#electronics

bliter@diaspora-fr.org
diane_a@diasp.org

"
Intel x86 documentation has more pages than the 6502 has transistors

Microprocessors have become immensely more complex thanks to Moore's Law, but one thing that has been lost is the ability to fully understand them. The 6502 microprocessor was simple enough that its instruction set could almost be memorized. But now processors are so complex that understanding their architecture and instruction set even at a superficial level is a huge task. I've been reverse-engineering parts of the 6502, and with some work you can understand the role of each transistor in the 6502. After studying the x86 instruction set, I started wondering which was bigger: the number of transistors in the 6502 or the number of pages of documentation for the x86."

https://www.righto.com/2013/09/intel-x86-documentation-has-more-pages.html

#retrocomputing #6502 #electronics

diane_a@diasp.org

This day, June 17th, in 1936 electrical engineer Edwin H. Armstrong demonstrated a revolution in radio broadcasting - FM!
"Up until the late 1930s, AM (amplitude modulation) radio frequencies were the only ones available for those listening in. The broadcasts were typically full of static and created a problem for engineers to eliminate. While there were many ideas to get rid of the problem, they were met with little success until Armstrong began researching a solution. Through trial and error, he eventually was able to modify the frequency of audio signals and created a 'wide-band' FM (frequency modulation) system.
At a conference of radio experts, Armstrong played a jazz phonograph record first at an AM frequency and then switched to FM. An article capturing this event from the San Bernadino Sun stated: '...if the audience of 500 engineers had shut their eyes, they would have believed the jazz band was in the same room.' It was later described as the most important radio development."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Howard_Armstrong
#radio #history #electronics