macinfish

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macinfish
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  • If you plan on using your new M1 iMac with a VESA mount, make sure to buy the right model

    macinfishmacinfish
    22july2013 said:
    If I get a VESA mount that supports 90 degree rotation into portrait mode, will macOS on this iMac let me rotate the screen? Or will it detect the rotation and auto-rotate?
    That's a really interesting question.  I'm wondering if that fancy magnetic power cable will disconnect when the iMac is moved around on a VESA arm.
    watto_cobra

  • If you plan on using your new M1 iMac with a VESA mount, make sure to buy the right model

    macinfishmacinfish
    Good to hear!  My last three 27" iMacs have been mounted to a VESA arm.  I'm happy to see that VESA mounting will remain an option.

    It will be interesting to see what the cost is for 8GB of additional RAM.  Apple is notorious for overcharging for RAM and all of the new M1-based machines cannot be upgraded after purchase.  For the M1-based laptops, it's $200 for another 8GB.  My previous 27" iMac had 32GB and my current 2019 model has 64GB installed (by me).  Apple currently charges $1000 for the 64GB upgrade (total rip off).  OWC currently charges $347.  The SSD upgrades are not cheap either.  The future, bigger Apple Silicon iMacs could be REALLY expensive.
    ApplePoorwatto_cobra

  • Frequently Asked Questions about the Afterburner accelerator for the Mac Pro

    macinfishmacinfish
    kirsch said:
    On a more technical level, the Afterburner is a card with a Field Programmable Gate Array (FGPA), or a programmable Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). This effectively means it is a card that has chips created for a specific task, rather than a general-usage chip.

    An FPGA is exactly the opposite of chips created for a specific task. It is a chip that can be configured to do a specific task. The "Programmable Application-Specific" is an oxymoron. The way FPGAs work, an image is loaded onto them which reconigures the gates on the chip in order to do something specific. The image can be updated or changed completely by the vendor (Apple) after the card has shipped and is sitting on the customer's computer. They would do this to add new codecs, fix bugs, improve performance, etc.

    It makes sense for Apple to use an FPGA for this and not an ASIC, which would be cost-prohibitive at the volumes this is likely to sell at.
    I'm an FPGA designer myself and I was just about to add the same comments.  You are spot on.

    It would be great if Apple would allow the user to create their own FPGA coprocessor design and s/w driver, but I'm betting the answer is NO.  Custom Afterburner designs would be a very cool tool for designers working on machine learning, AI, neural networks, other codecs, etc..  Also, I really wish the EDA companies (Xilinx, Intel PSG, ModelSim, Aldec, etc.) would port their tools to macOS.
    byronl

  • Samsung reportedly being tapped for 16-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro OLED screens

    macinfishmacinfish
    I'm curious to see how this OLED panel will handle the generally static images that would be common in laptop use. Screen burn-in is a serious downside of the OLED technology. Should we go ahead and start a new hashtag? #burningate

    "However, the pending issues of OLED use in PCs such as burn-in due to steady images like toolbars are still largely unsolved at this time."
    https://www.monitornerds.com/oled-pc-monitors/
    SpamSandwichwatto_cobra

  • Hands-on with Apple's new Core i9 iMac 5K with Vega graphics: benchmarks and first impress...

    macinfishmacinfish
    Does anyone know if the only way to get the VESA mount iMac is directly through Apple?  I haven't seen the VESA option on other web sites (Adorama, B&H, etc.).
    watto_cobra