January 2012 - MMNTech

Gadgets

How big would a modern tube computer be?

January 17, 2012December 31, 201502 mins

Modern computing turns 66 this year. It was in June 1946 that ENIAC, the first general purpose computer, was turned on. That got me thinking. If the transistor had never been invented, how large would a modern tube powered computer be? ENIAC weighed 27 tonnes for its 17,468 tubes and other components. So I Googled…

Retro Rewind

Q&A Why does the Xbox look better than the PS3?

January 12, 2012December 31, 2015010 mins

It’s pretty clear that Sony’s Cell is more powerful than the Xbox. It was designed for high performance super computing. Yet despite its power, the PS3 doesn’t look that much better than it’s contemporaries. In fact, sometimes it looks worse. Graphics can occasionally look muddy or washed. You’ve probably heard that Sony went with a…