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2022-08-17

Re: How Many Computers Do You Have?

tags: life hardware

ew0k has made a list:

I don’t have a solid definition of what constitutes a computer here, but I assume that all of these contain some part that works as a von Neumann machine.

gemini://warmedal.se/~bjorn/posts/2022-08-14-how-many-computers-do-you-have.gmi

local copy

Several have responded, and for me this is quite interesting read. So I thought, I'd chime in.

Used Regularly

Dell Latitude E6330 --- Debian bullseye amd64; CPU i5, 4 cores, max 3.6 GHz, 8 GiB RAM, 500 GB SSD. Second hand. This is my main machine. Without it, I'm pretty much dead for a while. At least until I have installed Debian stable on another system and added the last backup.
HiFive Unmatched --- Debian unstable riscv64; 4 cores, 16 GiB RAM, 500 GB NVMe disk. This miniITX motherboard is mounted in a stone age LianLi "box". Its clearly not a rocket, but it's good enough for most of what I do. I am very impressed by the degree of integration of all the fiddly bits (bootloaders, kernel, devicetree, etc.). So clearly a lot of work has already gone into this platform. Thanks folks! I do use this machine as a development system for coding AVR microcontrollers in assembly and Forth. So git, make, emacs, perl, and avra are running to my liking.
Acer Travelmate B116 --- Debian unstable amd64; CPU N3700, 4 cores, max 2.4 GHz, 4 GiB RAM, 128 GB SSD. This machine is a very slim subnotebook about 7 years old. It still features a RJ45 jack for a network cable! This is my current "mobile" system. I have carried it along for a bit more than 6 years now. It is still in good shape, nothing is loose or broken. A number of gemini posts have started on this machine.
Precursor --- by Andrew "bunnie" Huang. It looks like a smart phone with a hardware keyboard, but it isn't! This is a FPGA system. The FPGA is configured to create a small risc-v cpu. On that a small Operating System named Xous (written in Rust) is running. My Precursor is on the way to become a security token. It shall hold my credentials, and it shall send them to a computer via USB cable, while looking like a keyboard to said computer. There's no need to install a special program on said computer.
MNT Reform --- Debian unstable arm64; i.MX8 CPU, 4 A53 cores, max. 1.5 GHz, 4 GiB RAM, 1 TB NVMe disk. This machine is the latest toy I have received. It comes with extensive documentation including even schematics! My plan is to make this machine my mobile system, and along the way experiment a bit with "smaller" operating systems, too.
Phone, well old Samsung flip phone :) one used, one on the pile, just in case. Third hand! This phone is always off. I switch it on if needed abroad. The battery lasts for months!

So five general purpose "von Neumann" machines in regular use, plus the phone.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor

https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/reform

image: the Samsung flip phone

Infrastructure of sorts

Fritz!Box --- always on, connects my house to the famous Internet, while providing voice (over IP) at the same time. There is a second Fritz!Box, fully configured, a cold standby just in case. I needed it once! In times of home office clearly the most important system in this house.
three DECT phone handsets connected wirelessly to the Fritz!Box
pc engines APU 2 --- router/gateway/self-hosting-server; always on! Clearly the second most important system.
network switch --- always on, I have no idea whether this has a general purpose CPU, but surely it's a problem, if this component fails
9 or more atmega644p microcontrollers :: collecting environmental data, connected by cable (rs485 and power, 12V), always on.
ASRock E350M1 --- miniITX system plus 2 big disks, works as backup storage. System is off and is booted only for backup (once per week)
ASRock E350M1 --- miniITX "kiosk" system, always off. This is booted, if something needs to be checked online "intranet" or "internet". Used rarely now. This system used to graph the environmental data mentioned above, but now those are served by Grafana and visualized in any web browser.
Fujitsu PC, second hand --- "video conf" system. Has zoom and skype installed. Was used quite a bit during lockdown times, but only rarely now.
One raspberry Pi, one olinuxino Lime2 --- collecting data as well. These are for experiments, but the experiments last for over a year now. No progress towards what I wanted them to achieve: a new stable firmware for my microcontrollers

The Pile

a spare APU 2, used in the classroom as apt-cacher and gateway
4 more Dell Latitude Notebooks. Second hand. Used for experiments, and to be given away, if someone in my Linux class does not have a spare machine. These systems were given to me (leasing returns) without disks, so adding new disks made them useful again.
one more PC system, even with Windows installed. The plan is still to use this to scan slides (analog photography anyone?). A scanner is available.
at least two more Pis, or three, or four ...
there are a few more microcontroller boards, for sure.

The Not So Obvious Stuff

A few "external disks" and well actually: all usb flash drives feature controllers, right?
A couple of smart card usb sticks (crypto stick, signet, signet-hc)
Tolino ebook reader, e-ink display. Not used much.
Camera 1 Canon-A480 running a hackable CHDK firmware from sdCard; second hand
Camera 2 Samsung WB350F; second hand
A card reader for bank cards, another one for smart cards, via contacts or NFC
HiFi pre-/amplifier; it's a digital thing, and it can read a media stream over the net, so lets face it: it does have a CPU
Certainly there is a microcontroller in the heating control, and another one in the control of the solar heater (produces hot water)
There is a controller in the power meter. And it does have an absurd user interface: use a flash light to light-pulse your wishes into the machine. Absolutely hilarious. But on the bright side: it cannot phone home behind my back.
Car (Alfa Romeo MiTo): i have no clue, how many computer systems are hidden in there, maybe two dozen or so
No, the kitchen seems "clean", but this stuff is > 25 years old. I do hope, it does last for another 20 years or so. There is a newer fridge though
My wife had a hair dryer with a microcontroller: "Long press to switch off" m(

This list is so long, that it's kind of embarrasing. On the other hand, I'm getting paid for knowing how to play with this stuff. And I did kick out a lot of equipment over the years. Most notably a second hand SGI Oxygen 2.

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