Man builds his dream 1990s IBM clone PC as authentically as he can in 2025
This is a series of posts that provide a stunning level of detail and attention to a man's dream PC from his childhood. A major bit of nostalgia for me having grown up around the same sort of machines and worked on computers in that era with my father.
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"Cray 1 Supercomputer Performance Comparisons With Home Computers Phones and Tablets"
If you had asked me about comparative processing power between the Cray 1 and the Raspberry Pi, I would have guessed Cray 1 was more powerful - despite the decades of time between their technology.
"In 1978, the Cray 1 supercomputer cost $7 Million, weighed 10,500 pounds and had a 115 kilowatt power supply. It was, by far, the fastest computer in the world. The Raspberry Pi costs around $70 (CPU board, case, power supply, SD card), weighs a few ounces, uses a 5 watt power supply and is more than 4.5 times faster than the Cray 1"
I grew up knowing what a Cray was, and that it represented absurd "super" computer power. To think it is today slower than the Raspberry Pi is mindblowing to me.
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Why DisplayPort was a game changer after HDMI
I use DisplayPort on my home PC, but had no idea where it came from or why. This was a fascinating look into it and what it enables.
The DisplayPort (shortened as DP) interface was explicitly designed to be a successor to VGA and DVI, originating from the VESA group – an organization created by multiple computer-display-related players in technology space, which has previously brought us a number of smaller-scale computer display standards like EDID, DDC and the well-known VESA mount. Nevertheless, despite the smaller scale of previous standards, DisplayPort has since become a hit in computer display space for a number of reasons, and is more ubiquitous than you might realize.
You could put it this way – DisplayPort has all the capabilities of interfaces like HDMI, but implemented in a better way, without legacy cruft, and with a number of features that take advantage of the DisplayPort's sturdier architecture. As a result of this, DisplayPort isn't just in external monitors, but also laptop internal displays, USB-C port display support, docking stations, and Thunderbolt of all flavors. If you own a display-capable docking station for your laptop, be it classic style multi-pin dock or USB-C, DisplayPort is highly likely to be involved, and even your smartphone might just support DisplayPort over USB-C these days.
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An AI designed keyboard layout
I have a deep seated love for keyboard systems different from the standard QWERTY or even DVORAK. I remember making one based on someone who did word analysis and a simplistic model which wanted to minimize the movement required. The biggest hurdles with something like this is that I found I really struggled to be "bilingual" when it came to keyboards.
I needed to be forced to only use the new one, with no exceptions, otherwise I would give in and switch back to an easy layout for speed and simplicity. Given today's world where I use, on the regular, three different computers (home laptop, work laptop, and home desktop) as well as two phones (one Android and one iOS) I would need to find a solution that easily allowed me to adopt a new keyboard in all situations, as well as have a length of time for learning proficiency such that I would not be hampered in my day to day career and life.
A tall order. However, I still find things like this fascinating.
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200 Terabyte SSDs Coming
Micron has invented a new chip which will enable massive SSD drives for computers. That is, to be a little technical on this blog - NUTS.
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