Top all-time · #3310
Scali's OpenBlog™
Personal blog · scalibq.wordpress.comprogramminghardwaresystems
Scali's OpenBlog™ is a personal blog at scalibq.wordpress.com about programming, hardware and systems. Since 2012, 23 different Hacker News readers have linked it 41 times, most often “8088 MPH: The final version”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-09, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (14) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Scali's blog as a source on CPU design (CMT vs SMT, patents), PS3 graphics APIs, and retro 8088/CGA demo programming. The comments mostly cite posts as support rather than judging them.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 14 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Programming, graphics, hardware, maths, and that sort of thing
Most-linked posts?
- /2012/02/14/the-myth-of-cmt-cluster-based-multithreading/2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-08-11
- /2010/05/15/sony%E2%80%99s-playstation-3%E2%80%99s-main-graphics-api-is-not-opengl/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-03-11
- 8088 MPH: The final version2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-08-03
- The Story of Microsleep (2012)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-01-19
What Hacker News says?
See article ( http://meta.ath0.com/2012/02/05/apples-great-gpl-purge/)from previous HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3559990 Also, GNU's bulletin on Apple Boycott: https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull18.html#SEC13 And also this article which explains why apple is BSD mostly: https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/apples-os-x-is-not-...
Comment linking /2012/08/02/apples-os-x-is-not-linux/
on “Why GNU grep is fast (2010)”Submitted Area 5150: 8088 MPH gets a successor as a story · 209 points
HN discussionAnd the expiration of a few patents, like the ones about simultaneous multithreading. Zen is the first AMD's architecture to implement SMT, Bulldozer had CMT ( https://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/zen.j... ). https://patents.google.com/patent/US3728692 https://patents.google.com/patent/US3771138 https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/the-myth-of-cmt-clu...
Comment linking /2012/02/14/the-myth-of-cmt-cluster-based-multithreading/
on “Intel Performance Hit 5x Harder Than AMD After Spectre, Meltdown Patches”Submitted 8088 MPH: The final version as a story · 100 points
HN discussionI'm trying to understand this topic more, so I'm curious what you mean by the word tracking. I searched around, and wanted to check if my understanding is roughly correct: Is tracking when the frequency data of the instrument, and the frequency+tempo changes in the music track are stored? And does midi just say "guitar" or "piano" and leave it up to the software to decide what those instruments sound like? So tracki…
Comment linking /2017/03/29/trackers-vs-midi/
on “Introduction to Computer Music”Submitted Video codecs and 4k as a story · 87 points
HN discussion> PS3 never used OpenGL It sort of does. PS3 uses OpenGL ES 1.0 with extensions and then there is a separate graphics library, LibGCM, that is lower level. Details here (although this use says it doesn't use OpenGL and then says that its API is based on OpenGL + extensions, so it is a bit confusing): http://scalibq.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/sony%E2%80%99s-plays... EDIT: HEre is a PS3 developer saying that PS3 is Open…
Comment linking /2010/05/15/sony%E2%80%99s-playstation-3%E2%80%99s-main-graphics-api-is-not-opengl/
on “Direct3D to OpenGL abstraction layer”Submitted Video playback on low-end MS-DOS machines as a story · 78 points
HN discussionPS3/PS4 commercial games do not use OpenGL and never have. This myth needs to die. http://scalibq.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/sony%E2%80%99s-plays...
Comment linking /2010/05/15/sony%E2%80%99s-playstation-3%E2%80%99s-main-graphics-api-is-not-opengl/
on “Direct3D to OpenGL abstraction layer”Submitted Area 5150, a Reflection as a story · 78 points
HN discussionThe ATi Small Wonder is not entirely cycle-accurate. When I studied the CGADEMO by Codeblasters, I found that the scroller didn't look entirely correct, because the Small Wonder was slightly slower: https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/cgademo-by-codeblas... It appears to insert a few extra waitstates compared to an IBM card. This may trip up some effects in Area 5150.
Comment linking /2014/11/22/cgademo-by-codeblasters/
on “Area 5150: 8088 MPH gets a successor”Submitted Multi-core and multi-threading performance as a story · 67 points
HN discussionThat is known to happen, yes: https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/fixing-genesis-proj...
Comment linking /2015/08/09/fixing-genesis-projects-gp-01/
on “Area 5150: 8088 MPH gets a successor”Submitted GPU-accelerated video decoding as a story · 36 points
HN discussionHave you ever heard of "Windows Defender"? They got more than 96.2% of detection rate according to AV Comparatives in September 2016[1]. Have you ever heard of "Windows 10"? They got less CVE vulnerabilities reported in 2016 than Android, Debian, Ubuntu, Flash Player, Adobe Reader, Mac OS X, The Linux Kernel, iOS, even Chrome and Firefox[2]. If these are not examples of "adequate or even reasonable protection", then…
Comment linking /2011/09/02/the-kernel-org-hack/
on “Microsoft, I Forgive You”Submitted The Covox Years (2017) as a story · 14 points
HN discussionBefore Ryzen, AMD's CPUs were relying on Cluster-based Multithreading (CMT). you can read more about CMT vs SMT here https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/the-myth-of-cmt-clu...
Comment linking /2012/02/14/the-myth-of-cmt-cluster-based-multithreading/
on “AMD's Stock Price Jumps on News of Earnings Spurred by Ryzen”Submitted Who is a software architect? What is software architecture? as a story · 8 points
HN discussionHe sure seems to be very talented but Ryzen also gained from a few important patents being finally expired (the one about SMT, for example) https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/the-myth-of-cmt-clu... http://www.anandtech.com/show/11170/the-amd-zen-and-ryzen-7-...
Comment linking /2012/02/14/the-myth-of-cmt-cluster-based-multithreading/
on “High End CPUs – Intel vs. AMD”Submitted Batch, batch, batch: Respect the classics as a story · 3 points
HN discussionLooks like the demo leans on a lot of idiosyncrasies of specific CGA cards: https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/8088-mph-the-final-...
Comment linking /2015/08/02/8088-mph-the-final-version/
on “8088 microprocessor IP core fits in 308 LUTs, runs at 180MHz on a Kintex-7 FPGA”Submitted The “Visual Basic Effect” as a story · 3 points
HN discussionLink to blog instead of Google: https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2015/04/12/8088-mph-how-it-cam...
Comment linking /2015/04/12/8088-mph-how-it-came-about/
on “Alone in Pico: Postmortem of a 3D demake”Submitted The Story of Microsleep (2012) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionYes, I posted a followup which investigates the issue somewhat further. It appears to be some bug with the message queue handling, specifically when the UI is in Aero mode. In classic mode, the problem is not there. In Windows XP, the problem is also not there. https://scalibq.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/the-story-of-micros...
Comment linking /2012/03/28/the-story-of-microsleep-followup/
on “The Story of Microsleep (2012)”Submitted The DOS SDK as a story · 2 points
HN discussionExactly. As I tried to explain, you NEED a context switch (which doesn't make it a spin-wait) in order to avoid the deadlock between your main loop and the processing of the Windows message queue (and as you see, I do check the quantum, via QueryPerformanceCounter()). The goal was to find a way that didn't deadlock the system, while also not wasting so much time that it impacts your framerate to the point where you…
Comment linking /2012/03/28/the-story-of-microsleep-followup/
on “The Story of Microsleep (2012)”Submitted The Story of Microsleep (2012) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted I left the 8088 MPH team as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The myth of the vertical retrace interrupt as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
