Fat binary

A fat binary (or multiarchitecture binary) is a computer executable program or library which has been expanded (or "fattened") with code native to multiple instruction sets which can consequently be run on multiple processor types. This results in a file larger than a normal one-architecture binary file, thus the name.
The usual method of implementation is to include a version of the machine code for each instruction set, preceded by a single entry point with code compatible with all operating systems, which executes a jump to the appropriate section. Alternative implementations store different executables in different forks, each with its own entry point that is directly used by the operating system.
The use of fat binaries is not common in operating system software; there are several alternatives to solve the same problem, such as the use of an installer program to choose an architecture-specific binary at install time (such as with Android multiple APKs), selecting an architecture-specific binary at runtime (such as with Plan 9's union directories and GNUstep's fat bundles), distributing software in source code form and compiling it in-place, or the use of a virtual machine (such as with Java) and Just In Time compilation.
Apollo.
Apollo's compound executables.
In 1988, Apollo Computer's Domain/OS SR10.1 introduced a new file type, "cmpexe" (compound executable), that bundled binaries for Motorola 680x0 and Apollo PRISM executables.
Apple.
Apple's fat binary.
A fat-binary scheme smoothed the Apple Macintosh's transition, beginning in 1994, from 68k microprocessors to PowerPC microprocessors. Many applications for the old platform ran transparently on the new platform under an evolving emulation scheme, but emulated code generally runs slower than native code. Applications released as "fat binaries" took up more storage space, but they ran at full speed on either platform. This was achieved by packaging both a 68000-compiled version and a PowerPC-compiled version of the same program into their executable files. The older 68K code (CFM-68K or classic 68K) continued to be stored in the resource fork, while the newer PowerPC code was contained in the data fork, in PEF format.
Fat binaries were larger than programs supporting only the PowerPC or 68k, which led to the creation of a number of utilities that would strip out the unneeded version. In the era of small hard drives, when 80 MB hard drives were a common size, these utilities were sometimes useful, as program code was generally a large percentage of overall drive usage, and stripping the unneeded members of a fat binary would free up a significant amount of space on a hard drive.
NeXT's/Apple's multi-architecture binaries.
NeXTSTEP Multi-Architecture Binaries.
Fat binaries were a feature of NeXT's NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP operating system, starting with NeXTSTEP 3.1. In NeXTSTEP, they were called "Multi-Architecture Binaries". Multi-Architecture Binaries were originally intended to allow software to be compiled to run both on NeXT's Motorola 68k-based hardware and on Intel IA-32-based PCs running NeXTSTEP, with a single binary file for both platforms. It was later used to allow OPENSTEP applications to run on PCs and the various RISC platforms OPENSTEP supported. Multi-Architecture Binary files are in a special archive format, in which a single file stores one or more Mach-O subfiles for each architecture supported by the Multi-Architecture Binary. Every Multi-Architecture Binary starts with a structure (struct fat_header) containing two unsigned integers. The first integer ("magic") is used as a magic number to identify this file as a Fat Binary. The second integer ("nfat_arch") defines how many Mach-O Files the archive contains (how many instances of the same program for different architectures). After this header, there are "nfat_arch" number of fat_arch structures (struct fat_arch). This structure defines the offset (from the start of the file) at which to find the file, the alignment, the size and the CPU type and subtype which the Mach-O binary (within the archive) is targeted at.
The version of the GNU Compiler Collection shipped with the Developer Tools was able to cross-compile source code for the different architectures on which NeXTStep was able to run. For example, it was possible to choose the target architectures with multiple '-arch' options (with the architecture as argument). This was a convenient way to distribute a program for NeXTStep running on different architectures.
It was also possible to create libraries (e.g. using libtool) with different targeted object files.
Mach-O and Mac OS X.
Apple Computer acquired NeXT in 1996 and continued to work with the OPENSTEP code. Mach-O became the native object file format in Apple's free Darwin operating system (2000) and Apple's Mac OS X (2001), and NeXT's Multi-Architecture Binaries continued to be supported by the operating system. Under Mac OS X, Multi-Architecture Binaries can be used to support multiple variants of an architecture, for instance to have different versions of 32-bit code optimized for the PowerPC G3, PowerPC G4, and PowerPC 970 generations of processors. It can also be used to support multiple architectures, such as 32-bit and 64-bit PowerPC, or PowerPC and x86, or x86-64 and ARM64.
Apple's Universal binary.
In 2005, Apple announced another transition, from PowerPC processors to Intel x86 processors. Apple promoted the distribution of new applications that support both PowerPC and x86 natively by using executable files in Multi-Architecture Binary format. Apple calls such programs "Universal applications" and calls the file format "Universal binary" as perhaps a way to distinguish this new transition from the previous transition, or other uses of Multi-Architecture Binary format.
Universal binary format was not necessary for forward migration of pre-existing native PowerPC applications; from 2006 to 2011, Apple supplied Rosetta, a PowerPC (PPC)-to-x86 dynamic binary translator, to play this role. However, Rosetta had a fairly steep performance overhead, so developers were encouraged to offer both PPC and Intel binaries, using Universal binaries. The obvious cost of Universal binary is that every installed executable file is larger, but in the years since the release of the PPC, hard-drive space has greatly outstripped executable size; while a Universal binary might be double the size of a single-platform version of the same application, free-space resources generally dwarf the code size, which becomes a minor issue. In fact, often a Universal-binary application will be smaller than two single-architecture applications because program resources can be shared rather than duplicated. If not all of the architectures are required, the and command-line applications can be used to remove versions from the Multi-Architecture Binary image, thereby creating what is sometimes called a "thin binary".
In addition, Multi-Architecture Binary executables can contain code for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of PowerPC and x86, allowing applications to be shipped in a form that supports 32-bit processors but that makes use of the larger address space and wider data paths when run on 64-bit processors.
In versions of the Xcode development environment from 2.1 through 3.2 (running on Mac OS X 10.4 through Mac OS X 10.6), Apple included utilities which allowed applications to be targeted for both Intel and PowerPC architecture; universal binaries could eventually contain up to four versions of the executable code (32-bit PowerPC, 32-bit x86, 64-bit PowerPC, and 64-bit x86). However, PowerPC support was removed from Xcode 4.0 and is therefore not available to developers running Mac OS X 10.7 or greater.
In 2020, Apple announced another transition, this time from Intel x86 processors to Apple silicon. To smooth the transition Apple added support for the Universal 2 binary format. This allows the creation of binaries that run natively on both 64-bit Intel and 64-bit Apple silicon (an AArch64 variant). Additionally, Apple introduced Rosetta 2 dynamic binary translation for x86 to Arm64 instruction set to allow users to run applications that do not have Universal binary variants.
DOS.
Combined COM-style binaries for CP/M-80 and DOS.
CP/M-80, MP/M-80, Concurrent CP/M, CP/M Plus and Personal CP/M-80 executables for the Intel 8080 (and Z80) processor families use the same .COM file extension as DOS-compatible operating systems for Intel 8086 binaries. In both cases programs are loaded at offset +100h and executed by jumping to the first byte in the file. As the opcodes of the two processor families are not compatible, attempting to start a program under the wrong operating system leads to incorrect and unpredictable behaviour.
In order to avoid this, some methods have been devised to build fat binaries which contain both a CP/M-80 and a DOS program, preceded by initial code which is interpreted correctly on both platforms. The methods either combine two fully functional programs each built for their corresponding environment, or add stubs which cause the program to exit gracefully if started on the wrong processor. For this to work, the first few instructions in the .COM file have to be valid code for both 8086 and 8080 processors, which would cause the processors to branch into different locations within the code.
For example, the utilities in Simeon Cran's emulator MyZ80 start with the opcode sequence . An 8086 sees this as a jump and reads its next instruction from offset +154h whereas an 8080 or compatible processor goes straight through and reads its next instruction from +103h.
A similar sequence used for this purpose is .
Another method to keep a DOS-compatible operating system from erroneously executing .COM programs for CP/M-80 and MSX-DOS machines is to start the 8080 code with , which is decoded as a "RET" instruction by x86 processors, thereby gracefully exiting the program, while it will be decoded as "JP 103h" instruction by 8080 processors and simply jump to the next instruction in the program.
Some CP/M-80 3.0 .COM files may have one or more RSX overlays attached to them by GENCOM. If so, they start with an extra 256-byte header (one page). In order to indicate this, the first byte in the header is set to , which works both as a signature identifying this type of COM file to the CP/M 3.0 executable loader, as well as a "RET" instruction for 8080-compatible processors which leads to a graceful exit if the file is executed under older versions of CP/M-80.
 is never appropriate as the first byte of a program for any x86 processor (it has different meanings for different generations, but is never a meaningful first byte); the executable loader in some versions of DOS rejects COM files that start with , avoiding incorrect operation.
Combined binaries for CP/M-86 and DOS.
CP/M-86 and DOS do not share a common file extension for executables. Thus, it is not normally possible to confuse executables. However, early versions of DOS had so much in common with CP/M in terms of its architecture that some early DOS programs were developed to share binaries containing executable code. One program known to do this was WordStar 3.2x, which used identical overlay files in their ports for CP/M-86 and MS-DOS, and used dynamically fixed-up code to adapt to the differing calling conventions of these operating systems at runtime.
Digital Research's GSX for CP/M-86 and DOS also shares binary identical 16-bit drivers.
Combined COM and SYS files.
DOS device drivers start with a file header whose first four bytes are FFFFFFFFh by convention, although this is not a requirement. This is fixed up dynamically by the operating system when the driver loads (typically in the DOS BIOS when it executes DEVICE statements in CONFIG.SYS). Since DOS does not reject files with a .COM extension to be loaded per DEVICE and does not test for FFFFFFFFh, it is possible to combine a COM program and a device driver into the same file by placing a jump instruction to the entry point of the embedded COM program within the first four bytes of the file (three bytes are usually sufficient). If the embedded program and the device driver sections share a common portion of code, or data, it is necessary for the code to deal with being loaded at offset +0100h as a .COM style program, and at +0000h as a device driver. For shared code loaded at the "wrong" offset but not designed to be position-independent, this requires an internal address fix-up similar to what would otherwise already have been carried out by a relocating loader, except for that in this case it has to be done by the loaded program itself; this is similar to the situation with self-relocating drivers but with the program already loaded at the target location by the operating system's loader.
Crash-protected system files.
Under DOS, some files, by convention, have file extensions which do not reflect their actual file type. For example, COUNTRY.SYS is not a DOS device driver, but a binary NLS database file for use with the CONFIG.SYS COUNTRY directive and the NLSFUNC driver. The PC DOS and DR-DOS system files IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM are special binary images, not COM-style programs. Trying to load COUNTRY.SYS with a DEVICE statement or executing IBMBIO.COM or IBMDOS.COM at the command prompt will cause unpredictable results.
It is sometimes possible to avoid this by utilizing techniques similar to those described above. For example, DR-DOS 7.02 and higher incorporate a safety feature developed by Matthias R. Paul: If these files are called inappropriately, tiny embedded stubs will just display some file version information and exit gracefully.
A similar protection feature was the 8080 instruction ("RST 0") at the very start of Z-System language overlay files, which would result in a warm start (instead of a crash) under CP/M-80 if loaded inappropriately.
In a remotely similar fashion, many (binary) file formats by convention include a byte (ASCII ^Z) near the beginning of the file. This control character will be interpreted as "soft" end-of-file (EOF) marker when a file is opened in non-binary mode, and thus, under many operating systems (including RT-11, VMS, CP/M, DOS, and Windows), it prevents "binary garbage" from being displayed when a file is accidentally typed at the console.
Linux.
FatELF: Universal binaries for Linux.
FatELF is a fat binary implementation for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. Technically, a FatELF binary is a concatenation of ELF binaries with some meta data indicating which binary to use on what architecture. Additionally to the CPU architecture abstraction (byte order, word size, CPU instruction set, etc.), there is the advantage of binaries with support for multiple kernel ABIs and versions.
FatELF has several use-cases, according to developers:
A proof-of-concept Ubuntu 9.04 image is available. , FatELF has not been integrated into the mainline Linux kernel.
Windows.
Fatpack.
Although the Portable Executable format used by Windows does not allow assigning code to platforms, it is still possible to make a loader program that dispatches based on architecture. This is because desktop versions of Windows on ARM has support for 32-bit x86 emulation, making it a useful "universal" machine code target. Fatpack is a loader that demonstrates the concept: it includes a 32-bit x86 program that tries to run the executables packed into its resource sections one by one.
Similar systems.
The following approaches are similar to fat binaries in that multiple versions of machine code of the same purpose are provided in the same file.
Fat objects.
GCC and LLVM do not have a fat binary format, but they do have fat "object files" for link-time optimization (LTO). Since LTO involves delaying the compilation to link-time, the object files must store the intermediate representation, but on the other hand machine code may need to be stored too (for speed or compatibility). An LTO object containing both IR and machine code is known as a "fat object".
Function multi-versioning.
Even in a program or library intended for the same instruction set architecture, a programmer may wish to make use of some newer instruction set extensions while keeping compatibility with an older CPU. This can be achieved with function multi-versioning (FMV): versions of the same function are written into the program, and a piece of code decides which one to use by detecting the CPU's capabilities (such as through CPUID). Intel C++ Compiler, GNU Compiler Collection, and LLVM all have the ability to automatically generate multi-versioned functions. This is a form of dynamic dispatch without any semantic effects.
Many math libraries feature hand-written assembly routines that are automatically chosen according to CPU capability. Examples include glibc, Intel MKL, and OpenBLAS. In addition, the library loader in glibc supports loading from alternative paths for specific CPU features.


Caldera International

Caldera International, earlier Caldera Systems, was an American software company that existed from 1998 to 2002 and developed and sold Linux- and Unix-based operating system products.
Caldera Systems was created in August 1998 as a spinoff of Caldera, Inc., with Ransom Love as its CEO. It focused on selling Caldera OpenLinux, a high-end Linux distribution aimed at business customers that included features it developed, such as an easy-to-use, graphical installer and graphical and web-based system administration tools, as well as features from bundled proprietary software. Caldera Systems was also active in the Java language and software platform on Linux community.
In March 2000, Caldera Systems staged a successful IPO of its stock, although the stock price did not reach the stratospheric heights of its chief competitor Red Hat and some other companies during the "Linux mania" of 1999.
In August 2000, Caldera Systems announced the purchase of Unix technology and services from the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO). The much larger, merged company changed its name to Caldera International when the deal closed in May 2001. Caldera International sought to shape SCO's UnixWare product (renamed Open UNIX) to present a unified view of Unix and Linux that could satisfy high-end business needs and take advantage of SCO's large reseller channel. The Volution suite of higher-layer solutions for system management, mail and messaging, and authentication also had the same goal. Caldera International was part of the United Linux effort of Linux companies seeking to form a common distribution that could compete with Red Hat.
In the end none of these efforts succeeded in the marketplace, and Caldera Systems/International lost large amounts of money in all four years of its existence. Under severe financial pressure, in June 2002 Love was replaced as CEO by Darl McBride, who soon adopted the corporate name The SCO Group and took that entity in a completely different business direction.
Caldera Systems.
Background and formation.
Caldera, Inc., based in Utah, was founded in 1994 by Bryan Wayne Sparks and Ransom H. Love, receiving start-up funding from Ray Noorda's Canopy Group. Its main product was Caldera Network Desktop (CND), a Linux distribution mainly targeted at business customers and containing some proprietary additions. Caldera, Inc. later purchased the German LST Software GmbH and its LST Power Linux distribution, which was made the basis of their following product Caldera OpenLinux (COL).
Caldera, Inc. inherited a lawsuit against Microsoft when it purchased DR-DOS from Novell in 1996. This "Caldera v. Microsoft" action related to Caldera's claims of monopolization, illegal tying, exclusive dealing, and tortious interference by Microsoft.
On September 2, 1998, Caldera, Inc. announced the creation of two Utah-based wholly owned subsidiaries, Caldera Systems, Inc. and Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., in order to split up tasks and directions.
Caldera Systems, whose actual incorporation date had been August 21, 1998, took over the Linux business, including development, training, services, and support, while Caldera Thin Clients (which changed its name to Lineo the following year) took over the DOS and embedded business. The shell company Caldera, Inc., remained responsible for the lawsuit only.
"Linux for Business".
Caldera Systems was headquartered in Orem, Utah, and was headed by co-founder Ransom Love as President and CEO. Caldera Deutschland GmbH, based in Erlangen, Germany, served as their Linux development center. Drew Spencer joined in 1999 and became the company's Chief Technology Officer.
The company targeted the Linux-based software business with its Linux distribution named Caldera OpenLinux, and the Caldera Systems business plan stressed the importance of corporate training, support, and services.
Towards this end they created a professional certification program for Linux as well as for the KDE desktop that the Caldera Systems distribution used. In doing so they worked with the Linux Professional Institute in developing class materials and created a series of Authorized Linux Education Centers around the globe that would train successful students towards doing well in Linux Professional Institute Certification Programs. Beginning courses trained on several difficult Linux distributions as well as Caldera OpenLinux, while more advanced courses focused on OpenLinux only (the name OpenLinux tended to annoy other Linux distributions, suggesting as it did that the others were not open).
The early leader in the Linux as a business race was Red Hat Software, which attracted equity investments from several major technology companies in early 1999. Red Hat also tended to get the most media attention. Besides Red Hat and Caldera, other well-known companies selling Linux distributions included SuSE, Turbolinux, and Mandrake Soft. But no company at the time had been successful in building a profitable business around open source software.
Caldera Systems focused on a high-end Linux product and its Linux distribution became rich with features with bundled proprietary software. For instance, the company offered NetWare for Linux, which included a full-blown NetWare implementation from Novell.
They licensed Sun Microsystems's Wabi to allow people to run Windows applications under Linux. Additionally, they shipped with Linux versions of WordPerfect from Corel as well as productivity applications from Applixware. Since many of their customers used a dual boot setup, Caldera shipped with PowerQuest's PartitionMagic to allow their customers to non-destructively repartition their hard disks.
This approach led to a debate about the purity of Linux-based products. Red Hat CEO Bob Young said in 1999, "One where you might see a problem is Caldera, because they see part of their value added in proprietary tools they have licensed from third parties." In response, a Caldera Systems executive expressed the company's philosophy: "We have produced a product that combines the best of open-source and commercial packages; we are doing Linux for business. We do add to it commercial packages that allow business users to easily integrate it."
Caldera OpenLinux was also available on a retail basis, in the form of a CD-ROM for installing Linux on an IBM PC compatible machine that sold for .
OpenLinux 2.2, released in April 1999, was seen as significantly improved from the previous year's 1.3 release, especially in terms of it having a fully graphical and easy-to-use installation feature.
Ease of installation was an important criteria in selecting a Linux distribution, and Caldera Deutschland had created this first fully graphical installer for Linux, called Lizard, starting in November 1998. Several years later it was still receiving praise from reviewers. The installer could even be started from a Microsoft Windows partition.
Industry writer Hal Plotkin praised Caldera as a product development company and noted that OpenLinux won several industry awards, including 1999 product of the year from "Linux Journal".
Other products and projects.
In addition to other people's applications, Caldera Systems created many Linux extensions to fill voids where no other commercial company was.
Caldera Systems created a full-featured GUI system administration tool called Caldera Open Administration System (COAS) that was deployed during 1999. The tool was a unified, easy to use administration tool with a modular design and goals of scalability and broad scope applicability, and was expressly designed to be usable on other Linux distributions in addition to Caldera Systems'.
Following that, Caldera Systems sponsored the development of browser-based Unix system administration via the webmin project between 1999 and 2001. It became the first Linux distribution to include Webmin as the standard tool for system administration.
Caldera Systems was a leader in the adoption of the Java language and software platform on Linux. The Blackdown Java project, which first produced working Java ports for Linux systems, was featured on Caldera OpenLinux.
In 2000, Caldera Systems was one of the companies elected to the inaugural JCP Executive Committee for Java SE/EE, which guided the evolution of Java language and software platform through the Java Community Process. Caldera Systems' role on the Executive Committee included representing the Linux and open source communities.
The company was re-elected to its seat on the Executive Committee after it became Caldera International, and represented Java usage on SCO Unix platforms as well.
Work to improve just-in-time compilation under the Sun "Classic JVM" for SCO Unix platforms that begun under SCO was completed with Caldera International.
Caldera Systems was also involved in several Java Specification Requests, including being the specification lead for JSR 140, Service Location Protocol API for Java, and participating in the JSR 48 WBEM Services Specification.
Investments and IPO.
Caldera Systems had not been profitable; for the company's 1998 fiscal year, ending on October 31, it had a loss of $7.9 million on revenue of $1.05 million, and for its 1999 fiscal year, it had a loss of $9.3 million on revenue of $3.05 million.
However, the industry saw promise in Linux as a solution for businesses, and in the latter half of 1999 a "Linux hysteria" had erupted in the stock market, with first Red Hat in August 1999 and then Cobalt Networks and VA Linux in November and December 1999 having experienced huge jumps in value during their first day each of trading.
On January 10, 2000, three things happened, all of which were coincidental.
A settlement to the "Caldera v. Microsoft" suit over DR-DOS was announced, with Microsoft paying former parent company Caldera, Inc. an amount estimated at $275 million (which turned out to be $280 million).
Caldera Systems received a $30 million private equity investment from a group of companies that included Sun Microsystems, Novell, Citrix, Santa Cruz Operation, Chicago Venture Partners, and Egan-Managed Capital, with the goal to "fund operations and accelerate the growth and acceptance of Linux." Also, Caldera Systems announced that it would be filing to have an initial public offering. Ransom Love said that the Microsoft settlement would not benefit Caldera Systems other than that Caldera, Inc. would relinquish the name "Caldera", which would address existing industry confusion between the two. Reports at the time also indicated that the settlement would not directly benefit Caldera Systems, but that Caldera Systems could get an intangible benefit from a name association with a company that had bested an industry giant. Love also said that the timing between the funding round, work for which had begun six months earlier, and the IPO announcement was "unfortunate, and completely coincidental".
Caldera Systems reincorporated in Delaware on March 6, 2000.
By this point it was well positioned in some respects, such as having a strong relationship with Sun and receiving good product reviews within the industry. But it suffered from a lack of public awareness; as IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky said, "They have a wonderful demo, and the product looks very good. But if you asked people on the street about Caldera they would probably think you are talking about a volcano in Hawaii."
The company then staged an IPO of its common stock, with the symbol CALD. On the first day of trading, March 21, 2000, Caldera Systems' shares doubled in value, going from an initial price of $14 to close at $29 7/16, with heavy trading been seen and an intra-day high of $33.
The IPO raised $70 million for the company and gave it a market capitalization of $1.1 billion.
While the launch was successful on its own terms, analysts saw signs that the Linux mania was finally cooling, abetted by Red Hat and VA Linux having seen their values steadily decrease since their spectacular starts. So, while some observers viewed the IPO as a success, others viewed it as a disappointment. Red Hat continued to dominate in North America, with an over 50 percent share of the Linux market.
Caldera International.
Acquisition of SCO UNIX.
On August 2, 2000, following several months of negotiations, Santa Cruz Operation announced that it would sell its Server Software and Services Divisions, including UnixWare – its most technically advanced proprietary Unix operating systems for Intel commodity hardware – to Caldera Systems.
(The agreement was phrased in terms of Caldera Holding, Inc., a typical Newco in such transactions.) The annual SCO Forum conference of developers and resellers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, held later that month, had its name shortened to just "Forum".
The deal was complex, involving involving cash, stock, and loans, and difficult to evaluate monetarily, but based on the price of Caldera Systems stock at the time it was worth around $110–114 million. SCO was much the bigger company, with 900 employees to Caldera Systems' 120. But SCO had been in distress; in part due to the advent of Linux, a series of previously good financial results had gone sour for the company as 1999 turned into 2000. As "Forbes" magazine stated, "Questions remain about execution, but the deal is at least a temporary life preserver for SCO, whose flagship UnixWare server software was in danger of eventually becoming irrelevant in the face of Linux."
As Caldera Systems saw it, Unix and Linux were complementary rather than competitive technologies, especially in the sense that SCO Unix represented a good back-office and database solution while Linux specialized in networking.
The deal gave Caldera Systems access to partnerships with Compaq Computer and IBM, both of which resold UnixWare, and also meant Caldera Systems would become the world's largest vendor of Unix licenses. SCO also had thousands of business applications running on it targeted to vertical markets. In addition, Caldera Systems saw SCO's role as one of the OS companies involved in Project Monterey as a means to develop a 64-bit computing strategy.
But a primary reason for the acquisition was to get SCO's -strong reseller channel. Caldera Systems had been emphasizing trying to get into much the same VAR channel business that SCO was in, using the argument that resellers could find larger margins with free software than by selling Microsoft's Windows NT. But it had been a difficult sell against SCO; even when Linux outperformed SCO Unix, the idea of switching vendors and support organizations made resellers reluctant to make the move.
So combining these channels was seen as a solution to this problem. As the president of iXorg, a reseller organization focused on SCO, stated, "The real value that Caldera will get from the deal is not the Unix name, not the [SCO] customer base, not even the technologies. It is the reseller channel." Skeptics noted, however, that many of those listed resellers were probably not that active anymore, especially in light of SCO's recent struggles (it had reported a $19 million quarterly loss a week before the acquisition announcement).
Traditional SCO users were leery of the move, but Love tried to reassure them that the SCO Unix operating systems would continue on: "Why would we buy it to destroy what we buy? That wouldn't make any sense."
There were hurdles to be overcome, including a fair amount of enmity for SCO within the Linux community.
A major question became whether Caldera Systems would make the SCO-acquired Unix source code open source. Ransom Love initially said, "While we're having to look carefully at the licensing, we're going to open up the [UnixWare] source as much as possible, and at least some of it will be under" the GNU Public Licence. But there was pushback on the idea from the UnixWare staff in New Jersey, and in addition the license issues involved proved formidable. Love later said, "at first we wanted to open-source all of Unix's code, but we quickly found that even though we owned it, it was, and still is, full of other companies' copyrights. The challenge was that there were a lot of business entities that didn't want this to happen. Intel was the biggest opposition."
Instead, there was a focus on SCO's Linux Kernel Personality (LKP), a layer that conformed to the Linux Standard Base specification which would allow applications built for Linux to run on SCO's UnixWare. This was seen as both a way to capture more applications for Unix, and as a way to increase the performance of high-end applications. The latter factor was because SCO UnixWare had an advantage over Linux at the time in terms of support for 16- and 32-way symmetric multiprocessing, UnixWare NonStop Clusters, and some other high-end operating system capabilities. Indeed, one SCO product manager said that some Linux applications could run several times faster under UnixWare with LKP than they could under native Linux.
The SCO acquisition was originally scheduled to close in October 2000, but got delayed due to concerns from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding the details of the merger. However, the two companies' support organizations did get combined during this time. In addition, there was confusion among the SCO customer base about the fate of its other operating system, SCO OpenServer. So in February 2001, the deal was renegotiated to include OpenServer in what was sold to Caldera Systems, although a percentage of OpenServer revenue would still go back to SCO. The monetary terms of the deal were adjusted as well, with Caldera Systems paying SCO more cash than in the original agreement. Analysts were skeptical that these multiple operating systems could be managed without considerable difficulties being encountered.
Financial pressure on the company continued; for fiscal 2000, ending on October 31, Caldera Systems lost $39.2 million on revenue of $4.3 million.
"Unifying Unix with Linux for Business".
The merger was originally being done under the name of the holding company Caldera, Inc.,
Then on March 26, 2001, during the CeBIT conference in Germany, Caldera Systems announced that it would be changing its name to Caldera International once the SCO acquisition was complete.
By this point, the length and difficulty of the acquisition process had alienated some longtime SCO customers and partners.
The acquisition closed on May 7, 2001, and the new Caldera International name became effective.
The merged company had major offices in not just Utah, but also Santa Cruz, California, Murray Hill, New Jersey, and Watford, England, as well as smaller facilities in 16 additional countries.
Thus included in late May 2001, Caldera International, with investments of Fujitsu and Hitachi, opening the Caldera K.K. () subsidiary, directed by Makoto Asoh, who had previously run Nihon SCO, in Tokyo, Japan, which had been one of two SCO subsidiaries in that country.
Overall, SCO had an infrastructure presence of some kind in 80 countries, whereas Caldera Systems had always been largely domestic, thus in part the rationale for the name change.
"Unifying Unix with Linux for Business" became the company's new marketing slogan. In light of that, the company began the Caldera Developer Network, which was intended to give developers of all kinds "early access to UNIX and Linux technologies, allowing them to develop on UNIX, on Linux or on a combined UNIX and Linux platform."
Caldera International's initial release of UnixWare was renamed Open UNIX 8. This release was what would have been UnixWare 7.1.2. While it may have been done to make the branding more consistent with OpenLinux and Open Server, it confused people as well as build and installation scripts that tested for system name. Later, the newly renamed SCO Group reverted to the previous UnixWare brand and version release numbering, releasing UnixWare 7.1.3.
In terms of the question of making some of UnixWare open source, in August 2001 Caldera International did announce that it was placing the code for the regular expression parser and the codice_1 and codice_2 commands, as well for the AIM Multiuser Benchmark, under the GNU General Public License. It also said it would begin an "Open Access to Open UNIX 8" program to allow developer partners to read-only viewing of unencumbered parts of the source base.
But overall, Caldera International found itself in a classic business problem where the interests of the existing business conflicted with their growth model. SCO Unix was mature and sold itself (mainly to repeat customers and replicated sites). The VAR relationship was even more problematic. Even though the reseller organizations had been combined, in reality the prior SCO resellers made much more from each SCO Unix sale than from sales of Caldera OpenLinux, so they were not anxious to move existing customers from Unix to Linux. And even those that were supportive of Linux, did not necessarily see a strong value add for Caldera International products and could often sell Red Hat Enterprise Linux instead.
Volution.
The Volution program was created out of the desire to create a layer of functionality on top of Linux, and Open UNIX 8 Linux Kernel Personality, that would add value to the operating systems offerings. It would end up having four main components: Volution Manager, Volution Messaging Server, Volution Online, and Volution Authentication Server, with an effort to build a common console for a unified user experience. As Ransom Love said, "Volution is a complex and extensive platform".
In January 2001, Caldera Systems first shipped Volution Manager, a browser-based systems administration solution. Intended for service providers and corporate accounts, it was based around OpenLDAP and Novell eDirectory. It featured some sophisticated functionality, but its initial user interface was limited in some ways and the product was costly.
Caldera Systems made a deal in February 2001 with Acrylis, Inc., a company based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, to offer Acrylis's subscription-based service that allowed system administrators to test and then update Linux systems over a network. The service also delivered alerts to customers regarding the necessity for upgrades. The effort was an attempt to compete with the Red Hat Network service and gain a source of recurring revenue. Then in May 2001, Caldera International bought the WhatifLinux technology and assets outright from Acrylis, and changed the name of the service to Volution Online.
Caldera Systems had earlier begun work on a Linux equivalent to the Microsoft Exchange Server that was aimed at the small to medium business market. This would eventually become the Volution Messaging Server, which was released in late 2001 for use on Caldera OpenLinux and Open UNIX 8 with LKP. It offered shared calendaring and scheduling options, SSL support for e-mail, simple configuration, and integration with Microsoft Outlook. However, there were already a number of mail servers available for Linux and none of them had taken off in the business market.
Caldera Systems, and then Caldera International, had substantial experience with Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM), and its OpenWBEM implementation won the Best Open Source Project Award at LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in February 2002. That, combined with experience in the Kerberos authentication protocol and the difficulties of Windows–Unix integration, led Caldera International into research and development of an overall authentication solution that would find its place among Microsoft Active Directory, LDAP, Kerberos, and WBEM. The product of this work was the Volution Authentication Server, which allowed the management of Unix and Linux authentication via Active Directory.
United Linux and continued decline.
When Caldera OpenLinux 3.1 Workstation was released in June 2001, it was with the requirement for per-seat licensing.
This was part of what continued to bring criticism of Caldera in the some quarters of the open source and free software communities; Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman subsequently said of Ransom Love, "He's only a parasite", to which Love took umbrage, responding, "Did Richard Stallman ever invest £50m in Linux? We did. I have been involved in the Linux community since my time at Novell in 1994. … I am not a greedy capitalist. I am only a businessman. … You can't call our business model parasitic. We add value to Linux, so it can become successful. … I know that the open source movement has no clue about marketing, they underestimate it."
United Linux was an attempt by a consortium of Linux companies to create a common base distribution for enterprise use and minimize duplication of engineering effort. and form an effective competitor to Red Hat. The founding members of United Linux were SuSE, Turbolinux, Conectiva, and Caldera International. The consortium was announced on May 30, 2002. The UnitedLinux distribution would be based mostly SuSE Enterprise Linux rather than Caldera OpenLinux. The Caldera product name was changed to "Caldera OpenLinux powered by United Linux", which as one "Network World" writer observed, was "certainly never going to become a catchphrase." UnitedLinux did attract some major hardware vendors in support, such as Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and AMD, with the goal of creating a uniform Linux distribution by the end of 2002.
However, as CNET technology reporter Stephen Shankland wrote at the time, "UnitedLinux is widely viewed as an effort by second-tier Linux companies to gain the critical mass held by Linux leader Red Hat, but industry watchers are skeptical it will triumph." Other users saw the venture as more of a marketing move by a group of companies that were in difficulty. Intimations that UnitedLinux would also feature per-seat licensing were unpopular in the broader Linux community, and SuSE for their part said they had no such plans.
Overall, the fortunes of Caldera International had been steadily declining, the SCO–Caldera combined total revenue having decreased from $170 million in 1999 to $70 million in 2001. The company was consistently reporting losses; for the third quarter of its fiscal year in 2001, for instance, it reported a net loss of $18.8 million against revenue of only $18.9 million. In the following quarter they took a large write-down of the assets acquired from SCO, as they could no longer be accounted for as having the value they were originally thought to possess.
For the fiscal year ending on October 31, 2001, Caldera International reported a loss of $131.4 million based on revenues of $40.4 million (the loss included a total amount of write-down and other non-cash and restructuring charges of $98.6 million).
The Linux side of Caldera International was bleeding funds; it was spending $4 for each $1 it received in revenue.
The only Linux distributor company that was doing even passably well at the time was Red Hat.
Caldera International's UnixWare and OpenServer business continued to be focused on small and medium-sized businesses and replicated sites, the latter largely being represented by retail or franchise-based companies such as CVS Pharmacy, Kmart, Pizza Hut, Pep Boys, Nasdaq, and others. A typical deployment scenario was that of McDonald's, which had a server running SCO OpenServer in each store that collected data from point-of-sale devices and relayed it to corporate headquarters while also providing access to corporate applications. An example of Linux Kernel Personality being used was Shoppers Drug Mart, which used it to run a SilverStream Software application server on UnixWare.
In part Caldera International's problems were due to the economic environment surrounding the collapse of the dot-com bubble; investors were very reluctant to put additional monies into unprofitable start-up companies.
The additional effects of the early 2000s recession were especially difficult for high-tech companies, with information technology spending slowing to a near halt. Overall the SCO side of the business often saw customers making do with what they had rather than buying anything new.
The Caldera stock price was well under a dollar and NASDAQ was threatening to delist it. Financial analysts stopped their coverage of the company. On March 14, 2002, Caldera engaged in a 1-for-4 reverse stock split in order to get the stock price back over a dollar and avoid delisting.
Also in March 2002, Caldera International moved its headquarters from Orem to Lindon, Utah.
Several rounds of layoffs took place during this time.
There was one in April 2001 that resulted in 32 employees losing their jobs.
In September 2001 there was a layoff of 8 percent of the company's workforce, reducing it from 618 to 567 employees.
A localized layoff hit the Santa Cruz office in April 2002.
An especially broad, 15 percent layoff in May 2002 affected all areas of the company, with 73 people being let go and around 400 employees remaining. Offices in Chelmsford, Massachusetts and Erlangen, Germany were closed, representing what had been the development sites for Volution Online and the original Caldera OpenLinux. At the same time, the company's CTO, Drew Spencer, also departed. Plans to continue the company's annual Forum conference for the international SCO Unix community in Santa Cruz were scrapped, with instead a GeoForum event announced that would be held in multiple locations around the world and in Las Vegas, Nevada in the United States.
Despite having earlier done the reverse stock split, as well as a stock buyback, in late June 2002 Caldera International received another delisting notice from NASDAQ. The company had less than four months' cash for operations. As "Wired" magazine later wrote, the company "faced a nearly hopeless situation."
Change of management, name, and direction.
On June 27, 2002, Caldera International had a change in management, with Darl McBride, formerly an executive with Novell, FranklinCovey, and several start-ups, taking over as CEO from Ransom Love.
At the same time, Caldera International said it would buy back its stock owned by Tarantella, Inc. and MTI Technology, thereby relieving itself of the obligation to pay a percentage of OpenServer revenue past a certain point to Tarantella.
Love became head of Caldera International's role in the United Linux effort. IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky said that while the United Linux role was important, the removal of Love from the CEO post could be seen as "moving him away from the controls at Caldera to let someone else take over."
Changes under McBride happened quickly. On August 26, 2002, it was announced that Caldera International was changing its name back to SCO, in the form of the new name The SCO Group. (The final legal aspects of the name change did not become complete until May 2003.) This reflected recognition of the reality that almost all of the company's revenue was coming from Unix, not Linux, products.
The product name Caldera OpenLinux became "SCO Linux powered by UnitedLinux" and all other Caldera branded names were changed as well.
The Volution Messaging Server product was retained and renamed SCOoffice Server, but the other Volution products were split off under the names Volution Technologies, Center 7, and finally Vintela.
From the start of his time as CEO, McBride had considered the possibility of claiming ownership of some of the code within Linux. Love had told him, "Don't do it. You don't want to take on the entire Linux community."
But by October 2002, McBride had created an internal organization "to formalize the licensing of our intellectual property". Within a few months after that, SCO had begun issuing proclamations and lawsuits based upon its belief that its Unix intellectual property had been incorporated into Linux in an unlawful and uncompensated manor, and had stopped selling its own Linux product. The SCO–Linux disputes were fully underway, and SCO would soon become, as "Businessweek" headlined, "The Most Hated Company In Tech".
Interviewed later in 2003, Ransom Love – by then no longer in the Linux business either – said that SCO might have a legitimate argument regarding some specific contractual issues, but that lawsuits were rarely helpful and that "Fundamentally, I would not have pursued SCO's path."
Legacy.
Caldera played an important role in Linux history by establishing what would be necessary to create a mainstream, business-oriented system, with stability and support, out of the Linux kernel.
Along with Red Hat and SuSE, it was the most important of the commercial Linux distributions.
And as Glyn Moody wrote in "Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution", Caldera Systems' announcement in 2000 that it was buying SCO Unix – and with it code that dated back through Unix System Laboratories and AT&T before that – was the final marker for the ascendency of Linux over the Unix old guard: "The hackers had triumphed over the establishment."
But from a business perspective, the Caldera Systems acquisition of SCO Unix has been treated less kindly in retrospect. In 2016, ZDNet ranked it ninth on its list of the worst technology mergers and acquisitions of all time. In any case, the one true success story to come out of business-oriented Linux distributions was Red Hat, who at the time maintained they were competing against Microsoft, not Caldera Systems or the other distributions, and which set several marks for revenue for an open-source oriented business before being acquired by IBM in 2018 for $34 billion.
Perhaps the most successful technology venture to come out of Caldera International was the Volution Authentication Server, which under the Vintela name achieved considerable success. Vintela itself was bought by Quest Software for $56.5 million in 2005, and the Vintela software became a core part of that company's One Identity product.
As Dave Wilson, CEO of Vintela, later said, "Caldera Systems … played a major role in establishing Linux as a serious technology in our industry, and the people who worked for Caldera Systems are very proud of their achievements. Many of those people continue to drive innovation [at a variety of other companies]."


List of Intel Atom microprocessors

The Intel Atom is Intel's line of low-power, low-cost and low-performance x86 and x86-64 microprocessors. Atom, with codenames of "Silverthorne" and "Diamondville", was first announced on March 2, 2008.
For Nettop and Netbook Atom Microprocessors after "Diamondville", the memory and graphics controller are moved from the northbridge to the CPU. This explains the drastically increased transistor count for post-"Diamondville" Atom microprocessors.
Tablet processors/SoCs.
Bonnell microarchitecture.
"Cloverview" (32 nm).
No official TDP available. For power data see page 129-130.
Silvermont microarchitecture.
"Bay Trail-T" (22 nm).
Type 4 SoC:
Type 3 SoC:
Airmont microarchitecture.
"Cherry Trail-T" (14 nm).
Type 4 SoC:
Type 3 SoC:
Server SoCs.
All Atom server processors include ECC support.
CE SoCs.
Single-core CE SoCs.
"Groveland" (45 nm).
CE4200


Basic Disk Operating System


Nokia N900

The Nokia N900 is a smartphone made by Nokia. It supersedes the Nokia N810. Its default operating system, Maemo 5, is a Linux-based OS originally developed for the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. It is the first Nokia device based upon the Texas Instruments OMAP3 microprocessor with the ARM Cortex-A8 core. Unlike the three Nokia Internet tablets preceding it, the Nokia N900 is the first Maemo device to include phone functionality (quad-band GSM and 3G UMTS/HSDPA).
The N900 functions as a mobile Internet device, and includes e-mail, web browsing and access to online services, a 5-megapixel digital camera for still or video photography, a portable media player for music and video, calculator, games console and word processor, SMS, as well as mobile telephony using either a mobile network or VoIP via Internet (mobile or Wi-Fi). Maemo provides an X-terminal interface for interacting with the core operating system.
It was launched at Nokia World on 2 September 2009 and was released in November 2009 in the United States and 9 European countries.
The N900 was launched alongside Maemo 5, giving the device an overall more touch-friendly interface than its predecessors and a customizable home screen which mixes application icons with shortcuts and widgets. Maemo 5 supports Adobe Flash Player 9.4, and includes many applications designed specifically for the mobile platform such as a new touch-friendly media player.
History and availability.
The Nokia N900 was announced on 17 September 2008 during a keynote presentation by Dr. Ari Jaaksi of Nokia. New supported features were announced for Maemo 5 such as cellular connectivity over 3G/HSPA, TI OMAP3 processor and high definition camera support. No news on backward compatibility for older Internet Tablets and no time frame was established. The release of the pre-alpha Maemo 5 software development kit, in December 2008 targeted exclusively the OMAP3 architecture, revamped the user interface, included support for hardware graphics acceleration and other functionalities not found in Internet Tablets at the time such as cellular data connectivity and high definition camera support.
The first photo and specifications of the N900, codenamed Rover while being developed, came out in May 2009. The release of FCC approval documents in August 2009 confirmed the device and provided the second codename RX-51. The Nokia N900 was officially announced on 2 September 2009 at Nokia World 2009 in Germany. Nokia says it is step 4 of 5 in the line of Maemo devices which started in 2005 with the Nokia 770.
The device was initially available in selected markets starting November 2009 (4 December in the UK) with a retail price of €599 in Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain, €649 in France, 2499 zł in Poland, 5995 kr in Sweden and £499 in the United Kingdom, all prices including VAT but excluding subsidies. The retail price at launch was US$649 in the United States excluding sales taxes and subsidies. It will be available in Canada through independent retailers for around C$800. As of March 2010 the Nokia site in Australia lists the N900 on the homepage, hinting at launch some time in the near future. Black was the only color available at launch. Initially, availability was extremely limited, leading to further delays. The statement from Nokia was that there was higher pre-order demand than expected. The Nokia N900 launched in Hong Kong on 29 May 2010, with added features to facilitate character handwriting input. Price at launch was 4998 HKD. It has already been released to Australia via Optus.
Hardware.
Processors.
The Nokia N900 is powered by OMAP 3430 ARM Cortex-A8, which is a system-on-a-chip made by Texas Instruments based on a 65 nanometer CMOS process. The OMAP 3430 is composed of three microprocessors; the Cortex A8 running at 600 MHz (up to 1.15 GHz with correct overclocking) used to run the OS and applications, the PowerVR SGX530 GPU made by Imagination Technologies which supports OpenGL ES 2.0 and is capable of up to 14 MPolys/s and a TMS320C64x, the digital signal processors, running at 430 MHz used to run the image processing (camera), audio processing (telephony) and data transmission. The TMS320 C64x main purpose is to offload the Cortex A8 from having to process audio and video signal. Moreover, the OMAP 3430 on some N900 devices has been successfully over-clocked up to 1150 MHz by using a modified kernel and editing the kernel power configuration file. The system has 256 MB of dedicated high performance RAM (Mobile DDR) paired with access to 768 MB swap space managed by the OS. This provides a total of 1 GB of virtual memory.
Screen and input.
The Nokia N900 has a resistive touchscreen with a resolution of 800 × 480 pixels (WVGA, 267 ppi). According to both Nokia and the Xorg.log, it is capable of displaying up to 65k colours (565 RGB). Nokia N900 camera capability is 2592x1944 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, Dual LED flash, video light, geo-tagging The LCD is transflective to permit usability over a wide range of luminosity (from daylight to dark). Haptic feedback is provided to touchscreen input by applying a small vibration or a sound; the user can choose whether to have this feature enabled. A stylus is provided to allow more precise touch input and access to smaller user interface elements. A 3-axis accelerometer allows the orientation of the screen to change between portrait and landscape mode in certain applications, or it can be used as user input in games and applications. While the dashboard or desktop is active, rotating the device from landscape to portrait mode activates the phone application (a feature that can also be disabled at user discretion). With update PR1.2, It became possible to view web pages in portrait mode. Developers may add support for portrait mode in their applications if desired. There is a proximity sensor which deactivates the display and touchscreen when the device is brought near the face during a call.
The slide-out 4-row keyboard and D-pad of the Nokia N810 have been replaced on the Nokia N900 with a slide-out 3-row backlit keyboard with arrow keys (as with previous Internet Tablets, an on-screen keyboard is also available). In addition to the English QWERTY layout, the slide out keyboard will be available in variants for Italian, French, German, Russian, Czech, Nordic (Finnish, Swedish), and Spanish. The Nokia N900 has an ambient light sensor that adjusts the display brightness and activates the backlit keyboard. The OS comes with a word prediction software that can be configured to the user preferences (auto capitalization, word completion, auto spacing between words).
The device has an autonomous GPS with optional A-GPS functionality and comes pre-loaded with the Ovi Maps application. Ovi Maps provides typical mapping features such as alternate views (3D landmarks, satellite, and hybrid maps), address/places of interest searching, and route planning, although it does not have turn-by-turn navigation yet.
The 5-megapixel back camera has an autofocus feature, dual LED flash, 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratio options, and 3× digital zoom. The focal length of this camera is 5.2 mm, the aperture is f/2.8, and the focus range is 10 cm to infinity. It is capable of video recording at up to 848 × 480 pixels at 25 fps. The lens, while not in use, is protected by a sliding hatch. Opening the hatch launches the camera application. Although the 0.3-megapixel front camera is capable of video recording at up to 640 × 480 pixels and pre-production units could be used for video calls over IP using Google Talk, the retail version was delivered without any software enabling video calling or video chatting. In update PR1.2 OTA (over-the-air) Skype video calling was added, enabling the fascia camera. With some software updates the phone becomes capable of play/record/stream 720p video.
Buttons.
When holding the device facing the screen; on the top, from left to right, rocking buttons (which function as volume up/down or zoom in/out depending on the context), power on/off and camera button. Pressing the power button brings up a menu to change the profile, activate offline mode (a.k.a. "Airplane or Flight mode", which turns off all emitted signals), Lock Device (either "Secure" with key code, or simple lock), and an option to end the current task.
As the Nokia N900 has fewer hardware buttons, it makes use of the touchscreen to display on-screen buttons, for example, to accept, reject and end a call.
Audio and output.
The N900 has a microphone and stereo speakers located on each side of the device. There is a 3.5 mm four-contact TRRS connector which simultaneously provides stereo audio output and either microphone input or video output. PAL and NTSC TV out is possible using a Nokia Video Connectivity Cable (included upon purchase) or a standard TRRS -> 3x RCA cable.
There is a High-Speed USB 2.0 USB Micro-B connector provided for data synchronization, mass storage mode (client) and battery charging. This micro-USB connector was prone to failure. The Nokia N900, unlike previous versions of Nokia's Internet Tablet, hasn't enabled support for USB On-The-Go (the ability to act as a USB host) by default, this in order to meet the deadlines for production and USB certification. There is an ongoing community effort to add this support subsequently, currently the software is in beta stage. Requiring a non-standard USB cable or USB A-A adapter and software from the development repository.
The built-in Bluetooth v2.1 supports wireless earpieces and headphones through the HSP profile. The Nokia N900 supports hardware capable of stereo audio output with the A2DP profile. Built-in car hands-free kits are also supported with the HFP profile. File transfer is supported (FTP) along with the OPP profile for sending/receiving objects. It is possible to remote control the device with the AVRCP profile. The DUN profile which permits access to the Internet from a laptop by dialing up on a mobile phone wirelessly (tethering), the HID profile which provides support for devices such as Bluetooth keyboards and PAN profile for networking using Bluetooth are unsupported but can be enabled.
The Bluetooth set also functions as an FM Receiver, allowing one to listen to the FM radio. The N900 also has a 88.1–107.9 MHz FM transmitter which can, for example, play music through a separate radio. (Note that the FM transmitter's frequency range can be extended to 76.0–107.9 MHz by community supported modifications to the operating system ) Furthermore, the Nokia N900 has Wi-Fi b/g connectivity with support for WEP, WPA and WPA2 (AES/TKIP) security protocols.
The Nokia N900 can synchronize with Microsoft Outlook through ActiveSync and various other e-mail and calendar clients through SyncML over bluetooth or the micro-USB. Contact information can also be exchanged via the vCard file format which is supported commonly by e-mail programs, including Evolution and Microsoft Outlook.
The device also features an infrared port (not compatible with IrDA) that can be used to turn the Nokia N900 into a remote controller using third-party software.
Battery and SIM.
The battery life of the shipped BL-5J (1320mAh) battery in N900 seems very deficient and it was not able to make it through a full working day with an internet connection and call usage. In a press release Nokia stated they are aiming at "one day of full usage" or "Always online : Up to 2-4 days (TCP/IP connected)" and "Active online usage: Up to 1+ day". Early reports from users range from 12 hours (Wi-Fi on, web browsing, video and some GPS), to about 2 days online but not used continuously. The value appears to be highly dependent on the user's choice of background software, active desktop widgets, IM and email polling, as well as mobile network signal quality (especially 3G) and in some cases, software bugs. Nokia reported talk times are around 9 hours with GSM and 5 hours with 3G. Battery life can be extended significantly by switching off GPS/A-GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth and by replacing 3G by 2G / GPRS.
While previous Internet Tablets used larger batteries (1500 mAh compared with the N900's 1320 mAh), they are based on a less efficient microprocessor. Typical battery time for the Nokia N810 is around 7 hours of continuous full usage, display and Wi-Fi on. In principle, on N900 figures are expected to be much higher. Third party extended batteries up to 2400 mAh capacity are available for the N900. Also, there are community supported modifications that can be performed on 3rd party N900 compatible batteries, usually involving putting two of said batteries in parallel, which can increase the effective battery capacity of the Nokia N900 to over 3000 mAh.
The SIM card is located under the battery which can be accessed by removing the back panel of the Nokia N900. The microSD(HC) card socket is also located under the back cover (but not under the battery). No tool is necessary to remove the back panel.
Storage.
The Nokia N900 has 32 GB eMMC and 256 MB NAND non-removable storage. Additional storage is available via a hot swappable microSDHC card socket, which is claimed to support up to 200 GB of additional storage. However, the SDHC specification supports cards only up to 32 GB in size, and some difficulty has been reported with the use of 64+ GB SDXC cards. Sandisk claims that SDXC cards are not compatible with the N900.
Hot swapping is achieved via a software-supported magnetic sensor which detects removal of the back cover, so the partition residing on a microSDHC card is unmounted when the back cover is removed. The microSDHC card can be formatted with a supported file system such as ext2, ext3, FAT16 and FAT32.
The 32 GB eMMC is split into 3 partitions:
The 256 MB NAND is formatted as UBIFS and contains the bootloader, kernel image and root directory "/" with about 100 MB of free space.
Programs larger than 500 kB including dependencies should be stored in /opt  which is symlinked to /home/opt and therefore located on the 2 GB ext3 partition. The VFAT partition is also available for storage but needs to be used carefully as it is unmounted and exported if a USB cable is connected to the device.
Software.
Maemo 5, also known as Fremantle, is the default operating system on the Nokia N900. Maemo 5 is Nokia's adaptation of the Linux desktop environment for a pocket-sized device. The UI is fully customizable: the user is able to move widgets around, add/remove widgets, change the background and add shortcuts to applications. The N900 comes preloaded with a variety of applications such as:
More than 1500 additional applications (an overwhelming majority of them free to download and use) have been created by 3rd party developers. Custom kernels are also available via the App Manager for users who need more out of their devices.
Maemo uses upstart to reduce the boot time.
An application called "Easy Debian" installs a Debian LXDE image on the internal memory, enabling applications such as IceWeasel (Firefox browser) and all of the OpenOffice.org suite to run within Maemo. Other applications in the Synaptic package manager that are included in the Debian installation, such as GIMP, can run within the LXDE interface. Software can also be added to Debian using Maemo's chroot utility using Synaptic or apt-get at the command line, such as Stellarium or the zim desktop wiki, and this can then be accessed either via the LXDE desktop, by icons in the program manager, or by shortcuts on the desktop.
SIM Application Toolkit.
In Nokia N900, there is no SIM Application Toolkit available (also known as "operator menu"), so it is not possible to use any services that require it. As a result, there is no support for a SIM to interact directly with the outside world and initiate commands independently of the handset and the network, making N900 not vulnerable to installation of malicious SIM Java applications via text messages.
Issues with various value-added services resulting from no availability of SIM Application Toolkit include the following:
Known issues.
Nokia often offers new N8 or E7 devices as warranty replacements for N900s. Although warranty terms and consumer rights legislation differ across jurisdictions, users have reported success in refusing those and pressing for an N900 in at least the EU and India as recently as August 2011. Owners who are not confident of getting an N900 as a warranty replacement often attempt to repair their own devices, or sell the Nokia-provided replacement to buy an N900 instead.
The N900's proximity sensor, which is designed to lock the touch screen when the phone is against the user's ear to prevent accidental operation, locks the screen unintentionally in bright light (usually outdoors) when a call is placed or received. Nokia has acknowledged that it is a "hardware issue" and cannot be addressed. To unlock the screen in a phone call, a tactile unlock switch in the right side of the device can be used. This however will keep the touch screen active and accidental operation of the phone keys in a call may occur when device is used as a handset. This issue has been blamed on the application of screen protectors, however N900 users without screen protectors are also experiencing the problem.
The N900's MicroUSB (charger) port is very fragile; some people have successfully fixed this problem either with epoxy glue, or by resoldering the USB port onto the circuit board. Some of the chips in N900's GSM module might be badly soldered to the circuit board, resulting in multiple N900 devices reported as troubled by the inability for the SIM card to be detected. This issue is fixable by putting something between the GSM-related chips and their shielding, though a proper fix would be reballing.
Future.
It was announced in May 2010 that the Nokia N900 will be the last mobile communication device running the Maemo 5 operating system, which will be replaced by MeeGo. Nokia will continue to support the N900 with updates when necessary.
While transition to the succeeding MeeGo operating system is possible, this is mainly of interest to developers rather than consumers, as it is not officially supported by Nokia. There has been some interest within the user community in working on backporting MeeGo developments to Maemo for the N900, and this places it as being an interesting device for people within the wider Open Source community more than consumers.
A download of the MeeGo operating system is available, but not officially supported by Nokia. Nokia used to say that MeeGo was going to succeed Maemo for new devices; however, on 11 February 2011 Nokia announced it will be primarily concentrating on their alliance with Microsoft. MeeGo development will not be stopped and one MeeGo device will become available in 2011.
On 3 March 2011, Jukka Eklund, Product Manager, MeeGo OS at Nokia announced in the MeeGo-dev mailing list that there will be a MeeGo 1.2 Developer Edition for N900 developed by a dedicated Nokia team led by Mika Leppinen. The target of this particular edition is to be usable as a primary phone device for a developer/hacker person but not for regular end users.
The September 2011 announcement that Intel and the Linux Foundation were abandoning MeeGo in favor of Tizen prompted the developer community to begin to seriously doubt the future of MeeGo on the N900.
 Subsequently, developers rapidly left the project, leading to an abrupt halt of discussion on the Meego-dev mailing list.
The MeeGo Developer Edition after a rename to MeeGo Community Edition evolved into Nemo, which is based on Mer and is currently (October 2012) actively developed.
The Nitdroid project, which ports Android to other devices as an alternate operating system, is also available for the N900. However, little progress has been made on achieving voice calling under Nitdroid N900, and the main developer, who goes by the online handle "e-yes", has moved on to developing for other devices such as the Nokia N9.
A community-based project aiming to provide a hardware upgrade for the N900, called Neo900, began in late 2013 as a collaboration between the Openmoko and Maemo communities. As of May 2019, the project was officially announced as dead by the project leads on IRC although the Neo900 web site still seems to be operational as of November 12th, 2020. The hardware upgrade would have quadrupled the device's RAM, provided a processor nearly twice as fast as the one in original N900, and integrated additional sensors such as a gyroscope and compass. It was likely that a more modern LTE modem would also have been included if the project hadn't been canceled.


MAKRDCPM.COM


Altera

Altera Corporation was a manufacturer of programmable logic devices (PLDs) headquartered in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1983 and acquired by Intel in 2015.
The main product lines from Altera were the Stratix, mid-range Arria, and lower-cost Cyclone series system on a chip FPGAs, the MAX series complex programmable logic device and non-volatile FPGAs, Intel Quartus Prime design software, and Enpirion PowerSoC DC-DC power solutions.
The company was founded in 1983 by semiconductor veterans Rodney Smith, Robert Hartmann, James Sansbury, and Paul Newhagen with $500,000 in seed money. The name of the company was a play on "alterable", the type of chips the company created. In 1984, the company formed a long-running design partnership with Intel, and 1988, became a public company via an initial public offering. In 1994, Altera acquired the PLD business of Intel for $50 million.
On December 28, 2015, the company was acquired by Intel.
Products.
FPGAs.
The Stratix series FPGAs were the company's largest, highest bandwidth devices, with up to 1.1 million logic elements, integrated transceivers at up to 28 Gbit/s, up to 1.6 Tbit/s of serial switching capability, up to 1,840 GMACs of signal-processing performance, and up to 7 x72 DDR3 memory interfaces at 800 MHz.
In September 2000, the company acquired Northwest Logic to expand its design services for delivery of complete system-on-chip solutions.
In May 2013, Altera made available SDK for OpenCL, enabling software programmers to access the high-performance capabilities of programmable logic devices.
System on a chip FPGAs.
Beginning in December 2012, the company produced system on a chip FPGA devices using a fully depleted silicon on insulator (FDSOI) chip manufacturing process. These devices integrated FPGAs with full hard processor systems based around ARM architecture onto a single device.
PowerSoC.
In May 2013, Altera acquired embedded power chipmaker Enpirion for approximately $140 million in cash, providing Altera with power system on a chip DC-DC converters that enabled greater power densities and lower noise performance compared with their discrete equivalent. Unlike converters made from discrete components, Enpirion DC-DC converters were simulated, characterized, validated and production qualified at delivery.
Application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).
Altera offered a publicly available ASIC design flow based on HardCopy ASICs, which transitioned an FPGA design, once finalized, to a form which is not alterable. This design flow reduced design security risks as well as costs for higher volume production. Design engineers could prototype their designs in Stratix series FPGAs, and then migrate these designs to HardCopy ASICs when they were ready for volume production.
The unique design flow made hardware/software co-design and co-verification possible. The flow was benchmarked to deliver systems to market 9 to 12 months faster, on average, than with standard-cell solutions. Design engineers were able to employ a single RTL, set of intellectual property (IP) cores, and Quartus II design software for both FPGA and ASIC implementations. Altera's HardCopy Design Center managed test insertion.
In 2007, Altera’s Nios II FPGA soft processor core became available for standard cell ASIC designs.
Semiconductor intellectual property cores.
Altera and its partners offered an array of semiconductor intellectual property cores that served as building blocks that design engineers can drop into their system designs to perform specific functions. IP cores eliminate some of the time-consuming tasks of creating every block in a design from scratch. In 2000, Altera acquired Designpro, a provider of IP cores.
Altera offered soft processor cores on the Nios II embedded processor, the Freescale ColdFire v1 core (free for Cyclone III FPGA), and the ARM Cortex-M1 processor as well as a hard IP processor core on the ARM Cortex-A9 processor.
Design software.
All of Altera's devices were supported by a common design environment, Quartus II design software. Quartus II software was available in a subscription-based edition and a free Web-based edition. It included tools to foster productivity.
Technology.
40-nm technology.
In May 2008, Altera introduced the first 40-nm programmable logic devices: the Stratix IV FPGAs and HardCopy IV ASICs. Both devices were available with integrated transceiver options.
In February 2009, the company introduced Stratix IV GT FPGAs, which had 11.3 Gbit/s transceivers for 40G/100G applications, and Arria II GX FPGAs, which had 3.75 Gbit/s transceivers for power- and cost-sensitive applications.
Altera's devices were manufactured using techniques such as 193-nm immersion lithography and technologies such as extreme low-k dielectrics and strained silicon.
28-nm technology.
In April 2010, Altera introduced the FPGA industry's second 28-nm device, the Stratix V FPGA (to Xilinx's Kintex-7 FPGA), available with transceivers at speeds up to 28 Gbit/s. This device family has more than 1 million logic elements, up to 53 Mb of embedded memory, up to 7 x72 DDR3 DIMMs at 800 MHz, 1.6 Gbit/s LVDS performance, and up to 3,680 variable-precision DSP blocks.
In August 2011, Altera began shipping 28-nm Stratix V GT devices featuring 28-gigabits-per-second transceivers.
Embedded HardCopy blocked harden standard or logic-intensive applications, increasing integration and delivering twice the density without a cost or power penalty. Altera developed a user-friendly method for partial reconfiguration, so core functionality can be changed easily and on the fly. There is a path to HardCopy V ASICs, when designs are ready for volume production. Altera’s 28 nm FPGAs aimed to reduce power requirements to 200 mW per channel. In 2004, the company began collaborating with Synopsys on HardCopy Structured ASICs.
In December 2012, the company announced the shipment of its first 28 nm Cyclone V SoC devices, which had a dual-core ARM architecture Cortex-A9 processor system with FPGA logic on a single chip. These SoCs were targeted for wireless communications, industrial, video surveillance, automotive and medical equipment markets. With these SoCs devices, users were able to create custom field-programmable SoC variants for power, board space, performance and cost optimization.
14-nm technology.
In February 2013, Altera announced an agreement with Intel to use Intel’s foundry services to produce its 14-nm node for the future manufacturing of its FPGAs, based on Intel’s 14 nm tri-gate transistor technology, in place of Altera’s ongoing agreement with TSMC.
In October 2016, nearly one year after Intel's integration with Altera, STRATIX 10 was announced, which is based on Intel's 14 nm Tri-Gate process.
Restatement of financial results.
On June 21, 2006, after an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company restated its financial results from 1996 to 2005 to correct accounting errors related to options backdating. The chief financial officer of the company resigned. Altera filed a petition to overturn related regulations but was denied in 2020.
Acquisition by Intel.
In December 2015, Intel acquired Altera for $16.7 billion in cash.


List of songs in SingStar games (PlayStation 2)

The following is a list of "SingStar" games released for the PlayStation 2 video game console. The tables list the songs available in each game, with the country of availability indicated by two-letter country codes. For games that were localised for multiple markets, songs are either indicated as present ("Yes") or absent ("No") in the track list for each region.
The first game in the series, "SingStar", was released in Europe and Oceania in 2004. , over twenty games in the "SingStar" series have been released in English-speaking territories, including a small number in North America.
Most "SingStar" games are loosely based upon musical genres, such as rock or pop music ("SingStar Rocks!" and "SingStar Pop" respectively). Artist-specific "SingStar" games have been released, featuring artists such as ABBA, Queen, Take That, Die Toten Hosen, Kent and Mecano.
"SingStar '80s".
All non-English releases which are not in the table have the same tracklist as UK.
"SingStar '90s".
All non-English releases have the same tracklist as UK.
"SingStar ABBA".
All releases have the same tracklist as UK.
"SingStar Anthems".
All releases have the same tracklist as UK.
"Singstar Chart Hits".
This is an Australian and New Zealand only game.
External links.
"SingStar" catalogues:


Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset

The Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset (ELKS), formerly known as Linux-8086, is a Linux-like operating system kernel. It is a subset of the Linux kernel, intended for "16-bit" computers with limited processor and memory resources such as machines powered by Intel 8086 and compatible microprocessors not supported by "32-bit" Linux.
Features and compatibility.
ELKS is free software and available under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It can work with early "16-bit" and many "32-bit" x86 (8088, 8086) computers like IBM PC compatible systems, and later x86 models in real mode. Another useful area are single board microcomputers, intended as educational tools for "homebrew" projects (hardware hacking), as well as embedded controller systems (e.g. Automation).
Early versions of ELKS also ran on "Psion 3a" and "3aR" "SIBO" (SIxteen Bit Organiser) PDAs with NEC V30 CPUs, providing another possible field of operation (gadget hardware), if ported to such a platform. This effort was called "ELKSibo". Due to lack of interest, SIBO support was removed from version 0.4.0.
Native ELKS programs may run emulated with "Elksemu", allowing 8086 code to be used under Linux-i386. An effort to provide ELKS with an Eiffel compliant library also exists.
History.
Development of "Linux-8086" started in 1995 by Linux kernel developers Alan Cox and Chad Page as a fork of the standard Linux. By early 1996 the project was renamed "ELKS" (Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset), and in 1997 the first website "www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/" (offline, ) was created. ELKS version 0.0.63 followed on August 8 that same year. On June 22, 1999, ELKS release 0.0.77 was available, the first version able to run a graphical user interface (the Nano-X Window System). On July 21, ELKS booted on a Psion PDA with SIBO architecture. ELKS 0.0.82 came out on January 10, 2000. By including the SIBO port, it became the first official version running on other computer hardware than the original 8086 base. On March 3 that year, the project was registered on SourceForge, the new website being "elks.sourceforge.net".
On January 6, 2001, Cox declared ELKS "basically dead". Nonetheless, release 0.0.84 came along on June 17, 2001, Charilaos (Harry) Kalogirou added TCP/IP networking support seven days later, and in the same year ELKS reached 0.0.90 on November 17. On April 20, 2002, Kalogirou added memory management with disk swapping capability, followed nine days later by ELKS release 0.1.0, considered the first "beta version". By end of the year, on December 18, the "EDE" (Elks Distribution Edition, a distribution based on the ELKS kernel), itself version 0.0.5, is released. January 6, 2003, brought ELKS 0.1.2, an update to 0.1.3 followed on May 3, 2006, the first official release after a long hiatus in development.
A development into "FlightLinux", a real-time operating system for spacecraft, was planned, but the project it was intended for (UoSAT-12) eventually settled on the "qCF" operating system from Quadron Corporation instead.
Current status and usage.
Since January 2012 ELKS is again under development. The CVS repository was migrated to Git in February 2012, and numerous patches from the Linux-8086 mailing list were committed to the new repository. Version 0.1.4 came out on February 19, 2012, released by Jody Bruchon in memory of Riley Williams, a former co-developer. It included updated floppy disk images, fixing compilation bugs of the previous version and removing unused codes. On May 10, 2012, "BusyELKS" was added to the repository by Jody Bruchon in an attempt to replace stand-alone binaries and to take advantage of shared code (ELKS does not support shared libraries). BusyBox-like binaries attempt to save space with symbolic links, eliminating redundant chunks of code, and are combining separate programs into one bigger binary. On November 14, 2013, project development moved to GitHub. Rudimentary Ethernet and FAT support were added in 2017.
More than 35 developers have contributed to this project since the fork in 1995. As of March 2015, development of the ELKS project was again active, reaching a milestone 1,000 source code commits on March 8, 2015. As of June 2018, many bug fixes and improvements were performed with 583 more commits, leading to the 0.2.1 release. In March 2019, the project completed its transition from the obsolete BCC compiler to the more recent GCC-IA16, and development activity increased as Gregory Haerr took the helm as lead developer. During 2019 and 2020 ELKS moved from a 'bootable, unstable' status to a stable Linux-like system for small machines with Ethernet, TCP/IP, FAT16/32, multiuser serial and many more functions. As ELKS 0.4.0 was released in November 2020, the number of commits had passed 3,000.
Version 0.4.0.
Version 0.4.0 represented a major milestone for ELKS, lifting the system from experimental to useful for non-developers, and included the following major enhancements:
ELKS development continues in 2021, adding (by April 2021) Exomizer-like binary compression and new memory models to the tool chain.


Ubuntu JeOS

Ubuntu JeOS (pronounced "juice") is a discontinued variant of Ubuntu that is described as "an efficient variant ... configured specifically for virtual appliances." It is a concept for what an operating system should look like in the context of a virtual appliance. JeOS stands for "Just enough Operating System." JeOS has been replaced by Ubuntu Core, which is now an officially supported minimal variant of Ubuntu.
Its first release was Ubuntu JeOS 7.10, and since the release of Ubuntu 8.10 it has been included as an option as part of the standard Ubuntu Server Edition.
Supported platforms.
The latest version of JeOS is optimized for virtualization technologies by VMware, Inc. and the Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine.
Specifications.
Specifications for version 8.10 and above include:


IBM System/23 Datamaster

The System/23 Datamaster (Model 5322 desk-top model and Model 5324 floor model) was announced by IBM in July 1981. The Datamaster was the least expensive IBM computer until the far less expensive and far more popular IBM PC was announced in the following month.
Description.
The Datamaster is an all-in-one computer with text-mode CRT display, keyboard, processor, memory, and two 8-inch floppy disk drives in one cabinet. The processor is an 8-bit Intel 8085, with bank switching to manage 256 kB of memory. The intention of the Datamaster was to provide a computer that could be installed and operated without specialists.
A BASIC interpreter was built-in to the system. IBM decided to merge the Datamaster's BASIC implementation with System/34 BASIC, which reportedly delayed the Datamaster by almost a year. When introduced, a single-screen Datamaster sold for around . A second keyboard and screen could be attached in an extended configuration.
Influence on later IBM systems.
The familiarity of the design group gained on the Datamaster project encouraged selection of an Intel CPU for the IBM PC. The delay caused by the decision to reuse System/34 BASIC in the Datamaster was one of the factors in IBM's selection of Microsoft BASIC for the PC (the other being the ubiquity of Microsoft BASIC on other home computers at the time).
A number of components from the Datamaster were reused in the later IBM PC. The PC's expansion bus, later known as the ISA bus, was based on the Datamaster's I/O bus. The Datamaster's Model F keyboard with its IBM 5250 style layout was also reused in the PC, albeit with a serial interface (instead of the parallel one used on the Datamaster) and a new external housing.


DNALinux

DNALinux is a Linux distribution with bioinformatics software included. It is a Live CD. It is based on Slax but includes programs like BLAST and EMBOSS.
DNALinux is made by Genes Digitales and Quilmes National University, Argentina.


Io uring

io_uring is a Linux kernel interface for providing submission and completion queue rings, which are shared between the kernel and userspace to avoid copies. It has been primarily developed by Jens Axboe.
It was merged in kernel version 5.1.
The liburing userspace library can be used to interact with the kernel interface.
History.
The Linux kernel had asynchronous I/O since version 2.5, but it was seen as difficult to use and inefficient.


List of Intel Core processors

The following is a list of Intel Core microprocessors.
The Core brand of Intel's 32-bit single- and dual-core mobile microprocessor is based on the P6 microarchitecture and part of Intel's Core-line. Intel Core branched off as Duo (dual-core) and Solo (Duo with one disabled core).
It is followed by Core 2, see also List of Intel Core 2 microprocessors.


SPARC64 VI


SIS (file format)

SIS is an acronym that stands for "Software Installation Script", the standard software installation package format for Symbian OS. SIS files are an archive, containing installation instructions, the application file (usually an .APP or .EXE file), and its dependencies. By convention .sisx denotes a signed file.
There are different ways how a SIS file can be created. The basic approach is to create a package definition file (.pkg) that contains information about the package like the vendor, package name and what files to include in the package. Then use the "makesis" and "signsis" utilities that processes the .pkg file and creates the actual SIS file. Other alternatives are to use the Carbide.c++ IDE that automatically builds the SIS file as part of the build process or to graphically define and create the installation package using PackageForge.
The Windows utility "SISContents" is able to convert various file formats.


Nexus driver

The term nexus driver refers to a bus device driver that interfaces leaf drivers to a specific I/O bus and provides the low-level integration of this I/O bus.


SGI Onyx2

SGI Onyx2, code name Kego, is a family of visualization systems developed and manufactured by SGI, introduced in 1996 to succeed the Onyx. The Onyx2's basic system architecture is based on the Origin 2000 servers, but with the inclusion of graphics hardware. In 2000, the Onyx2 was succeeded by the Onyx 3000, and it was discontinued on June 27, 2003. These systems run either IRIX 6.4 or 6.5.
Microprocessor.
The Onyx2 uses the MIPS R10000 microprocessor clocked at 150, 175, 180 and 195 MHz, later increased to 250 MHz, courtesy of a process shrink from 0.35 to 0.25 micrometers.
Later 300 and 400 MHz R12000, and 500 MHz R14000 CPUs were made available.
Graphics subsystem.
At the time of their introduction, the Onyx2 could be configured with the Reality, InfiniteReality, or InfiniteReality2 graphics subsystems. Later, the InfiniteReality2E was made available and then the InfiniteReality3, in April 2000.


Voodoo2

The Voodoo2 (or Voodoo2) is a set of three specialized 3D graphics chips on a single chipset setup, made by 3dfx. It was released in February 1998 as a replacement for the original Voodoo Graphics chipset. The card runs at a chipset clock rate of 90 MHz and uses 100 MHz EDO DRAM, and is available for the PCI interface. The Voodoo2 comes in two models, one with 8 MB RAM and one with 12 MB RAM. The 8 MB card has 2 MB of memory per texture mapping unit (TMU) vs. 4 MB on the 12 MB model. The 4 MB framebuffer on both cards support a maximum screen resolution of 800 × 600, while the increased texture memory on the 12 MB card allows more detailed textures. Some boards with 8 MB can be upgraded to 12 MB with an additional daughter board.
Each of the three chips present on the card has its own 64-bit RAM interface, giving the card a "total" bus width of 192 bits or 800MB/s per chip. The Voodoo2 has an increased chip-count compared to the original two-chip Voodoo card. Competing products such as the ATI Rage Pro, NVIDIA RIVA 128, and Rendition Verite 2x00 are single-chip products, each with integrated 2D GUI/VGA accelerators. As with the original Voodoo, the Voodoo2 is a dedicated 3D accelerator, and has to be used in conjunction with a conventional 2D graphics card. It requires an external pass-through VGA cable hooked up from the 2D card into the Voodoo card’s passthrough VGA port.
The Voodoo2's third chip was a second TMU that allows a second texture to be drawn during the same graphics engine pass, and thus with no performance penalty. At time of introduction, Voodoo2 was the only 3D card capable of single-cycle dual-texturing. Usage of the Voodoo2's second TMU depends on application software; "Quake II" and "Unreal" exploited dual-texturing to great effect. In games that did not use more than one texture layer, Voodoo2 is only faster than Voodoo1 because of its higher clock speed.
The Voodoo2 introduced Scan-Line Interleave (SLI) capability to the PC market. In SLI mode, two Voodoo2 boards installed in a PC run in parallel, each unit drawing half the lines of the display. Voodoo2 SLI not only doubles rendering throughput, it also increases the total framebuffer memory, and thus the maximum supported screen resolution increased to an impressive (for its time) 1024 × 768. However, texture memory is not doubled because each card needed to duplicate the scene data. The original Voodoo Graphics also has SLI capability, but it is only used in the arcade and professional markets.
In late 1998, 3dfx released the Voodoo3, which effectively replaced the Voodoo2 as the company's flagship product. The base model Voodoo3 2000 offers in a single card slightly greater performance than a Voodoo2 SLI + 2D card in some situations. The 3000 and 3500 models offers performance exceeding Voodoo2 SLI in certain environments. At the same time 3dfx also released the budget-priced Voodoo Banshee, a combination 2D/3D card that combines a 2D accelerator with an overclocked but incomplete Voodoo2, missing one of the texture units.
The Voodoo2 enjoyed remarkably long usage in many computer systems, as a Voodoo2 SLI setup was competitive with newer cards like NVIDIA's RIVA TNT2, Matrox's Millennium G400, and even NVIDIA's GeForce 256. 3dfx's Glide API played an essential role in this longevity because some games were still tailored more towards Glide than Direct3D or OpenGL. Long after the chipset's obsolescence, some dedicated enthusiasts did get later games working with a Voodoo2, e.g. "Doom 3".