Intro to Networking
(use name/pass- rosie/emit if it asks)
1-30...... | 31. Basic Frame Structure | 32. Physical Layer | 33. IEEE-802.3 Protocol | 34. IEEE 802.2 LLC - Logical Link Control Layer | 35. | 38. Network Interface Cards | 36. Repeaters | 37. Hubs | 38. Bridges | 39. Routers | 40. Brouters | 41. Gateways | 42. Token Ring | 43. Linux on Token Ring | 44 - and so son, and so on, and so on...

 Smart Computing-Editorial It’s easy to talk about the speed of our computers in terms of processors, random-access memory, and graphics cards. In a technologically savvy world increasingly dependent on the Internet, however, it’s unfortunate that we sometimes forget the modem.

 Smart Computing-Editorial If the audio from your PC sounds as if it’s being filtered through a tin can, it’s time to get a new sound card. It only takes a few minutes to install a new sound card, and the benefits can be great. High-quality sound cards are ideal for voice recognition and dictation software.

 Smart Computing-Editorial So you want to add more gusto to the old computer? You want the pictures to appear flashy and beautiful even though your computer is no longer the top-notch unit it was a few winters ago? Well, if Elizabeth Taylor can still look great at 67, your computer images have a few years left.

 JC's PC News'n'Links * Fast Updates on the Microprocessor Industry Anyway, to fill your palate (or plate -- the metaphor works for both, woohoo!) for the day, let me start off by linking to this Socket A benchmarkfest, which compares boards based on three DDR SDRAM chipsets (AMD760, ALi MAGiK 1, and KT266) and two SDR SDRAM chipsets (KT133A and its daddy, KT133).

 Chipsets A chipset or ‘PCIset’ is a group of microcircuits that orchestrate the flow of data to and from key components of a PC. This includes the CPU itself, the main memory, the secondary cache and any devices situated on the ISA and PCI buses. The chipset also controls data flow to and from hard disks, and other devices connected to the IDE channels.

 Motherboards The motherboard is the main circuit board inside the PC which holds the processor, memory and expansion slots and connects directly or indirectly to every part of the PC. It’s made up of a chipset (known as the ‘glue logic’), some code in ROM and the various interconnections or buses. PC designs today use many different buses to link their various components.

 Ace's Hardware The KT133A Decision, Part 2

By Johan De Gelas
Friday, February 23, 2001
DDR SDRAM vs SDR SDRAM: Applications Performance
In our previous article, the VIAKT133A decision, we found interesting surprises. In game benchmarks, DDR-AMD760 systems are between 10 and 30% (!) faster than VIAKT133-SDRAM solutions. But the VIAKT133A, thanks to (1) the reduced latencies of running the Front Side Bus and memory synchronously, and (2) Memory interleaving, games run on the VIAKT133A only 1 to 13% slower than the AMD760-DDR configuration.

 Ace's Hardware The KT133A Decision, Part 1

By Johan De Gelas
Friday, February 9, 2001
With CPUs running over 1 GHz, while RAM is still running at only 133 MHz, it is clear that memory latency and bandwidth have become a severe bottleneck for many applications. A few months ago, DDR had been welcomed enthusiastically by the hardware community as a low cost, yet high performance solution for this bottleneck...