PUFFS (NetBSD)

Pass-to-Userspace Framework File System (puffs) is a NetBSD kernel subsystem developed for running filesystems in userspace. It was added to NetBSD in the 5.0 release, and was ported to DragonFly BSD in the 3.2 release.
FUSE compatibility.
In NetBSD 5.0, puffs includes "refuse", a reimplementation of the libfuse high-level interface. Some filesystems use the low-level libfuse interface or the kernel FUSE interface and they cannot be supported through refuse.
NetBSD 6.0 addresses that limitation through "perfuse", a new compatibility layer that emulates the FUSE kernel interface.


Open (system call)

For most file systems, a program initializes access to a file in a file system using the open system call. This allocates resources associated to the file (the file descriptor), and returns a handle that the process will use to refer to that file. In some cases the open is performed by the first access.
The same file may be opened simultaneously by several processes, and even by the same process, resulting in several file descriptors for the same file; depending on the file organization and filesystem. Operations on the descriptors such as moving the file pointer or closing it are independentthey do not affect other descriptors for the same file. Operations on the file, such as a write, can be seen by operations on the other descriptors: a later read can read the newly written data.
During the codice_1, the filesystem may allocate memory for buffers, or it may wait until the first operation.
The absolute file path is resolved. This may include connecting to a remote host and notifying an operator that a removable medium is required. It may include the initialization of a communication device. At this point an error may be returned if the host or medium is not available. The first access to at least the directory within the filesystem is performed. An error will usually be returned if the higher level components of the path (directories) cannot be located or accessed. An error will be returned if the file is expected to exist and it does not or if the file should not already exist and it does.
If the file is expected to exist and it does, the file access, as restricted by permission flags within the file meta data or access control list, is validated against the requested type of operations. This usually requires an additional filesystem access although in some filesystems meta-flags may be part of the directory structure.
If the file is being created, the filesystem may allocate the default initial amount of storage or a specified amount depending on the file system capabilities. If this fails an error will be returned. Updating the directory with the new entry may be performed or it may be delayed until the close is performed.
Various other errors which may occur during the open include directory update failures, un-permitted multiple connections, media failures, communication link failures and device failures.
The return value must always be examined and an error specific action taken.
In many cases programming language-specific run-time library opens may perform additional actions including initializing a run-time library structure related to the file.
As soon as a file is no longer needed, the program should close it. This will cause run-time library and filesystem buffers to be updated to the physical media and permit other processes to access the data if exclusive use had been required. Some run-time libraries may close a file if the program calls the run-time exit. Some filesystems may perform the necessary operations if the program terminates. Neither of these is likely to take place in the event of a kernel or power failure. This can cause damaged filesystem structures requiring the running of privileged and lengthy filesystem utilities during which the entire filesystem may be inaccessible.
open call arguments.
After using the file, the process should close the file using close call, which takes the file descriptor of the file to be closed. Some filesystems include a disposition to permit releasing the file.
Some computer languages include run-time libraries which include additional functionality for particular filesystems. The open (or some auxiliary routine) may include specifications for key size, record size, connection speed. Some open routines include specification of the program code to be executed in the event of an error.
Perl language form.
open FILEHANDLE,MODE[,EXPR]
for example:
open(my $fh, ">", "output.txt");
Perl also uses the codice_3 function of the codice_4 module to associate an array with a
file. The codice_5 function associates a hash with a file.
C library POSIX definition.
The open call is standardized by the POSIX specification for C language:
int open(const char *path, int oflag, .../*,mode_t mode */);
int openat(int fd, const char *path, int oflag, ...);
int creat(const char *path, mode_t mode);
FILE *fopen(const char *restrict filename, const char *restrict mode);
The value returned is a file descriptor which is a reference to a process specific structure which contains, among other things, a position pointer that indicates which place in the file will be acted upon by the next operation.
Open may return −1 indicating a failure with codice_6 detailing the error.
The file system also updates a global table of all open files which is used for determining if a file is currently in use by any process.
path.
The name of the file to open. It includes the file path defining where, in which file system, the file is found (or should be created).
codice_7 expects a relative path.
oflag.
This argument formed by OR'ing together optional parameters and (from <fcntl.h>) one of:
Option parameters include:
Additional flags and errors are defined in open call.
codice_16 is implemented as:
int creat(const char *path, mode_t mode)
 return open(path, O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC, mode);
fopen uses string flags such as codice_17, codice_18, codice_19 and codice_20 and returns a file pointer used with fgets, fputs and fclose.
mode.
Optional and relevant only when creating a new file, defines the
file permissions. These include read, write or execute the file by the owner, group or all users. The mode is masked by the calling process's umask: bits set in the umask are cleared in the mode.


Personal Information Module


List of AMD accelerated processing units

This is a list of microprocessors designed by Advanced Micro Devices, under the AMD Accelerated Processing Unit product series.
Custom APUs.
As of May 1, 2013, AMD opened the doors of their "semi-custom" business unit. Since these chips are custom-made for specific customer needs, they vary widely from both consumer-grade APUs and even the other custom-built ones. Some notable examples of semi-custom chips that have come from this sector include the chips from the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. So far the size of the integrated GPU in these semi-custom APUs exceed by far the GPU size in the consumer-grade APUs.


Mode X

Mode X is an alternative graphics display mode of the IBM VGA graphics hardware that was popularized by Michael Abrash. It was first published in July 1991 in "Dr. Dobb's Journal", and republished in chapters 47-49 of Abrash's "Graphics Programming Black Book" (now freely available online). The term "Mode X" was coined by Abrash.
The primary advantage of Mode X is that it has square pixels: a resolution of 320×240 instead of the standard VGA Mode 13h which is 320×200. Additionally, Abrash enabled the VGA's planar memory mode (also called "unchained mode"). Even though planar memory mode is a documented part of the VGA standard and was used in earlier commercial games, it was first widely publicized in the Mode X articles, leading many programmers to consider Mode X and planar memory synonymous. It is possible to enable planar memory in standard 320x200 mode, which became known as Mode Y in the Usenet rec.games.programmer group.
Planar memory arrangement splits the pixels horizontally into groups of four. For any given byte in PC video memory, four pixels on screen can be accessed depending on which plane(s) are enabled. This is more complicated for the programmer, but the advantages gained by this arrangement—primarily the ability to use all 256 KB of VGA memory for one or more display buffers, instead of only one quarter of that (64 KB)—were considered worthwhile by many.
Variants.
In addition to unchained 320x200 being called Mode Y, Mode Q (short for "cube") is sometimes used to refer to a 256×256 256 colour mode. This allows simple and fast addressing of pixels in memory based on the X and Y coordinates. The Y coordinate can simply be put in the high byte of the address, and the X coordinate in the low byte, forming the address of the pixel without a multiply, shift, or lookup.


SQUOZE

SQUOZE (abbreviated as SQZ) is a memory-efficient representation of a combined source and relocatable object program file with a symbol table on punched cards which was introduced in 1958 with the SCAT assembler on the SHARE Operating System (SOS) for the IBM 709. A program in this format was called a "SQUOZE deck". It was also used on later machines including the IBM 7090 and 7094.
Encoding.
In the "SQUOZE encoding", identifiers in the symbol table were represented in a 50-character alphabet, allowing a 36-bit machine word to represent six alphanumeric characters plus two flag bits, thus saving two bits per six characters, because the six bits normally allocated for each character could store up to 64 states rather than only the 50 states needed to represent the 50 letters of the alphabet, and 506 < 234.
Etymology.
"Squoze" is a facetious past participle of the verb 'to squeeze'.
The name SQUOZE was later borrowed for similar schemes used on DEC machines; they had a 40-character alphabet (50 in octal) and were called DEC RADIX 50 and MOD40, but sometimes nicknamed DEC Squoze.


FreeSBIE

FreeSBIE is a live CD, an operating system that is able to load directly from a bootable CD with no installation process or hard disk. It is based on the FreeBSD operating system. Its name is a pun on frisbee. Currently, FreeSBIE uses Xfce and Fluxbox.
FreeSBIE 1.0 was based on FreeBSD 5.2.1 and released on February 27, 2004. The first version of FreeSBIE 2 was developed during the summer of 2005, thanks to the Google Summer of Code. FreeSBIE 2.0.1, which is a complete rewrite of the so-called toolkit, is based on FreeBSD 6.2 and was released on February 10, 2007. According to DistroWatch the FreeSBIE project is discontinued.
Goals.
The goals of the FreeSBIE project are:


German Unix User Group

The German Unix User Group (GUUG) is a registered association of German Unix users. It intends to carry out scientific research to promote technical development and communication of open systems which were initiated in particular by the operating system Unix.


SPARC64 VII


IMSMDOS.SYS


DELLBIO.BIN


Intel Corp. v. Hamidi

Intel Corp. v. Hamidi, 30 Cal. 4th 1342 (2003), is a decision of the California Supreme Court, authored by Associate Justice Kathryn Werdegar. In "Hamidi" the California Supreme Court held that a former Intel Corporation employee's e-mails to current Intel employees, despite requests by Intel to stop sending messages, did not constitute trespass of Intel's e-mail system.
Kourosh Kenneth Hamidi was a former Intel employee who sent e-mails criticizing Intel to current Intel employees. Because the messages caused discussion among employees, Intel asserted that these communications constitute trespass to chattels under California law. The trial court agreed and enjoined Hamidi from sending additional e-mails. Hamidi appealed his decision to the Court of Appeal, which affirmed the trial court's decision. The California Supreme Court, by a vote of 4-3, reversed.
The decision was notable because the court declined to extend common law trespass claims to the computer context, absent actual damage.
Background.
Hamidi was a former engineer at Intel's Automotive Group when September 1990, he was injured in a car accident while returning from a business trip on behalf of Intel. He returned to work for 18 months until his worsening physical condition caused him to take a medical leave on January 27, 1992 at the advice of Intel's doctors. He remained on medical leave until he was fired on April 17, 1995 for failing to return to work after the medical leave.
After termination, Hamidi formed a support group for former and current employees of Intel: Associated X-Employees of Intel (AXE-Intel), later renamed Former And Current Employees of Intel (FACE-Intel). Over a 21-Month period, Hamidi sent six waves of e-mails to Intel employees on behalf of the organization. The e-mails were critical of Intel's employment practices and encouraged employees to become involved in FACE-Intel. Each e-mail stated that the recipient could notify the sender to remove them from the mailing list, and Hamidi stopped sending e-mails to those who requested.
Although some of the e-mails were blocked by Intel's internal filters, Hamidi succeeded in evading blocking efforts by using different sending computers. In March, 1998 Intel demanded that Hamidi and FACE-Intel stop sending e-mails, but he sent another mass e-mail in September, 1998.
Intel sued Hamidi and FACE-Intel pleading cause of action for trespass to chattel and nuisance seeking damages and an injunction against further messages. Intel later dismissed its nuisance claim and waived the demand for damages. The trial court granted Intel's request for summary judgment and set a permanent injunction against Hamidi and FACE-Intel from sending unsolicited e-mails to the company.
Hamidi appealed the decision, and with one justice dissenting, the appellate court found that Intel "showed he was disrupting its business by using its property and therefore is entitled to injunctive relief based on a theory of trespass to chattels."
The opinion.
The Supreme Court held that Hamidi did not bypass any security barriers to communicate with Intel employees, offering to remove any recipient who did not wish to be on the mailing list. While sending the unsolicited e-mails in bulk, they did not at any point cause damage to Intel computers, nor deprive the company use of their computers. Upon reviewing unauthorized computer contact as trespasses to chattels, in California Law, the tort does not and should not apply to electronic communications that neither damage nor impair the function of the recipient computer systems. As the court stated:
Intel's claim fails not because e-mail transmitted through the Internet enjoys unique immunity, but because the trespass to chattels tort--unlike the causes of action just mentioned--may not, in California, be proved without evidence of an injury to the plaintiff's personal property or legal interest therein.
In the present case, the claimed injury is located in the disruption or distraction caused to recipients by the contents of the e-mail message an injury entirely separate from, and not directly affecting, the possession or value of personal property.
The Court compared the discussion among managers and employees, which Intel described as loss of productivity reading and responding to the messages, as well as setting up internal filters for those messages as no "more than the personal distress caused by reading an unpleasant letter would be an injury to the recipient’s mailbox, or the loss of privacy caused by an intrusive telephone call would be an injury to the recipient’s telephone equipment."
The court asserted that this did not give electronic communications any special immunity, and that like other forms of communications, e-mail can cause damage to recipients and may be actionable under various common law or statutory theories. The reason Intel's claim fails is because in California, trespass of chattels tort may not be proved without evidence of damage to the plaintiff's property or legal interest in the property.
However, if the extraordinary quantity, or opportunity to escalate to an extraordinary quantity of unsolicited commercial e-mails impairs the computer's functioning, then the claimed injury is in the disruption caused by the tremendous burden of the contents of those e-mail messages.


History of Unix

The history of Unix dates back to the mid-1960s when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, AT&T Bell Labs, and General Electric were jointly developing an experimental time-sharing operating system called Multics for the GE-645 mainframe.
Multics introduced many innovations, but had many problems.
Bell Labs, frustrated by the size and complexity of Multics but not the aims, slowly pulled out of the project. Their last researchers to leave Multics – Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Doug McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna among others – decided to redo the work on a much smaller scale. In 1979, Dennis Ritchie described their vision for Unix:
1969.
In the late 1960s, Bell Labs was involved in a project with MIT and General Electric to develop a time-sharing system, called Multiplexed Information and Computing Service (Multics), allowing multiple users to access a mainframe simultaneously. Dissatisfied with the project's progress, Bell Labs management ultimately withdrew.
Ken Thompson, a programmer in the Labs' computing research department, had worked on Multics. He decided to write his own operating system. While he still had access to the Multics environment, he wrote simulations for the new file and paging system on it. He also programmed a game called "Space Travel", but it needed a more efficient and less expensive machine to run on, and eventually he found a little-used Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-7 at Bell Labs. On the PDP-7, in 1969, a team of Bell Labs researchers led by Thompson and Ritchie, including Rudd Canaday, implemented a hierarchical file system, the concepts of computer processes and device files, a command-line interpreter, and some small utility programs, modeled on the corresponding features in Multics, but simplified. The resulting system, much smaller and simpler than Multics, was to become Unix. In about a month's time, in August 1969, Thompson had implemented a self-hosting operating system with an assembler, editor and shell, using a GECOS machine for bootstrapping.
Douglas McIlroy then ported TMG compiler-compiler to PDP-7 assembly, creating the first high-level language running on Unix. Thompson used this tool to develop the first version of his B programming language.
1970s.
The new operating system was initially without organizational backing, and also without a name. At this stage, the new operating system was a singletasking operating system, not a multitasking one such as Multics. The name "Unics" (Uniplexed Information and Computing Service, pronounced as "eunuchs"), a pun on "Multics" (Multiplexed Information and Computer Services), was initially suggested for the project in 1970. Brian Kernighan claims the coining for himself, and adds that "no one can remember" who came up with the final spelling "Unix". Dennis Ritchie and Doug McIlroy also credit Kernighan.
When the Computing Sciences Research Center wanted to use Unix on a machine larger than the PDP-7, while another department needed a word processor, Thompson and Ritchie added text processing capabilities to Unix and received funding for a PDP-11/20. For the first time in 1970, the Unix operating system was officially named and ran on the PDP-11/20. A text-formatting program called roff and a text editor were added. All three were written in PDP-11/20 assembly language. Bell Labs used this initial text-processing system, consisting of Unix, roff, and the editor, for text processing of patent applications. Roff soon evolved into troff, the first electronic publishing program with full typesetting capability.
As the system grew in complexity and the research team wanted more users, the need for a manual grew apparent. The "UNIX Programmer's Manual" was published on 3 November 1971; commands were documented in the "man page" format that is still used, offering terse reference information about usage as well as bugs in the software, and listing the authors of programs to channel questions to them.
After other Bell Labs departments purchased DEC PDP-11s, they also chose to run Unix instead of DEC's own operating system. By Version 4 it was widely used within the laboratory and a Unix Support Group was formed, helping the operating system survive by formalizing its distribution.
In 1973, Version 4 Unix was rewritten in the higher-level language C, contrary to the general notion at the time that an operating system's complexity and sophistication required it to be written in assembly language. The C language appeared as part of Version 2. Thompson and Ritchie were so influential on early Unix that McIlroy estimated that they wrote and debugged about 100,000 lines of code that year, stating that "[their names] may safely be assumed to be attached to almost everything not otherwise attributed". Although assembly did not disappear from the man pages until Version 8, the migration to C suggested portability of the software, requiring only a relatively small amount of machine-dependent code to be replaced when porting Unix to other computing platforms. Version 4 Unix, however, still had considerable PDP-11-dependent code and was not suitable for porting. The first port to other platform was made five years later (1978) for Interdata 8/32.
The Unix operating system was first presented formally to the outside world at the 1973 Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, where Ritchie and Thompson delivered a paper. This led to requests for the system, but under a 1956 consent decree in settlement of an antitrust case, the Bell System (the parent organization of Bell Labs) was forbidden from entering any business other than "common carrier communications services", and was required to license any patents it had upon request. Unix could not, therefore, be turned into a product. Bell Labs instead shipped the system for the cost of media and shipping. Ken Thompson quietly began answering requests by shipping out tapes and disks, each accompanied by according to legend a note signed, "Love, Ken".
In 1973, AT&T released Version 5 Unix and licensed it to educational institutions, and licensed 1975's Version 6 to companies for the first time. While commercial users were rare because of the cost, the latter was the most widely used version into the early 1980s. Anyone could purchase a license, but the terms were very restrictive; licensees only received the source code, on an as-is basis. The licenses also included the machine-dependent parts of the kernel, written in PDP-11 assembly language. Copies of the "Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition, with Source Code" circulated widely, which led to considerable use of Unix as an educational example. The first meeting of Unix users took place in New York in 1974, attracting a few dozen people; this would later grow into the USENIX organization. The importance of the user group stemmed from the fact that Unix was entirely unsupported by AT&T.
Versions of the Unix system were determined by editions of its user manuals; for example, "Fifth Edition UNIX" and "UNIX Version 5" have both been used to designate the same version. The Bell Labs developers did not think in terms of "releases" of the operating system, instead using a model of continuous development, and sometimes distributing tapes with patches (without AT&T lawyers' approval). Development expanded, adding the concept of pipes, which led to the development of a more modular code base, and quicker development cycles. Version 5, and especially Version 6, led to a plethora of different Unix versions both inside and outside Bell Labs, including PWB/UNIX and the first commercial Unix, IS/1.
Unix still only ran on DEC systems. As more of the operating system was rewritten in C (and the C language extended to accommodate this), portability also increased; in 1977, Bell Labs procured an Interdata 8/32 with the aim of porting Unix to a computer that was as different from the PDP-11 as possible, making the operating system more machine-independent in the process. Unix next ran as a guest operating system inside a VM/370 hypervisor at Princeton. Simultaneously, a group at the University of Wollongong ported Unix to the similar Interdata 7/32. Target machines of further Bell Labs ports for research and AT&T-internal use included an Intel 8086-based computer (with custom-built MMU) and the UNIVAC 1100.
In May 1975, ARPA documented the benefits of the Unix time-sharing system which "presents several interesting capabilities" as an ARPA network mini-host in RFC 681.
In 1978, UNIX/32V was released for DEC's then new VAX system. By this time, over 600 machines were running Unix in some form. Version 7 Unix, the last version of Research Unix to be released widely, was released in 1979. In Version 7, the number of system calls was only around 50, although later Unix and Unix-like systems would add many more:
A microprocessor port of Unix, to the LSI-11, was completed in 1978, and an Intel 8086 version was reported to be "in progress" the same year. The first microcomputer versions of Unix, and Unix-like operating systems like Whitesmiths' Idris, appeared in the late 1970s.
1980s.
Bell developed multiple versions of Unix for internal use, such as CB UNIX (with improved support for databases) and PWB/UNIX, the "Programmer's Workbench", aimed at large groups of programmers. It advertised the latter version, as well as 32V and V7, stating that "more than 800 systems are already in use outside the Bell System" in 1980, and "more than 2000" the following year. Research Unix versions 8, 9, and 10 were developed through the 1980s but were only released to a few universities, though they did generate papers describing the new work. This research focus then shifted to the development of Plan 9 from Bell Labs, a new portable distributed system.
Because the company widely and inexpensively licensed Unix, by the early 1980s thousands of people used Unix at AT&T and elsewhere, and as computer science students moved from universities into companies they wanted to continue to use it. Observers began to see Unix as a potential universal operating system, suitable for all computers. Less than 20,000 lines of code almost all in C composed the Unix kernel as of 1983, and more than 75% was not machine-dependent. By that year Unix or a Unix-like system was available for at least 16 different processors and architectures from about 60 vendors; "BYTE" noted that computer companies "may support other [operating] systems, but a Unix implementation always happens to be available", and that DEC and IBM supported Unix as an alternative to their proprietary operating systems.
Microcomputer Unix became commercially available in 1980, when Onyx Systems released its Zilog Z8000-based C8002 and Microsoft announced its first Unix for 16-bit microcomputers called Xenix, which the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) ported to the 8086 processor in 1983. Other companies began to offer commercial versions of Unix for their own minicomputers and workstations. Many of these new Unix flavors were developed from the System V base under a license from AT&T; others were based on BSD. One of the leading developers of BSD, Bill Joy, went on to co-found Sun Microsystems in 1982 and created SunOS for its workstations.
AT&T announced UNIX System III based on Version 7, and PWB in 1981. Licensees could sell binary sublicenses for as little as , which observers believed indicated that AT&T now viewed Unix as a commercial product. This also included support for the VAX. AT&T continued to issue licenses for older Unix versions. To end the confusion between all its differing internal versions, AT&T combined them into UNIX System V Release 1. This introduced a few features such as the vi editor and curses from the Berkeley Software Distribution of Unix developed at the University of California, Berkeley Computer Systems Research Group. This also included support for the Western Electric 3B series computers. AT&T provided support for System III and System V through the Unix Support Group (USG), and these systems were sometimes referred to as USG Unix.
In 1983, the U.S. Department of Justice settled its second antitrust case against AT&T, causing the breakup of the Bell System. This relieved AT&T of the 1956 consent decree that had prevented the company from commercializing Unix. AT&T promptly introduced Unix System V into the market. The newly created competition nearly destroyed the long-term viability of Unix, because it stifled the free exchanging of source code and led to fragmentation and incompatibility. The GNU Project was founded in the same year by Richard Stallman.
Since the newer commercial UNIX licensing terms were not as favorable for academic use as the older versions of Unix, the Berkeley researchers continued to develop BSD as an alternative to UNIX System III and V. Many contributions to Unix first appeared in BSD releases, notably the C shell with job control (modelled on ITS). Perhaps the most important aspect of the BSD development effort was the addition of TCP/IP network code to the mainstream Unix kernel. The BSD effort produced several significant releases that contained network code: 4.1cBSD, 4.2BSD, 4.3BSD, 4.3BSD-Tahoe ("Tahoe" being the nickname of the Computer Consoles Inc. Power 6/32 architecture that was the first non-DEC release of the BSD kernel), Net/1, 4.3BSD-Reno (to match the "Tahoe" naming, and that the release was something of a gamble), Net/2, 4.4BSD, and 4.4BSD-lite. The network code found in these releases is the ancestor of much TCP/IP network code in use today, including code that was later released in AT&T System V UNIX and early versions of Microsoft Windows. The accompanying Berkeley sockets API is a de facto standard for networking APIs and has been copied on many platforms.
During this period, many observers expected that UNIX, with its portability, rich capabilities, and support from companies like DEC and IBM, was likely to become an industry-standard operating system for microcomputers. Citing its much smaller software library and installed base than that of MS-DOS and the IBM PC, others expected that customers would prefer personal computers on local area networks to Unix multiuser systems. Microsoft planned to make Xenix MS-DOS's multiuser successor; by 1983 a Xenix-based Altos 586 with 512 KB RAM and 10 MB hard drive cost . "BYTE" reported that the Altos "under moderate load approaches DEC VAX performance for most tasks that a user would normally invoke", while other computers from Sun and MASSCOMP were much more expensive but equaled the VAX. The magazine added that both PC/IX and Venix on the IBM PC outperformed Venix on the PDP-11/23. uNETix, a commercial microcomputer Unix, implemented the first Unix color windowing system.
In 1986, "Computerworld" wrote that "Until very recently, almost no one associated Unix with corporate data processing. [...] the operating system traveled almost exclusively in academic and technical circles ... But now — almost entirely because of strenuous efforts by AT&T — some people are beginning to perceive Unix as a viable option for large commercial installations." Unix became commercially available for the mainframe via Amdahl UTS in 1981, and now IBM started offering Unix as IX/370 and VM/IX. The total installed base of Unix, however, remained small at some 230,000 machines.
Despite its academic reputation "InfoWorld" stated in 1989, "Until recently, Unix conjured up visions of long-haired bearded technoids stuck in the bowels of an R&D lab, coding software until the wee hours of the morning" the increasing power of microcomputers in the late 1980s, and in particular the introduction of the 32-bit Intel 80386, caused Unix to "explode" in popularity for business applications; Xenix, 386/ix, and other Unix systems for the PC-compatible market competed with OS/2 in terms of networking, multiuser support, multitasking, and MS-DOS compatibility. The beginning in 1984 of the annual Unix Expo trade show in New York reflected the growing commercial presence of Unix.
During this time a number of vendors including Digital Equipment, Sun, Addamax and others began building trusted versions of UNIX for high security applications, mostly designed for military and law enforcement applications.
Standardization and the Unix wars.
A problem that plagued Unix in this period was the multitude of implementations, based on either System V, BSD, or what Poul-Henning Kamp later described as a "more or less competently executed" combination of the two, usually with home-grown extensions to the base systems from AT&T or Berkeley. Xenix was effectively a third lineage, being based on the earlier System III. The rivalry between vendors was called the Unix wars; customers soon demanded standardization.
AT&T responded by issuing a standard, the System V Interface Definition (SVID, 1985), and required conformance for operating systems to be branded "System V".
In 1984, several European computer vendors established the X/Open consortium with the goal of creating an open system specification based on Unix (and eventually the SVID).
Yet another standardization effort was the IEEE's POSIX specification (1988), designed as a compromise API readily implemented on both BSD and System V platforms. POSIX was soon mandated by the United States government for many of its own systems.
In the spring of 1988, AT&T took the standardization a step further. First, it collaborated with SCO to merge System V and Xenix into System V/386. Next, it sought collaboration with Sun Microsystems (vendor of the 4.2BSD derivative SunOS and its Network File System) to merge System V, BSD/SunOS and Xenix into a single unified Unix, which would become System V Release 4. AT&T and Sun, as UNIX International (UI), acted independently of X/Open and drew ire from other vendors, which started the Open Software Foundation to work on their own unified Unix, OSF/1, ushering in a new phase of the Unix wars.
1990s.
The Unix wars continued into the 1990s, but turned out to be less of a threat than originally thought: AT&T and Sun went their own ways after System V.4, while OSF/1's schedule slipped behind.
By 1993, most commercial vendors changed their variants of Unix to be based on System V with many BSD features added. The creation of the Common Open Software Environment (COSE) initiative that year, by the major players in Unix, marked the end of the most notorious phase of the Unix wars, and was followed by the merger of UI and OSF in 1994. The new combined entity retained the OSF name and stopped work on OSF/1. By that time the only vendor using it was Digital Equipment Corporation, which continued its own development, rebranding their product Digital UNIX in early 1995.
POSIX became the unifying standard for Unix systems (and some other operating systems).
Meanwhile, the BSD world saw its own developments. The group at Berkeley moved its operating system toward POSIX compliance and released a stripped-down version of its networking code, supposedly without any code that was the property of AT&T. In 1991, a group of BSD developers (Donn Seeley, Mike Karels, Bill Jolitz, and Trent Hein) left the University of California to found Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (BSDi), which sold a fully functional commercial version of BSD Unix for the Intel platform, which they advertised as free of AT&T code. They ran into legal trouble when AT&T's Unix subsidiary sued BSDi for copyright infringement and various other charges in relation to BSD; subsequently, the University of California countersued.
Shortly after it was founded, Bill Jolitz left BSDi to pursue distribution of 386BSD, the free software ancestor of FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD.
Shortly after UNIX System V Release 4 was produced, AT&T sold all its rights to UNIX to Novell. Dennis Ritchie likened this sale to the Biblical story of Esau selling his birthright for the mess of pottage. Novell developed its own version, UnixWare, merging its NetWare with UNIX System V Release 4. Novell tried to use this as a marketing tool against Windows NT, but their core markets suffered considerably. It also quickly settled the court battles with BSDi and Berkeley.
In 1993, Novell decided to transfer the UNIX trademark and certification rights to the X/Open Consortium. In 1996, X/Open merged with OSF, creating the Open Group. Various standards by the Open Group now define what is and what is not a UNIX operating system, notably the post-1998 Single UNIX Specification.
In 1995, the business of administering and supporting the existing UNIX licenses, plus rights to further develop the System V code base, were sold by Novell to the Santa Cruz Operation. Whether Novell also sold the copyrights would later become the subject of litigation (see below).
With the legal troubles between AT&T/Novell and the University of California over, the latter did two more releases of BSD before disbanding its Computer Systems Research Group in 1995. The BSD code lived on, however, in its free derivatives and in what Garfinkel "et al." call a second generation of commercial Unix systems, based on BSD. The first exponent of these was BSDi's offering, popular at internet service providers but eventually not successful enough to sustain the company. The other main exponent would be Apple Computer.
In 1997, Apple sought a new foundation for its Macintosh operating system and chose NeXTSTEP, an operating system developed by NeXT. The core operating system, which was based on BSD and the Mach kernel, was renamed Darwin after Apple acquired it. The deployment of Darwin in Mac OS X makes it, according to a statement made by an Apple employee at a USENIX conference, the most widely used Unix-based system in the desktop computer market.
Meanwhile, Unix got competition from the copyleft Linux kernel, a reimplementation of Unix from scratch, using parts of the GNU project that had been underway since the mid-1980s. Work on Linux began in 1991 by Linus Torvalds; in 1998, a confidential memo at Microsoft stated, "Linux is on track to eventually own the x86 UNIX market," and further predicted, "I believe that Linux – moreso than NT – will be the biggest threat to SCO in the near future."
2000s.
In 2000, SCO sold its entire UNIX business and assets to Caldera Systems, which later changed its name to The SCO Group.
The bursting of the dot-com bubble (2001–03) led to significant consolidation of versions of Unix. Of the many commercial variants of Unix that were born in the 1980s, only Solaris, HP-UX, and AIX were still doing relatively well in the market, though SGI's IRIX persisted for quite some time. Of these, Solaris had the largest market share in 2005.
In 2003, the SCO Group started legal action against various users and vendors of Linux. SCO had alleged that Linux contained copyrighted Unix code now owned by the SCO Group. Other allegations included trade-secret violations by IBM, or contract violations by former Santa Cruz customers who had since converted to Linux. However, Novell disputed the SCO Group's claim to hold copyright on the UNIX source base. According to Novell, SCO (and hence the SCO Group) are effectively franchise operators for Novell, which also retained the core copyrights, veto rights over future licensing activities of SCO, and 95% of the licensing revenue. The SCO Group disagreed with this, and the dispute resulted in the "SCO v. Novell" lawsuit. On 10 August 2007, a major portion of the case was decided in Novell's favor (that Novell had the copyright to UNIX, and that the SCO Group had improperly kept money that was due to Novell). The court also ruled that "SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and Sequent". After the ruling, Novell announced they have no interest in suing people over Unix and stated, "We don't believe there is Unix in Linux". SCO successfully got the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to partially overturn this decision on 24 August 2009 which sent the lawsuit back to the courts for a jury trial.
On 30 March 2010, following a jury trial, Novell, and not The SCO Group, was "unanimously [found]" to be the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights. The SCO Group, through bankruptcy trustee Edward Cahn, decided to continue the lawsuit against IBM for causing a decline in SCO revenues. On March 1, 2016, SCO's lawsuit against IBM was dismissed with prejudice.
In 2005, Sun Microsystems released the bulk of its Solaris system code (based on UNIX System V Release 4) into an open source project called OpenSolaris. New Sun OS technologies, notably the ZFS file system, were first released as open source code via the OpenSolaris project. Soon afterwards, OpenSolaris spawned several non-Sun distributions. In 2010, after Oracle acquired Sun, OpenSolaris was officially discontinued, but the development of derivatives continued.
Since the early 2000s, Linux is the leading Unix-like operating system, with other variants of Unix (apart from macOS) having only a negligible market share (see Usage share of operating systems).


Intel X99

Intel X99, codenamed "Wellsburg", is a Platform Controller Hub (PCH) designed and manufactured by Intel, targeted at the high-end desktop (HEDT) and enthusiast segments of the Intel product lineup. The X99 chipset supports both Intel Core i7 Extreme and Intel Xeon E5-16xx v3 and E5-26xx v3 processors, which belong to the Haswell-E and Haswell-EP variants of the Haswell microarchitecture, respectively. All supported processors use the LGA 2011-v3 socket.
The X99 chipset was released in late August 2014, while the supported processors were released in late August 2014 (Haswell-E) and early September 2014 (Haswell-EP). In May 2016, X99's processor support was extended to the Broadwell variants of the Intel Core i7 Extreme and Intel Xeon E5-16xx v4 and E5-26xx v4 processors, which belong to the Broadwell-E and Broadwell-EP variants of the Broadwell microarchitecture, respectively.
Features.
The X99 chipset uses a Direct Media Interface (DMI) 2.0 ×4 link for the connection between the processor and itself; that way, a total bandwidth of 20 Gbit/s is available to all connectivity options provided by the chipset. Up to eight PCI Express 2.0 lanes are provided by the X99 chipset, with speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s per lane and a possibility to configure these lanes into ×1, ×2 and ×4 links. Additionally, the X99 chipset supports a configurable layout of the PCI Express 3.0 lanes provided by the processor, which may be bifurcated into up to two ×16 links and one ×8 link, or into up to five ×8 links (the total number of available PCI Express 3.0 lanes depends on the used processor).
Two Serial ATA (SATA) 3.0 controllers are integrated into the X99 chipset, providing a total of up to ten ports for storage devices and supporting speeds of up to 6 Gbit/s per port, with hardware support for the Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) logical interface. Each SATA port may be enabled or disabled as needed. Six SATA ports provided by the first controller may be configured for Rapid Storage Technology (RST) 13.1, which supports RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 levels; additionally, Smart Response Technology (SRT) disk caching allows the creation of hybrid volumes.
SATA Express and M.2 are also supported, providing the ability for interfacing with PCI Express-based storage devices. Each of the X99's SATA Express ports requires two PCI Express 2.0 lanes provided by the chipset, while the M.2 slots can use either two 2.0 lanes from the chipset itself, or up to four 3.0 lanes taken directly from the processor. As a result, the X99 provides bandwidths of up to 3.94 GB/s for connected PCI Express storage devices.
One Extensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI) controller and two Enhanced Host Controller Interface (EHCI) controllers are integrated into the X99 chipset, providing a total of up to 14 USB ports. Out of those ports, up to six can be configured as USB 3.0 ports with speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s per port, while the remaining are USB 2.0 ports with speeds of up to 480 Mbit/s per port. Each USB port may also be enabled or disabled as needed. Integrated Intel High Definition Audio (HD Audio) supports up to four hardware audio codecs and multi-channel audio streams. An Intel Gigabit Ethernet controller is also integrated, supporting (among other features) receive-side scaling (RSS) with two hardware receive queues.
Some of the connectivity options and interfaces provided by the X99 chipset are configurable via Flexible I/O, which allows certain hardware capacities of the chipset to be selectively distributed between the PCI Express, USB 3.0 and SATA interfaces. That way, connectivity options of the X99 chipset may be adjusted to fit the needs of a particular motherboard implementation; for example, some of the SATA or USB 3.0 ports may be exchanged for additional PCI Express 2.0 lanes.
The X99 chipset supports Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (Intel VT-d), which provides hardware support for virtualization by implementing an input/output memory management unit (IOMMU). The chipset also integrates a Low Pin Count (LPC) interface, supporting interrupt controllers, timers, power management, super I/O, real-time clock (RTC), etc. Integrated Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) allows interfacing with devices such as Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) and serial flash devices. System Management Bus (SMBus) is also provided, with additional support for I2C devices.
Overclocking is available for unlocked variants of the supported processors. As a significant new feature, the X99 enthusiast platform as a whole was the first to support DDR4 memory. Thanks to the features of integrated memory controllers (IMCs) of supported processors, the X99 platform also supports dual- and quad-channel memory layouts, with optional support for registered ECC memory.


Architectural state

The architectural state is the part of the CPU which holds the state of a process. This is typically held in processor registers and includes:
This does not include actual computation units as an ALU for instance.


Tristar 64

The Tristar 64 is an unlicensed add-on for the Nintendo 64 (N64) video game console. Produced in Hong Kong by Future Laboratory, the Tristar 64 features two additional cartridge ports which are designed to accept cartridges created for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES, a.k.a. Famicom) and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES, a.k.a. Super Famicom). The device then emulates the NES (via an NES-on-a-chip) or SNES hardware, and allows the cartridge to be run. The device also features built-in cheat cartridge functionality through a program called the X-Terminator, as well as the Memory Editor, which allows SRAM and EEPROM saved game data to be archived and edited.
The Tristar 64 requires a separate power supply, and connects to a television set by way of RCA composite output cables, with the N64's own video output being first routed through the Tristar device. Although the device boasts compatibility with the majority of titles for both the NES and SNES, cartridges with an extra processor (like the SA-1 chip found on Super Mario RPG) are not supported. The Tristar 64 is similar to the Super 8, a device which allowed NES cartridges to be played on a SNES console.


IBM ROMP

The ROMP is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) microprocessor designed by IBM in the late 1970s. It is also known as the Research OPD Miniprocessor (after the two IBM divisions that collaborated on its inception, IBM Research and the Office Products Division [OPD]) and 032. The ROMP was originally developed for office equipment and small computers, intended as a follow-on to the mid-1970s IBM OPD Mini Processor microprocessor, which was used in the IBM Office System/6 word-processing system. The first examples became available in 1981, and it was first used commercially in the IBM RT PC announced in January 1986. For a time, the RT PC was planned to be a personal computer, with ROMP replacing the Intel 8088 found in the IBM Personal Computer. However, the RT PC was later re-positioned as an engineering and scientific workstation computer. A later CMOS version of the ROMP was first used in the coprocessor board for the IBM 6152 Academic System introduced in 1988, and it later appeared in some models of the RT PC.
History.
The architectural work on the ROMP started in late spring of 1977, as a spin-off of IBM Research's 801 RISC processor (hence the "Research" in the acronym). Most of the architectural changes were for cost reduction, such as adding 16-bit instructions for byte-efficiency. The original ROMP had a 24-bit architecture, but the instruction set was changed to 32 bits a few years into the development.
The first chips were ready in early 1981, making ROMP the first industrial RISC. The processor was revealed at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in 1984 ROMP first appeared in a commercial product as the processor for the IBM RT PC workstation, which was introduced in 1986. To provide examples for RT PC production, volume production of the ROMP and its MMU began in 1985. The delay between the completion of the ROMP design, and introduction of the RT PC was caused by overly ambitious software plans for the RT PC and its operating system (OS). This OS virtualized the hardware and could host multiple other operating systems. This technology, called virtualization, while commonplace in mainframe systems, only began to gain traction in smaller systems in the 21st century. An improved CMOS version of the ROMP was first used in the IBM 6152 Academic System workstation, and later in some models of the RT PC.
IBM Research used the ROMP in its Research Parallel Processor Prototype (RP3), an early experimental scalable shared-memory multiprocessor that supported up to 512 processors first detailed in 1985; and the CMOS version in its ACE, an experimental NUMA multiprocessor that was operational in 1988.
Architecture.
The ROMP's architecture was based on the original version of the IBM Research 801 minicomputer. The main differences were a larger word size (32 bits instead of 24), and the inclusion of virtual memory. The architecture supported 8-, 16-, and 32-bit integers, 32-bit addressing, and a 40-bit virtual address space. It had an instruction pointer register and sixteen 32-bit general-purpose registers. The microprocessor was controlled by 118 simple 16- and 32-bit instructions.
The ROMP's virtual memory has a segmented 40-bit (1TB) address space consisting of 4,096 256MB segments. The 40-bit virtual address is formed in the MMU by concatenating a 12-bit segment identifier with 28 low-order bits from a 32-bit ROMP-computed virtual address. The segment identifier is obtained from a set of 16 segment identifiers stored in the MMU, addressed by the four high-order bits of the 32-bit ROMP-computed virtual address.
Implementation.
The ROMP is a scalar processor with a three-stage pipeline. In the first stage, if there are instructions in the 16-byte instruction prefetch buffer, an instruction was fetched, decoded, and operands from the general-purpose register file read. The instruction prefetch buffer read a 32-bit word from the memory whenever the ROMP was not accessing it. Instructions were executed in the second stage, and written back into the general-purpose register file in the third stage. The ROMP used a bypass network and appropriately scheduled the register file reads and writes to support back-to-back execution of dependent instructions. Most register-to-register instructions were executed in a single cycle; of the 118 instructions, 84 had a single-cycle latency. The ROMP had an IBM-developed companion integrated circuit which was code-named Rosetta during development. Rosetta was a memory management unit (MMU), and it provided the ROMP with address translation facilities, a translation lookaside buffer, and a store buffer.
The ROMP and Rosetta were originally implemented in an IBM 2μm silicon-gate NMOS technology with two levels of metal interconnect. The ROMP consists of 45,000 transistors and is 7.65×7.65mm large (58.52mm2), while Rosetta consists of 61,500 transistors and is 9.02×9.02mm large (81.36mm2). Both are packaged in 135-pin ceramic pin grid arrays. A CMOS version of the ROMP and Rosetta (called ROMP-C and Rosetta-C) was later developed.


Radeon HD 3000 series

The graphics processing unit (GPU) codenamed the Radeon R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies.
Architecture.
This article is about all products under the brand "Radeon HD 3000 Series". All products of this series contain a GPU which implements TeraScale 1.
Video acceleration.
The Unified Video Decoder (UVD) SIP core is present on the dies of the GPUs used in the HD 2400 and the HD 2600 but not of the HD 2900. The HD 2900 introduced the ability to decode video within the 3D engine. This approach also exonerates the CPU from doing these computations, but consumes considerably more electric current.
Desktop products.
Radeon HD 3800.
The Radeon HD 3800 series was based on the codenamed RV670 GPU, packed 666 million transistors on a 55 nm fabrication process and had a die size at 192 mm2, with the same 64 shader clusters as the R600 core, but the memory bus width was reduced to 256 bits.
The RV670 GPU is also the base of the FireStream 9170 stream processor, which uses the GPU to perform general purpose floating-point calculations which were done in the CPU previously.
The Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 became available mid-November 2007.
Radeon HD 3690/3830.
The Radeon HD 3690, which was limited only to the Chinese market where it was named HD 3830, has the same core as the Radeon 3800 series but with only a 128-bit memory controller and 256 MiB of GDDR3 memory. All other hardware specifications are retained.
A further announcement was made that there would be a Radeon HD 3830 variant bearing the same features as Radeon HD 3690, but with a unique device ID that does not allow add-in card partners in China to re-enable the burnt-out portion of the GPU core for more memory bandwidth.
The Radeon HD 3690 was released early February 2008 for the Chinese market only.
Radeon HD 3870 X2.
Radeon HD 3870 X2 (codenamed "R680") was released on January 28, 2008, featuring 2 RV670 cores with a maximum of 1 GiB GDDR3 SDRAM, targeting the enthusiast market and replacing the Radeon HD 2900 XT. The processor achieved a peak single-precision floating point performance of 1.06 TFLOPS, being the world's first single-PCB graphics product breaking the 1 TFLOP mark.
Technically, this Radeon HD 3870 X2 can really be understood as a CrossFire of two HD 3870 on a single PCB. The card only integrates a PCI Express 1.1 bridge to connect the two GPUs. They communicate via a bidirectional bus that has 16 lines for a bandwidth of 2 x 4 Gb/s. This has no negative effect on performance.
Starting with the Catalyst 8.3 drivers, Amd/Ati officially supports CrossFireX technology for the 3800 series, which means that up to four GPUs can be used in a pair of Radeon HD 3870 X2.
AMD stated the possibility of supporting 4 Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards, allowing 8 GPUs to be used on several motherboards, including the MSI K9A2 Platinum and Intel D5400XS, because these motherboards have sufficient spaces between PCI-E slots for dual-slot cooler video cards, presumably as a combination of two separate hardware CrossFire setups with a software CrossFire setup bridging the two, but currently with no driver support.
Radeon HD 3600.
The Radeon HD 3600 series was based on the codenamed RV635 GPU, packed 378 million transistors on 55 nm fabrication process, and had 128-bit memory bus width. The support for HDMI and D-sub ports is also achieved through separate dongles. Beside the DisplayPort implementations, there also exists other display output layouts as dual DVI port or DVI with D-sub display output layout.
The only variant, the Radeon HD 3650, was released on January 23, 2008 and has also an AGP slot with 64-bit bus width or the standard PCI-E slot with 128-bit.
Radeon HD 3400.
The Radeon HD 3400 series was based on the codenamed RV620 GPU, packed 181 million transistors on a 55 nm fabrication process, and had 64-bit memory bus width. Products were available both as full height cards and as low-profile cards.
One of the notable features is that the Radeon HD 3400 series (including Mobility Radeon HD 3400 series) video cards support ATI Hybrid Graphics.
The Radeon HD 3450 and Radeon HD 3470 were released on January 23, 2008.
Mobile products.
All Mobility Radeon HD 2000/3000 series share the same feature set support as their desktop counterparts, as well as the addition of the battery-conserving PowerPlay 7.0 features, which are augmented from the previous generation's PowerPlay 6.0.
The Mobility Radeon HD 2300 is a budget product which includes UVD in silica but lacks unified shader architecture and DirectX 10.0/SM 4.0 support, limiting support to DirectX 9.0c/SM 3.0 using the more traditional architecture of the previous generation. A high-end variant, the Mobility Radeon HD 2700, with higher core and memory frequencies than the Mobility Radeon HD 2600, was released in mid-December 2007.
The Mobility Radeon HD 2400 is offered in two model variants; the standard HD 2400 and the HD 2400 XT.
The Mobility Radeon HD 2600 is also available in the same two flavors; the plain HD 2600 and, at the top of the mobility lineup, the HD 2600 XT.
The half-generation update treatment had also applied to mobile products. Announced prior to CES 2008 was the Mobility Radeon HD 3000 series. Released in the first quarter of 2008, the Mobility Radeon HD 3000 series consisted of two families, the Mobility Radeon HD 3400 series and the Mobility Radeon HD 3600 series. The Mobility Radeon HD 3600 series also featured the industry's first implementation of on-board 128-bit GDDR4 memory.
About the time of late March to early April, 2008, AMD renewed the device ID list on its website with the inclusion of Mobility Radeon HD 3850 X2 and Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 and their respective device IDs. Later in Spring IDF 2008 held in Shanghai, a development board of the Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 was demonstrated alongside a Centrino 2 platform demonstration system. The Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 was based on two M88 GPUs with the addition of a PCI Express switch chip on a single PCB. The demonstrated development board is on PCI Express 2.0 ×16 bus, while the final product is expected to be on AXIOM/MXM modules.
Graphics device drivers.
AMD's proprietary graphics device driver "Catalyst".
AMD Catalyst is being developed for Microsoft Windows and Linux. As of July 2014, other operating systems are not officially supported. This may be different for the AMD FirePro brand, which is based on identical hardware but features OpenGL-certified graphics device drivers.
AMD Catalyst supports of course all features advertised for the Radeon brand.
The Radeon HD 3000 series has been transitioned to legacy support, where drivers will be updated only to fix bugs instead of being optimized for new applications.
Free and open-source graphics device driver "Radeon".
The free and open-source drivers are primarily developed on Linux and for Linux, but have been ported to other operating systems as well. Each driver is composed out of five parts:
The free and open-source "Radeon" graphics driver supports most of the features implemented into the Radeon line of GPUs. They are "not" reverse engineered, but based on documentation released by AMD.


Dynamite Headdy

Dynamite Headdy is a platform video game developed by Treasure and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis in 1994. The game follows a puppet named Headdy in his efforts to stop an evil puppet king from taking over his world. Headdy can throw his head at enemies to defeat them and use it to pull himself to various areas and move objects. The player can find a wide variety of "heads" which act as power-ups that provide different effects and alter gameplay.
Critical reception to "Dynamite Headdy" was positive. Critics highlighted the game's originality and creativity in distinguishing it among other games in the platform genre. They also commended Treasure for demonstrating their technical expertise with impressive graphical effects and building on the success of their earlier game "Gunstar Heroes" (1993). In reviews from the time and in retrospect, "Dynamite Headdy" is cited for being one of the best games on the Genesis. An 8-bit port was released for Game Gear, which itself served as the basis for a Master System port released exclusively in Brazil.
Gameplay.
"Dynamite Headdy" is a platform game in which the player controls Headdy, a puppet with a detachable head. The story follows Headdy in his adventures to save his world from the evil puppet King Dark Demon, who is transforming all the puppets of the world into his evil minions. To succeed, Headdy must overcome the King's army, which features the likes of Trouble Bruin and the key masters which serve as stage bosses. Headdy can jump and throw his head in any direction to attack enemies. His head can also be used to grab hooks and pull himself up to other platforms. Headdy's health is represented by a spotlight in the corner of the screen which changes colors. If the player does not pick up restorative items to heal themselves after suffering damage from enemies, they will lose a life.
During his adventure, Headdy will find power-ups which change the design and function of his head. These 17 power-ups range from increasing damage, such as spinning fireballs around his head, to providing invincibility, restoring health, increasing speed, etc. Some of these power-ups last for only a short time. Other than heads, the player can also find health restoratives, extra points, and extra lives throughout the levels. By finding the Liberty Head, players can enter a Bonus Stage in which the player must shoot basketballs into the correct hoops. Unlike other platform games where falling into a bottomless pit results instant death, if Headdy falls off, he will bounce back up which allows the player to put him back on a platform, though Headdy will still sustain some damage.
Development and release.
After developing "Gunstar Heroes", Treasure was divided into four teams to work on four separate projects: "Alien Soldier", "Light Crusader", "Yū Yū Hakusho Makyō Tōitsusen", and "Dynamite Headdy". Inspiration for "Dynamite Headdy" came from Koichi Kimura, who wanted to work on an original project. Up to this point in his five-year career, Kimura had only worked on projects using the pre-existing works of others. Kimura lead development, and president of Treasure, Masato Maegawa, served as head programmer.
Kimura designed "Dynamite Headdy" to be commercially viable. He wanted the main character to attack with a part of its body, so he felt a puppet that could throw its head would be appealing. Not wanting Headdy to be a stereotypical lone hero, Kimura added support characters that appear in every stage. The game's visual design was inspired by Western animation and the work of film director Terry Gilliam. After deciding to publish a localized version for overseas markets, Maegawa was told by Sega of America to make the game more difficult. This was because Sega did not want customers completing the game too easily on rental. Maegawa happily obliged, and the North American release was made about twice as difficult. In addition to changes in difficulty, most of the dialogue in the game was removed, and several of the character and boss sprites were changed.
"Dynamite Headdy" was originally released in Japan on 5 August 1994 for the Sega Genesis, with North American and European releases following in September and October respectively. A port was released for the Game Gear, and a Master System port based on the Game Gear version was released exclusively in Brazil. A 32X conversion was planned but canceled. The game was included along with "Gunstar Heroes" and "Alien Soldier" in "Sega Ages 2500: Gunstar Heroes Treasure Box", a compilation released for the PlayStation 2 in 2006 in Japan. The compilation includes all versions of "Dynamite Headdy" released on all three Sega platforms across all regions. The game saw a digital re-release on the Wii via the Virtual Console in July 2007. It was also included in "Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection" for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and was released on Steam on 2 May 2012. In 2018, it was included in the compilation "Sega Genesis Classics" ("Sega Mega Drive Classics" in PAL regions) for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
Reception.
"Dynamite Headdy" received critical acclaim, with some believing it to be one of the best games on the Genesis. Journalists repeatedly highlighted the game's creativity as a strong point. Rik Skews of "Computer and Video Games" said it "breathes new life" into the platform genre and stood up to the likes of the "Sonic" series. The staff at "Mean Machines Sega" found the game innovative and liked how each stage introduced new concepts to keep gameplay fresh. Tim Tucker at "GamesMaster" believed that Treasure was doing more innovation in the genre than any of its rivals. In addition to the game's originality, critics praised Treasure's programming expertise and "Dynamite Headdy"'s technical prowess. The staff of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" complimented the game's visual effects and colorful stages. Tucker said ""Dynamite Headdy" is full of classic Treasure overstatement" and cited the impressive colors, big explosions, large sprites, and rapidly changing backgrounds—which all together were perhaps a little too overwhelming. The "Mean Machines" staff believed that "Dynamite Headdy" followed in the footsteps of Treasure's previous games and therefore confirmed the studio's technical expertise. The gameplay drew some criticism, with Tucker finding it somewhat disjointed and "patchy" and "Mean Machines" stating that it takes a few stages to truly find its footing.
Critics found the Game Gear port to be well done given the system's less powerful technology. "Electronic Gaming Monthly" staff called it one of the best portable action games. Richard Leadbetter of "Sega Magazine" believed that since much of the Genesis version's playability came from the system's technical capabilities, the Game Gear version suffers in that sense; however, he still believed Treasure was able to create a fun 8-bit port.
In retrospective reviews of the Genesis version, "Dynamite Headdy" has continued to receive considerable praise. Critics agreed that the game is excellent despite not receiving the same legendary status as some of Treasure's other works such as "Gunstar Heroes", "Ikaruga", and "Radiant Silvergun". Lucas M. Thomas of IGN said the game is overload on the eyes, but it makes sense with respect to Treasure's chaotic design. Frank Provo of GameSpot noted the game's impressive graphical effects, large bosses, and bizarre premise providing the same level of excitement as "Gunstar Heroes". Damien McFarren of Nintendo Life called it one of the best Treasure games of the Genesis era and one of the best platformers on the system.


IBM POWER instruction set architecture

The IBM POWER ISA is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by IBM. The name is an acronym for "Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC".
The ISA is used as base for high end microprocessors from IBM during the 1990s and were used in many of IBM's servers, minicomputers, workstations, and supercomputers. These processors are called POWER1 (RIOS-1, RIOS.9, RSC, RAD6000) and POWER2 (POWER2, POWER2+ and P2SC).
The ISA evolved into the PowerPC instruction set architecture and was deprecated in 1998 when IBM introduced the POWER3 processor that was mainly a 32/64-bit PowerPC processor but included the POWER ISA for backwards compatibility. The original POWER ISA was then abandoned. PowerPC evolved into the third Power ISA in 2006.
IBM continues to develop PowerPC microprocessor cores for use in their application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) offerings. Many high volume applications embed PowerPC cores.
History.
The 801 research project.
In 1974, IBM started a project with a design objective of creating a large telephone-switching network with a potential capacity to deal with at least 300 calls per second. It was projected that 20,000 machine instructions would be required to handle each call while maintaining a real-time response, so a processor with a performance of 12 MIPS was deemed necessary. This requirement was extremely ambitious for the time, but it was realised that much of the complexity of contemporary CPUs could be dispensed with, since this machine would need only to perform I/O, branches, add register-register, move data between registers and memory, and would have no need for special instructions to perform heavy arithmetic.
This simple design philosophy, whereby each step of a complex operation is specified explicitly by one machine instruction, and all instructions are required to complete in the same constant time, would later come to be known as RISC.
By 1975 the telephone switch project was canceled without a prototype. From the estimates from simulations produced in the project's first year, however, it looked as if the processor being designed for this project could be a very promising general-purpose processor, so work continued at Thomas J. Watson Research Center building #801, on the 801 project.
1982 Cheetah project.
For two years at the Watson Research Center, the superscalar limits of the 801 design were explored, such as the feasibility of implementing the design using multiple functional units to improve performance, similar to what had been done in the IBM System/360 Model 91 and the CDC 6600 (although the Model 91 had been based on a CISC design), to determine if a RISC machine could maintain multiple instructions per cycle, or what design changes need to be made to the 801 design to allow for multiple-execution-units.
To increase performance, Cheetah had separate branch, fixed-point, and floating-point execution units. Many changes were made to the 801 design to allow for multiple-execution-units. Cheetah was originally planned to be manufactured using bipolar emitter-coupled logic (ECL) technology, but by 1984 complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology afforded an increase in the level of circuit integration while improving transistor-logic performance.
The America project.
In 1985, research on a second-generation RISC architecture started at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, producing the "AMERICA architecture"; in 1986, IBM Austin started developing the RS/6000 series, based on that architecture.
POWER.
In February 1990, the first computers from IBM to incorporate the POWER instruction set were called the "RISC System/6000" or RS/6000. These RS/6000 computers were divided into two classes, workstations and servers, and hence introduced as the POWERstation and POWERserver. The RS/6000 CPU had 2 configurations, called the "RIOS-1" and "RIOS.9" (or more commonly the "POWER1" CPU). A RIOS-1 configuration had a total of 10 discrete chips - an instruction cache chip, fixed-point chip, floating-point chip, 4 data cache chips, storage control chip, input/output chips, and a clock chip. The lower cost RIOS.9 configuration had 8 discrete chips - an instruction cache chip, fixed-point chip, floating-point chip, 2 data cache chips, storage control chip, input/output chip, and a clock chip.
A single-chip implementation of RIOS, RSC (for "RISC Single Chip"), was developed for lower-end RS/6000's; the first machines using RSC were released in 1992.
POWER2.
IBM started the POWER2 processor effort as a successor to the POWER1 two years before the creation of the 1991 Apple/IBM/Motorola alliance in Austin, Texas. Despite being impacted by diversion of resources to jump start the Apple/IBM/Motorola effort, the POWER2 took five years from start to system shipment. By adding a second fixed-point unit, a second floating point unit, and other performance enhancements to the design, the POWER2 had leadership performance when it was announced in November 1993.
New instructions were also added to the instruction set:
To support the RS/6000 and RS/6000 SP2 product lines in 1996, IBM had its own design team implement a single-chip version of POWER2, the P2SC ("POWER2 Super Chip"), outside the Apple/IBM/Motorola alliance in IBM's most advanced and dense CMOS-6S process. P2SC combined all of the separate POWER2 instruction cache, fixed point, floating point, storage control, and data cache chips onto one huge die. At the time of its introduction, P2SC was the largest and highest transistor count processor in the industry. Despite the challenge of its size, complexity, and advanced CMOS process, the first tape-out version of the processor was able to be shipped, and it had leadership floating point performance at the time it was announced. P2SC was the processor used in the 1997 IBM Deep Blue chess playing supercomputer which beat chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov. With its twin sophisticated MAF floating point units and huge wide and low latency memory interfaces, P2SC was primarily targeted at engineering and scientific applications. P2SC was eventually succeeded by the POWER3, which included 64-bit, SMP capability, and a full transition to PowerPC in addition to P2SC's sophisticated twin MAF floating point units.
The architecture.
The POWER design is descended directly from the 801's CPU, widely considered to be the first true RISC processor design. The 801 was used in a number of applications inside IBM hardware.
At about the same time the PC/RT was being released, IBM started the "America Project", to design the most powerful CPU on the market. They were interested primarily in fixing two problems in the 801 design:
Floating point became a focus for the America Project, and IBM was able to use new algorithms developed in the early 1980s that could support 64-bit double-precision multiplies and divides in a single cycle. The FPU portion of the design was separate from the instruction decoder and integer parts, allowing the decoder to send instructions to both the FPU and ALU (integer) execution units at the same time. IBM complemented this with a complex instruction decoder which could be fetching one instruction, decoding another, and sending one to the ALU and FPU at the same time, resulting in one of the first superscalar CPU designs in use.
The system used 32 32-bit integer registers and another 32 64-bit floating point registers, each in their own unit. The branch unit also included a number of "private" registers for its own use, including the program counter.
Another interesting feature of the architecture is a "virtual address" system which maps all addresses into a 52-bit space. In this way applications can share memory in a "flat" 32-bit space, and all of the programs can have different blocks of 32 bits each.
Appendix E of Book I: PowerPC User Instruction Set Architecture of the PowerPC Architecture Book, Version 2.02 describes the differences between the POWER and POWER2 instruction set architectures and the version of the PowerPC instruction set architecture implemented by the POWER5.


Virtual device

A virtual device in Unix is a file such as codice_1 or codice_2, that is treated as a device, as far as user level software is concerned, but is generated by the kernel without reference to hardware.
For instance when codice_3 is written to, the kernel tells the program it wrote everything to it (without actually writing it anywhere), and when read from, the reading program is told that it has reached the end of the file. It is a device file (it can be made with mknod for instance), but does not reference any hardware.
DOS-, Windows- and OS/2-like operating systems define the NUL device that performs a similar function (but is implemented as part of the file name processing – no actual file exists by that name).


ValuePoint


PlayStation 3 models

Original model.
There are several original PlayStation 3 hardware models, which are commonly referred to by the size of their included hard disk drive: 20, 40, 60, 80, or 160 GB. Although referred to by their HDD size, the capabilities of the consoles vary by region and release date. The only difference in the appearance of the first five models was the color of the trim, number of USB ports, the presence or absence of a door (which covers the flash card readers on equipped models) and some minor changes to the air vents. All retail packages include one or two Sixaxis controllers or a DualShock 3 controller (beginning June 12, 2008), one Type-A to Mini-B USB cable (for connecting the controller and PlayStation Portable to the system), one composite video/stereo audio output cable, one Ethernet cable (20, 60 and CECHExx 80 GB only) and one power cable. The original and CECHExx models were also the only video game consoles ever made to feature a Super Audio CD player.
All models support software emulation of the original PlayStation, but support for PlayStation 2 backward compatibility diminished with later compatible models and the last model to have integrated backward compatibility was the NTSC 80 GB (CECHE) Metal Gear Solid 4 Bundle. Compatibility issues with games for both systems are detailed in a public database hosted by the manufacturer. All models, excluding the 20 GB model, include 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi.
In addition to all of the features of the 20 GB model, the 60 GB model has internal IEEE 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, multiple flash card readers (SD/MultiMedia Card, CompactFlash Type I/Type II, Microdrive, Memory Stick/PRO/Duo) and a chrome colored trim. In terms of hardware, the 80 GB model CECHE released in South Korea is identical to the 60 GB model CECHC released in the PAL regions, except for the difference in hard drive size.
The European 60GB model (CECHC), the South Korean and North American CECHE 80GB model excludes the PlayStation 2 "Emotion Engine" CPU chip with it being replaced by an emulated version via the Cell Broadband Engine. However, it retains the "Graphics Synthesizer" GPU resulting in a hybrid hardware and software emulation. Due to the elimination of the "Emotion Engine" and its replacement with a software-emulated version, the level of PlayStation 2 compatibility was slightly reduced. The 40 GB, 80 GB (CECHL, CECHM, and CECHK) and 160 GB models have two USB ports instead of the four USB ports on other models and do not include multiple flash card readers, SACD support, or backward compatibility with PlayStation 2 games. This was due to the removal of "Graphics Synthesizer" GPU, which stripped the units of all PlayStation 2 based hardware.
No official Wi-Fi or flash memory card readers were ever released by Sony for the 20 GB system, although Sony had plans to do so. As of September 2009, Sony had placed no further emphasis on these proposed add-ons. Nevertheless, as the model features four USB 2.0 ports, wireless networking and flash memory card support can already be obtained through the use of widely available external USB adapters and third-party PS3-specific media hubs.
It was rumored that the Cell processors in the third-generation PS3s (40 GB, 2008 80 GB (CECHL,CECHM,CECHK) and 160 GB) would move from a 90 nm process to the newer 65 nm process, which SCEI CEO Kaz Hirai later confirmed, and later to 45 nm. This change lowers the power consumption of the console and makes it less expensive to produce.
Slim model.
The redesigned version of the PlayStation 3 (commonly referred to as the "PS3 Slim" and officially branded "PS3") features an upgradeable 120 GB, 160 GB, 250 GB or 320 GB hard drive and is 33% smaller, 36% lighter and consumes 34% (CECH-20xx) or 45% (CECH-21xx) less power than the previous model, or one third of the original PS3 model. The Cell microprocessor has moved to a 45 nm manufacturing process, which lets it run cooler and quieter than previous models, and the cooling system has been redesigned. The RSX moved to a 40 nm process in the latest revision. The PS3 slim also includes support for CEC (more commonly referred to by its manufacturer brandings of BraviaSync, VIERA Link, EasyLink etc.) which allows control of the console over HDMI by using the TV's remote control. The PS3 Slim no longer has the "main power" switch like the previous PS3 models, similar to redesigned slimline PlayStation 2. Support for emulation to play PS2 titles is not present in the Slim version, however, shortly after the release of the PS3 Slim, Sony announced a new series of PS2 remasters called Classics HD as in PS2 and PSP titles remastered in HD for the PS3 with Trophies and sometimes PlayStation Move compatibility added. As of October 2011, PS2 classics are available for purchase in the PlayStation Store.
The PS3 Slim was officially released on September 1, 2009, in North America and Europe and on September 3, 2009, in Japan, Australia and New Zealand. However, some retailers such as Amazon.com, Best Buy and GameStop started to sell the PS3 slim on August 25, 2009. The PS3 Slim sold in excess of a million units in its first 3 weeks on sale. A 250 GB "Final Fantasy XIII"-themed PS3 Slim, which was white in color with pink designs, was officially announced on September 24, 2009 at the Tokyo Game Show as part of a bundle in Japan for "Final Fantasy XIII", it was initially revealed in U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filings as the PS3 CECH-2000B. Sony Computer Entertainment Australia also announced later that day that it would be bringing the 250 GB PS3 slim to Australia which would be bundled with other games and will not feature the "Final Fantasy XIII" theme. Although no North American bundles have been announced for the 250 GB PS3 slim, it is sold as a stand-alone console in North America.
In July 2010, Sony announced two new sizes of the Slim PS3, 160 GB and 320 GB, with the 120 GB model being discontinued in Japan. These were launched on July 29, 2010, in Japan, with the 160 GB version available in "Classic White" as well as the standard "Charcoal Black". The black 160 GB version was also made available as a bundle with the Japan-only DVR accessory torne. It was later announced that the new sizes were to be launched in other regions, with the 160 GB model available from August 2010 in North America and October 2010 in Europe. The 320 GB model is to be available in North America only as part of a bundle with PlayStation Move, a PlayStation Eye and a copy of Sports Champions, and in Europe with PlayStation Move, a PlayStation Eye and a demo disc. The bundles were released on September 19, 2010, and September 15, 2010, respectively, to coincide with the launch of PlayStation Move.
Super Slim model.
In September 2012, Sony announced that a new slimmer PS3 redesign (CECH-4000) was due to be released in late 2012 and that it would be available with either a 250 GB or 500 GB hard drive.
In PAL regions, the 250 GB model is not available; a model with 12 GB of flash memory (CECH-4000A) is available in its place. A standalone 250 GB hard drive (CECH-ZHD1) is available to upgrade this model. In the UK, the 500 GB model was released on September 28, 2012, while the 12 GB model was made available on October 12, 2012.
CECH-4000B consoles (those with hard drives) weigh approximately , while the CECH-4000A weighs approximately . Both are roughly 25% smaller and about 20% lighter than the original PS3 Slim. This version has a sliding disc cover rather than the slot-loading drive found on the previous PlayStation 3 consoles (Similar to the Sony BRAVIA KDL22PX300, which includes a built in PlayStation 2).
A CECH-4200 model with nearly identical hardware to that of the CECH-4000 model was introduced in 2013 to follow the AACS rule of inhibiting analog (component and composite) output of Blu-ray disc content effective since 2014. While in previous 3000 and 4000 models the output limit was already set at 480i to meet a January 1, 2011 deadline in agreement also with the aforementioned AACS.
A vertical stand (CECH-ZST1J) is also available for these models and was launched on the same day as the consoles in their respective regions.
Model comparison.
Key:
All Piano Black and Ceramic White models have a glossy finish
All models include: Blu-ray/DVD/CD drive, HDMI 1.3a (upgraded to HDMI 1.4 via firmware update), Bluetooth 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) and PlayStation backward compatibility through software emulation.
Model numbers differ by region. See "PlayStation 3 hardware – model numbers" for details.
a Linux support removed in firmware version 3.21. See OtherOS support for details
b Ceramic white model available in Asia and Japan only.
c Satin silver model available in Asia and Japan only.
d Gun-Metal Gray model is only available as part of the "" bundle.
e "Yakuza 3" bundle features a Ceramic White model with custom grey dragon designs on its case. This version had a limited run of 10,000 units.
f "Cloud Black" (dark grey) console is only available as part of a Japanese limited edition "" bundle and features a custom white design on the console
g White and Pink model is only available as part of the Japanese "Final Fantasy XIII" bundle and features a pink design of Final Fantasy XIII character "Lightning" on its case.
h Titanium Blue model is only available as part of the Japanese "Gran Turismo 5 Titanium Blue" bundle
i Magical Gold model is only available as part of the Japanese Ni no Kuni bundle
j Black and Pink model is only available as part of the Japanese "Final Fantasy XIII-2" bundle and features a pink design of Final Fantasy XIII character "Lightning" on its case.
k Gold model is only available as part of the Japanese " Gold" bundle
l Black and Gold model is only available as part of the Japanese "Yakuza 5" bundle and features a gold emblem design on its case.
m Black and White model is only available as part of the Japanese " bundle and features a white emblem design on its case
n Black and Blue model is only available as part of the Japanese " bundle


Jogcon

The is a controller developed and produced by Namco for the PlayStation.
Originally released in 1998 as part of a special edition package with "", it was designed to combine the function of a steering wheel controller, while maintaining the size of a standard PlayStation controller. This is accomplished by a dial approximately 3 inches in diameter in the center of the controller (almost in the same location as the DualShock analog sticks).
The dial was the first force feedback steering wheel available on the PlayStation. Its name was derived from the action of "jogging" a dial like those found on some VCRs and the action of putting this on a controller. Actions such as torque steer, collisions, and feedback from turning the automobile all can be felt through the dial as the player manipulates it to maneuver their vehicle through the course.
The Jogcon would later be sold separately.
Compatibility.
The Jogcon is fully compatible with games such as "Ridge Racer Type 4", "V-Rally 2", "Pac-Man World", the Playstation version of "Breakout (video game)", and the PlayStation 2 game "Ridge Racer V". In other games, it can be used as a regular PlayStation controller by turning off the Jogcon mode using the mode switch above the PlayStation logo.
The Jogcon also has a relatively unknown neGcon compatibility mode; by holding the mode button as you turn on the PlayStation, the Jogcon wheel emulates the NeGcon's twist functionality. However, as force feedback isn't supported in this mode, the wheel will not self-center. On top of this, the default button mapping for a NeGcon usually means the X and Square buttons are used as acceleration and brake, whereas in Ridge Racer Type 4 and V-Rally 2, these controls are moved to the shoulder buttons to allow for both thumbs to control the wheel. As such, the neGcon compatibility mode expands the list of games the Jogcon can be used in significantly, but the experience is considerably more awkward than when it is used in Jogcon-compatible games.


ASM.COM


PAUSE (command)


USB image

A USB image — is bootable image of Operating system (OS) or other software where the boot loader is located on a USB flash drive, or another USB device (with memory storage) instead of conventional CD or DVD discs. The operating system loads from the USB device either to load it much like a Live CD that runs OS or any other software from the storage or installs OS itself. USB image runs off of the USB device the whole time. A USB image is easier to carry, can be stored more safely than a conventional CD or DVD. Drawbacks are that some older devices may not support USB booting and that the USB storage devices lifespan might be shortened.
Ubuntu has included a utility for installing an operating system image file to a USB flash drive since version 9.10. Windows support also has added a step by step on how to set up a USB device as a bootable drive.
Software.
Both graphical applications and command line utilities are available for authoring bootable operating system images. dd is a utility commonly found in Unix operating systems that allow creation of bootable images.


VERIFY (command)


Apple T2


Processor supplementary capability

A processor supplementary capability is a feature that has been added to an existing central processing unit (CPU) design after the initial introduction of that design to the marketplace.
A supplementary capability increases the usefulness of the processor design, allowing it to compete more favorably with competitors and giving consumers a reason to upgrade, while retaining backwards compatibility with the original design.
The CPU supplementary instruction capability does not as a rule apply to 8 or 16 bit CPUs, as many of these CPUs are used mostly as microcontrollers. On modern 32 and 64 bit CPUs the "processor supplementary capability" does not extend to Floating Point Units (FPUs) or Memory Management Units (MMUs) as these are considered to be fundamental core functionalities. Extensions to the core functionalities of the MMU and FPU may be considered CPU extensions however.
Historical reasoning.
The supplementary instructions feature has always been assumed to mean fixed sets of instructions that are not obligatory across all CPUs in a CPU family. Supplementary instructions will simply not be found on all processors within that family. A programmer who wishes to use a supplementary feature of a CPU is faced with a couple of choices.
Supplemental instruction programming options
Should the needed instructions not be there a fall back to a (presumably slower or otherwise less desirable) alternative technique can be initiated or else the program may be set to run with reduced functionality.
By using a lowest common denominator strategy (avoiding use of processor supplementary capabilities), programs can be kept portable across all machines of the same architecture.
CPU families affected.
Some popular processor architectures such as x86, 68000, and MIPS have seen many new capabilities introduced over several generations of design.
Some of these capabilities have then seen widespread adoption by programmers, spurring consumer upgrades and making the previous generations of processors obsolete.
Supplementary Capabilities Not Represented By Flags.
Include (not full list):
Processor Supplementary Instructions.
Processor Supplementary Instructions are instructions that have been implemented on certain processors within a family, but are not present on all processors within a particular family.
IA-32.
The following instructions are considered to be processor supplementary instructions on IA-32 architecture. These instructions were added to later production processors, and are not part of the original IA-32 instruction set. Programs containing these instructions may not operate correctly on all machines in the IA-32 family:
FPU and MMU capability.
The FPU (Floating Point Unit) maths co-processing capability is available on all x86 processors since the 80486DX series. The FPU and MMU instruction sets (for the x86 family) have not been considered supplementary instructions since their introduction due to their importance to core CPU functionality.


GeForce 500 series

A refresh of the Fermi based GeForce 400 series, the GeForce 500 series is a series of graphics processing units developed by Nvidia, first released on November 9, 2010 with the GeForce GTX 580.
Overview.
The Nvidia Geforce 500 Series graphics cards are significantly modified versions of the Nvidia GeForce 400 Series graphics cards, in terms of performance and power management. Like the Nvidia GeForce 400 Series graphics cards, the Nvidia Geforce 500 Series graphics cards support DirectX 11.0,OpenGL 4.6, and OpenCL 1.1.
The refreshed Fermi chip includes 512 stream processors, grouped in 16 stream multiprocessors clusters (each with 32 CUDA cores), and is manufactured by TSMC in a 40 nm process.
The Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 graphics card is the first in the Nvidia GeForce 500 Series to use a fully enabled chip based on the refreshed Fermi architecture, with all 16 stream multiprocessors clusters and all six 64-bit memory controllers active. The new GF110 GPU was enhanced with full speed FP16 filtering (the previous generation GF100 GPU could only do half-speed FP16 filtering) and improved z-culling units.
On January 25, 2011, Nvidia launched the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, to target the "sweet spot" segment where price/performance ratio is considered important. With its more than 30% improvement over the GTX 460, and performance in between the Radeon HD 6870 and 6950 1GB, the GTX 560 Ti directly replaced the GeForce GTX 470.
On February 17, 2011, it was reported that the GeForce GTX 550 Ti would be launching on March 15, 2011. Although the GTX 550 Ti is a GF116 mainstream chip, Nvidia chose to name its new card the GTX 550 Ti, and not the GTS 550. Performance was shown to be at least comparable and up to 12% faster than the current Radeon HD 5770. Price-wise, the new card trod into the range occupied by the GeForce GTX 460 (768 MB) and the Radeon HD 6790.
On March 24, 2011, the GTX 590 was launched as the flagship graphics card for Nvidia. The GTX 590 is a dual-GPU card, similar to past releases such as the GTX 295, and boasted the potential to handle Nvidia's 3D Vision technology by itself.
On April 13, 2011, the GT 520 was launched as the bottom-end card in the range, with lower performance than the equivalent number cards in the two previous generations, the GT 220 and the GT 420. However, it supported DirectX 11 and was more powerful than the GeForce 210, the GeForce 310, and the integrated graphics options on Intel CPUs.
On May 17, 2011, Nvidia launched a less expensive (non-Ti) version of the GeForce GTX 560 to strengthen Nvidia's price-performance in the $200 range. Like the faster GTX 560 Ti that came before it, this video card was also faster than the GeForce GTX 460. Standard versions of this card performed comparably to the AMD Radeon HD 6870, and would eventually replace the GeForce GTX 460. Premium versions of this card operate at higher speed (factory overclocked), and are slightly faster than the Radeon 6870, approaching the performance of basic versions of the Radeon HD 6950 and the GeForce GTX 560 Ti.
On November 28, 2011, Nvidia launched the "GTX560Ti With 448 Cores". However, it does not use the silicon of the GTX560 series: it is a GF110 chip with two shader blocks disabled. The most powerful version of the 560 series, this card was widely known to be a "limited production" card and was used as a marketing tool making use of the popularity of the GTX560 brand for the 2011 Holiday season. The performance of the card resides between the regular 560Ti and 570.
Counterfeit Usage.
The cards of this generation, particularly the smaller length 550TI model, are common cards of choice by counterfeit re-sellers, who take the cards and edit their BIOS chips to have them report as more modern cards such as the GTX 1060 and 1060TI models. These cards are then sold via eBay, Taobao, Aliexpress and Wish.Com by the scammer. They may have a minimum of functionality to ensure at a first glance they appear legitimate, but defects caused by the fake BIOS, manufacturing and software issues will almost always cause crashes in modern games & applications, and if not, the performance will still be extremely poor.
Products.
GeForce 500 (5xx) series.
All products are produced using a 40 nm fabrication process.
All products support DirectX 12.0, OpenGL 4.6 and OpenCL 1.1.
GeForce 500M (5xxM) series.
The GeForce 500M series for notebook architecture.
Discontinued support.
Nvidia announced that after Release 390 drivers, it will no longer release 32-bit drivers for 32-bit operating systems.
Nvidia announced in April 2018 that Fermi will transition to legacy driver support status and be maintained until January 2019.