MartyPC is a cycle-accurate emulator of early IBM PCs and compatibles for Windows, Linux, and macOS, designed to aid retro PC development with extensive debugging tools. The emulator achieves 99.9997% cycle-accuracy on the 8088 CPU through validation against real hardware and supports multiple systems including the IBM PC, XT, PCjr, and Tandy 1000.
An essay arguing that competent employees should proactively handle work outside their formal responsibilities to compensate for organizational dysfunction, citing examples like Intel integrating CPU support into Microsoft's compiler. The author contends that a small percentage of people who do others' jobs are essential to organizational survival, though they warn against certain parallel efforts that create unnecessary headcount.
Intel TDX remote attestation verification can be implemented without Intel Trust Authority by decomposing the process into five decisions: cryptographic signature chain validation delegated to Intel's DCAP library, and four policy decisions by the operator regarding collateral sourcing, measurement approval, quote binding, and credential issuance. The article details how operators can build their own verifiers for TDX attestation when network isolation or custom policy requirements prevent using Intel's service.
Meta is selectively rehiring managers after spending the past year flattening its organizational structure to become more AI-driven, according to internal reorganization efforts within its Applied AI division. The move represents a partial reversal of the company's efficiency push and highlights tensions between maintaining lean operations and coordinating rapid AI development across its workforce.
Arm architecture is rapidly displacing Intel's x86 dominance in computing, driven by Apple's shift to M-series chips, Microsoft's renewed Windows on Arm push, and widespread industry adoption. Unlike x86's closed ecosystem controlled by Intel and AMD, Arm's licensing model enables numerous companies—Apple, Qualcomm, Amazon, Nvidia—to design high-performance processors, signaling x86's declining reign.
A review of the LattePanda Sigma, an industrial single-board computer featuring an Intel Core i5-1340P processor, 32 GB LPDDR5 memory, and extensive I/O options including Thunderbolt 4 and dual 2.5GbE ports. The author tests its hardware capabilities and explores GPU inference using the Xe iGPU with llama.cpp.
GCC 13.5 has been released with 265+ bug fixes across various compiler components. The GCC 13 branch is now closed for development, with users encouraged to upgrade to newer versions like GCC 16 or the upcoming GCC 17.
The x86 ud2 instruction is an architecturally undefined opcode that raises an invalid exception, used by compilers to mark unreachable code. It's called ud2 because Intel retroactively named two earlier undefined sequences (0F FF and 0F B9) as ud0 and ud1 after discovering software depended on them; ud2 was created as the official, reliable two-byte undefined instruction without decoding issues.
A US Customs and Border Protection supervisor in Maine was arrested for stealing computer hardware including Intel processors, memory, and hard drives from 46 Department of Homeland Security computers and replacing them with inferior parts. The suspect traded the stolen components through Newegg's trade-in program for store credit, with surveillance footage capturing the theft during midnight shifts. Restoring the stolen hardware is estimated to cost over $20,000, with full replacement exceeding $105,000.
Intel's 8087 floating-point coprocessor, introduced in 1980, became the standard for computer floating-point arithmetic by offering superior accuracy and speed. The article examines the microcode for the FSCALE instruction, which scales numbers by powers of two; despite appearing simple, it uses over 140 micro-instructions and reveals the 8087's complex datapath architecture including its shifter, adder, and exponent converter.
Intel released Linux NPU Driver 1.38 with official support for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, five months after the OS debut. The driver now supports multiple Intel processors including Meteor Lake, Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake, Panther Lake, and Wildcat Lake on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS with Linux 7.0 kernel, while maintaining support for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
A database catalog of 469 mini PC devices across 837 configurations from brands like Minisforum, GMKtec, BOSGAME, and others. Devices range from low-power industrial units to high-performance AI workstations and gaming systems, featuring processors from AMD and Intel with varying core counts and memory capacities.
Kepler Computing, a San Jose startup founded in 2018, has emerged from stealth mode claiming to have developed a new high-bandwidth memory architecture using 3D stacking and proprietary materials that avoids costly extreme ultraviolet lithography. The company has raised $468 million from major backers including Intel, AMD, and Bill Gates, plus $245 million in US Department of Commerce funding, and is currently testing its technology in Singapore and Vermont to help address the global memory chip shortage.
The x86 ud2 instruction is an architecturally undefined opcode that reliably triggers an invalid opcode exception, used by compilers to crash on unreachable code. It was standardized by Intel after discovering that developers had come to rely on two earlier undefined sequences (0F FF and 0F B9) for the same purpose, retroactively named ud0 and ud1, making ud2 the recommended solution.
A comprehensive benchmark comparison of Intel's Xeon 678X (48-core Granite Rapids WS) against AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 9980X across nearly 400 tests, measuring performance and power efficiency in workstation environments. Both processors were tested on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS with matching core counts and software stacks to evaluate their capabilities across diverse workloads.
GCC 13.5 has been released with over 265 bug fixes, marking the end of development for the GCC 13 branch. Users are encouraged to upgrade to newer versions, with GCC 16 currently being the latest stable release and GCC 17 expected next year.
Intel previews a new web-based format for its Architecture documentation, featuring improved searchability, testable specification language, and updated instruction encoding tables. The initial release covers most instructions from the Software Development Manual but omits several instruction sets; Intel seeks feedback before applying changes to the official SDM.
NextSilicon, led by Elad Raz, built Arbel, a high-performance RISC-V CPU core designed to complement its Maverick acceleration platform for HPC and AI workloads. The author, a former Intel processor architect with 18 years of experience, describes the technical and human challenges of assembling a specialized team to build a competitive CPU from scratch using a novel software-defined hardware approach.
Kepler Compute is a new memory startup founded by veteran chip engineers that aims to develop leadership memory chips without EUV dependence, sampling in 2026 and entering production in 2027. The company leverages 3D silicon and beyond-CMOS technologies to achieve higher bandwidth, capacity, and energy efficiency compared to existing HBM and SRAM solutions for AI inference workloads.
An analysis of CPU memory access patterns explores how to deliberately create the slowest possible way to sum array elements. By exploiting cache misses and memory access inefficiencies, the author demonstrates that certain access patterns can perform over 30% worse than random access, measured in CPU cycles on an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor.