Engineering Stack Exchange
Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [computer-engineering]

83 questions
22
votes
10 answers

Why not put servers in a refrigerator?

Recently I was thinking about home improvement, and one idea that is haunting me is that I could use some kind of refrigerator for gaming consoles and laptops. The obvious benefit is that it maintains a constant low temperature. Also, the doors…
The Dreams Wind
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3 answers

Why is it more reliable to use the land/pit transition in a CD-ROM?

I was reading about how CD-ROMs work and I came to this: Although it might seem simplest to use a pit to record a 0 and a land to record a 1, it is more reliable to use a pit/land or land/pit transition for a 1 and its absence as a 0,so this…
Kate
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11
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1 answer

How do Thumb instructions compare to ARM instructions for performance?

A colleague mentioned that Thumb instructions were significantly slower than ARM instructions (this was for an AT91SAM7S32 processor). Is this true? What are the performance benefits of one instruction set over another?
Patrick
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5
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1 answer

Explanation of network interdiction in layman terms

I am trying to understand network interdiction. I have read these papers, but it is still hard to get a clear understanding of what it exactly means: Blind Network Interdiction Strategies - A Learning Approach Network interdiction – models,…
Master
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5
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2 answers

What is the significance of a processors bit capacity?

I'm learning about how processors send an address to ram through the address bus, and receive and send data from ram through the data bus. In the videos I have watched, the processor was an 8 bit processor that had 8 wires coming out for the data…
user4912
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1 answer

Byte organized and Word organized memory using memory modules

I'm currently learning about how a CPU works on the hardware level and something that keeps coming up is memory organization. From what I've learned (and please, do correct me on anything that is not right), you can have a memory organized in the…
user12377
4
votes
2 answers

Microscope Camera Windows NT

I'm not sure this is the right stack exchange community to be asking this, but I have a little issue. There's a great microscope-camera from Carl Zeiss (AxioCam HRc) which I got for free and would like to use. It originally came with a PCI interface…
Suryetto
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4
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1 answer

How do products like the overheating Snapdragon CPU make it through quality control?

Almost all of the new Snapdragon CPU series (610, 810) have an overheating problem. This overheating problem may occur in the first few hours of using mobile phones that are equipped with the CPU, as we can see from the various reviews from around…
imin
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4
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0 answers

Why are the outter tracks of a magnetic disks more stable?

In our digital computers class, the professor mentioned that the outter tracks of a magnetic disk is more reliable because the outter bit are "bigger". Isn't the packing density of a magnetic disk uniform? If we compare this with a optical CD, the…
coderhk
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4
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2 answers

Use two passive CPU coolers on one single CPU?

I aim on building a silent, completely passively cooled PC, with no moving parts at all (I am aware that it is cheaper to go for an inaudible computer instead, using low speed fans. This is not the point.). I came up with the idea to install not…
Benjoyo
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3
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1 answer

How to create a logic circuit that multiplies two 4 bit numbers, using only 16 2-input AND gates and 3 4-bit adders?

"Sketch a combinational circuit which takes as input, two 4-bit binary numbers, A3A2A1A0 and B3B2B1B0, and which outputs the 8-bit product P7P6P5P4P3P2P1P0. Assume that you have available sixteen 2-input AND gates and three 4-bit adders. Please…
sa2016
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Is there a solution for USB Multiplexing, i.e. passing data between different devices by sharing/splitting a USB connection?

Forgive me if my title is vague, I will attempt to explain my issue. I don't know if such a solution exists and I have tried searching without any luck. I would like to utilize a passive USB protocol analyzer, a la the "Beagle" to sit in between an…
chocolate_marshmallow_soup
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What is the proper way to handle string-to-float decimal truncation in IEEE 754?

This is not a StackOverflow question because the software engineers do not have appropriate math skills to answer an IEEE 754 question and thus must be answered by an IEEE tutor. I had to implement my own string-to-float and float-to-string…
user16755
2
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0 answers

What optics and display are used in Microsoft HoloLens?

How does Microsoft project an image so close to the eye yet understandable by the brain? How is the display transparent? This link has good information but is…
Seth Kitchen
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2
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Are there tools to design and test experimental hardware and firmware through emulation?

I'm a programmer and I'm interested in testing an idea I have for a SATA intercept hardware device. I'd like to design a custom piece of hardware involving SATA connections, splitting of signals etc. My first planned step is understanding the…
J.Todd
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