying with the purchase automatically imported into the app. That's what my app was structured around. To get a more long-term hold you probably need to "go social" at some point.

(6) Hardcore tea snobs (this term should probably include myself) frequently brew tea in different pots, vessels. You might consider including this -- and obviously you would use different amounts of tea depending on the vessel.

Best of luck! Definitely a huge improvement over what else is out there -- and personally hope it makes it into an app not tied to iOS.

About me: I got into tea while working and studying in China and Japan and once built a (skeletal) Rails app for rating tea that I never released. I still think this could be profitable but am now instead n grad school reading about Tea -- and have also identified several favorite vendors such that I feel that I have everything I need at the moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Howdy Jd!

1) We might try to figure out a way to shorten the video. So much new stuff to share! 2) All of the presets are editable. 3) I think that 95% of the use cases will eventually be using the timer, which will be preset perfectly for each tea. 4) We respect Teavana, but we're not a fan of their app's design. Maybe that's bias. 5) Agreed. 6) Agreed. We're working on. It was actually an original feature, but a little trickier than one would think.

Thanks for your feedback! If you have any more, drop me a line at sam at teaapp. com!

<comment><USER7> re: (1) Not quite sure what to say here, but it might be best to have a short promo video for those with more limited attention spans and a longer one (or multiple ones) that go into more depth related to various features.

re: (2) I look forward to using this feature.

re: (4) I don't love the Teavana app either, only noting the music.

<comment><USER8> Agree with JD here re (1). The site and app are extremely well done. As a big tea drinker I was hooked in the first 60 seconds of the video, which is also well done. But it was too long. You risked losing the shot to get me to buy the app because the video was dragging on. Once you get me excited enough, I suggest you wrap it up and offer me the link to the App Store. "Don't sell after the close" as they say. I would move the other stuff to one or more additional videos - great way for new customers to learn about the depth your product offers after they purchase. Congratulations on a great app!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This looks like a freaking awesome app and being a tea drinker it really pains me that I can't buy it because Apple doesn't want to take my money.

I want this app!

I'm assuming it comes with sane defaults, does it also allow tweaking the settings to get the steeping times and such perfectly to taste? What about sharing and cross-comparing these with friends?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, you can tweak the settings pretty much any way you like. One tap sharing on Twitter and Facebook also.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm square in your demographic, so I'll try to give you some honest feedback.

1) Inventory tracking seems odd to me, unless its primarily to brag to other tea drinkers. I mean I see my tea every day, I know how much I have.

2) I really like the brewing tracking/suggesting. The amount of tea, length of steep, and temperature all make a big difference and it can be hard to remember which caused which flavors.

3) I'm okay with making my tea drinking schedule/habits public, but I'm not sure I really want to push each one out to facebook/twitter.

So in conclusion, my main enthusiasm for the app would be my ability to log detailed brewing trials, and to see what others have come up with. I would worry others might be taking loose or incorrect measurements though, so I'd want some assurance any public notes were somewhat carefully done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi!

1) Inventory tracking was a risk we took because you're right, you can just look at your teas. However, there are some really cool features in the pipeline that will take advantage of the inventory tracker better. For example, you might have several teas, but some go stale more quickly than others. Tea can suggest for you which teas to use up more quickly, but only if it has an idea of how much you have left. Etc.

2) Thanks!

3) That feature is totally optional. Let us know if you find it intrusive.

The brew suggestions that ship with Tea were very meticulously done by one expert, not an average or random statistics online. Hope you enjoy the app if you decide to use it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What about for Android?

Green tea requires cooler water than black is that something a person new to tea will be shown or is all data the user enters via trial and error?

If it's pre-determined what about mixing different teas which is a common thing to do if the brew settings per tea type are set can other users submit new mixes 10% green, 90% black and say use X grams and brew for Y minutes?

FYI I just posted to Reddit/r/Tea too.

</comment><comment><USER12> Aren't you Aaron's brother? I remember him showing me this a couple months ago.

It's a really nice looking app, both aesthetically and functionally. If I drank tea I'm sure I'd use it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I would replace the inventory feature with an age feature, because I think for most people tracking how many weeks/months ago you bought the tea is more important than how many cups you have left.

Also, while I conceptually like the features the UI isn't especially aesthetically pleasing. I would also recommend adding the preferred units to a preferences page and eliminating that from the brew page.

<comment><USER10> Age does seem more relevant than volume left! Although you have no way of knowing how long it sat in the supply chain before you bought it (unless they time stamped it).

<comment><USER14> While this is true, decent tea will be well packaged and should stay fresh until one cracks it open. Oolongs and other quality teas that are best fresh tend to be sold with the date of harvest (like Alishan Winter 09 (sigh!)), while pu erh can, and arguably should, be 12 years old when one drinks it.

In fact, for serious tea heads, tracking the age of tea might be most useful for aging pu erh disks that aren't quite 'there' yet.

<comment><USER13> I was talking more about green teas, many of which go bad after 6 - 8 weeks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One minor UX note: it wasn't directly obvious to me that clicking the small preview images below "Features" resulted in the preview on the right being updated.

Other than that, looks very nice!

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm too lazy to watch a 5minute video. Other than that, aesthetically pleasing. Good job!

</comment><comment><USER17> Excellent app. I've always been a "pour boiling water into mug with prepackaged tea bag in it" kind of guy, your app might convince me to discover the finer side of tea.

Just a minor issue I noticed: in iPad's Safari the video is stretched (it extends beyond the bounds of the background book) and as it plays your site constantly flickers and reloads itself.

screenshot: <http://i.imgur.com/EQyRU.png>

<comment><USER6> Hmm, I'll definitely check that out. Thanks!

<comment><USER17> The flickering is greatly reduced on subsequent viewings (even after clearing the cache) and only occurs as the video is starting up now, not a big deal IMO. Not sure why it was so flickery the first time.

<comment><USER6> No idea what is going on with the youtube embed. I've used css media queries to use a placeholder image on mobile safari that is a thumbnail you can click and will load the youtube video.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for all the design feedback everyone! Fixed some of the site bugs you guys had mentioned. I'll probably post the blog entries about some of the design in a week or so. Follow me on twitter for those updates or if you have any other questions you want to ask me directly :) <http://twitter.com/mactyler>

</comment><comment><USER14> Great app!

What would push it over the top, for me, would be if you offered a thermometer like this one:

<http://hmb-tec.de/iPhoneApps/BBQ-Thermometer.html>

that plugs into the headphone jack. Ideally yours would be lighter weight and would float on water, but the peripheral exists already.

This would add great functionality; it would now become 'perfect tea. anywhere. anytime.' The phone would chime when the water is ready, then simply pour, the phone chimes again, tea. Doesn't matter if you're by a campfire, in an office, in front of a stove; perfect tea.

Make it an attractive peripheral that matches the rest of the Apple way and you will sell a _lot_ of these gizmos, at more than $1.99 - 30% profit per gizmo. Perhaps a kickstarter to pay for production, a la the Glif? I'm in for one, possibly two, in advance.

<comment><AUTHOR> What about a bluetooth thermometer that uses the heat energy from the liquid to keep it charged? Is that even possible? If anyone knows, drop me an email at sam at teaapp. com!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> _Amazing_ app -- if I were an iPhone user, I'd buy it. I don't watch videos, so I apologize if this suggestion is already handled, but WRT to the inventory tracker, will it only work if you know how many servings you just bought?

I'd love it if my loose tea serving remaining would be estimated by my entering how much (in oz or grams) of tea I just added to the stash, and it estimating servings remaining based on stated servings/weight for that tea, then learn from my actual usage. (As a loose tea lover, I _hate_ trying to guess how much I have of what, and store estimates aren't always accurate.)

</comment><comment><USER19> Will buy it as soon as I get home. I started making / drinking tea thanks largely to this HN article on "A Hacker's Guide to Tea": <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934051> and the (many!) useful comments within.

BTW, I've been getting most of that tea from the guy who originally wrote "A Hacker's Guide to Tea:" <http://www.chicagoteagarden.com/> and it's been good.

</comment><comment><USER20> Checked out the video, and it seems like a well designed app serving a niche audience.

If you find some success with it, might I suggest skinning the app to serve other niches that share similar needs? I can think of a couple just off the top of my head. You might need to make a few tweaks, but the majority of the feature set could be reused, and with the feedback you get from this app you might find ways to refine the design even further.

</comment><comment><USER21> Looks amazing, but what about coffee? I'd buy both, even if all you changed were the name and references from tea to coffee.

</comment><comment><USER3> Beautiful app and great presentation style inspired by none other than Mr.Jobs. That's "copy what you like" done well.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is cool, but the hard part is not figuring out what temperature to brew your tea at, but rather convincing some sort of device to do that for you. I know there are fully-automatic espresso machines where you can set the temperature, pressure, brew volume, grind size, etc. Is there anything like that for tea?

<comment><USER23> Adagio sells an electric kettle with various settings for temperature. One sec while I find the link... <http://bit.ly/hEO3qo> There ya go. Sure there are others but that's the first one I thought of.

<comment><USER22> The next step is to dispense the tea leaves and filter them out after a set period of time :)

<comment><USER24> Like this?

<http://www.adagio.com/teaware/triniTEA.html>

There are a few companies that make similar brewers.

<comment><USER22> Yes, very cool.

It seems like it only has two temperature settings, but it's very close to the right idea. I guess coffee geeks are willing to shell out $3000 for fancy machines, while tea geeks are not :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Viewing your website at 1024x768 in Chrome, the image of the phone overlaps the text making it partially unreadable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Will address.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is the kind of app that makes me want to hard mount an ipad in the kitchen.

<comment><USER26> By 'hard mount' I really hope you mean attach it to a wall....

<comment><USER27> Flush in the counter! No, I jest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Found this on dribbble a few days ago. Congrats on the app launch. Can you ask mactyler if he's interested in doing some design work for an app I'm working on? Chase (at) kegstool (dot) com. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER29> Website doesnt seem to fit on an iPad sized screen, I can briefly read the content but then the iPhone comes and overlays the right hand size. Looks slick other than that though.

</comment><comment><USER30> Great looking interface! Would like to see an option to sort my brew history by rating though. No sense in searching through mediocre brews right?

</comment><comment><USER31> On iPhone the iPhone image covers the right side of the text so I can't read the last word of each line.

</comment><comment><USER32> Fabulous, as a tea drinker to the nth degree, I'm always looking for dorky tea apps and things.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've been watching the design progress of this on Forrst, great work!

</comment><comment><USER34> i have not used to app, but. WOW. i love you. I love tea, i love making it, drinking it, buying it, sharing it. kudos to you.

</comment><comment><USER35> about as exciting as tea can get.

</comment><comment><USER36> can't say about the app. but it wans't fun to see all the images slowly apearing top-down at your site...</comment>