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Comment by ngold | Hacker News Reader

Also 5 or 10 watts versus 125 watt power draw. No matter how you slice it. The BBC acorn has grown up to be a monster.

Really one of my favorite examples of why public sector investment is a Good Thing.

I still love that movie with the hobbit guy about the BBC acorn. That was great.

Micro Men! Great little TV movie, and really interesting story of the rivalry between UK golden-age home computing giants Sinclair and Acorn (Acorn being the company behind the BBC micro, and also originally the "A" in "ARM").

Oh thank you, I never heard those name before so I had a hard time following this part of the thread.

( do some more search, adding “micro” )

Ok, so it IS a British Broadcasting Corporation spawn.

Ha. Excellent. I had no idea.

Thanks for spelling it out, I was about to reject the idea as funny but unlikely.

Me neither! Here's a link to the movie: https://archive.org/details/MicroMen720p2009

Wait wait wait… Gloating for no good reason about public investment is one of my favorite activities.

I have a hard time following the connection with M1 processors?

bbc contracted acorn to produce an educational computer to go hand-in-hand with a tv program. it was a smashing success and made them so much more money than anything else they'd been doing. they birthed arm.

Ah thanks yeah I was researching that. I had absolutely no idea. And I’ve been using those nifty fuckers since a while now. Ha.

It made them the only money they ever made, but in the end they had to default on payback of 3mil pounds of royalties to BBC thanks to typical 80s mismanagement (oh hi Commodore).

Not unlike real acorns.

Ohhhhhhh I think I'm getting it. Then they grow up into a big tree and that's where Apples come from?

Well, apples don't come from oaks. Unless you count oak apples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_apple

Though not sure how that would fit into the metaphor.

No, acorns turn into oak trees. To get apple trees you need apple seeds.

You get those from core dumps.

"RJ-45 ends are not "network seeds" and should not be scattered under floor tiles in an effort to cultivate a server farm."

- https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2gt7x5/just_sysad...

I believe a lot of people don't hear the fans because they're wearing headphones. For the rest of us that like a quiet room, the arm CPUs sound like a godsend.

I say "sound" because I don't feel like an early adopter much; don't have one yet.

> For the rest of us that like a quiet room, the arm CPUs sound like a godsend.

Got an M1 Pro and normal daily use just doesn't trigger the fans. I can do it by, e.g., charging whilst playing Minecraft or running something that uses all 8 cores at full speed for more than two minutes-ish (`wireguard-vanity-address`, Blender render, etc.) but it's an oddity to hear them these days.

> I believe a lot of people don't hear the fans because they're wearing headphones. For the rest of us that like a quiet room

You’re completely focusing on fan noise here, but of course it also enables tiny devices with great battery life and - this isn’t completely irrelevant when you run your computer for a significant part of the day - lowered electricity cost.

Oh, and I believe these processors have quite some head room before they will reach the physical thermal limits others have already run into, so expect some more raw performance on better cooled systems.

> You’re completely focusing on fan noise here, but of course it also enables tiny devices with great battery life

You're optimistic there. Where's my iPhone with a 7 day battery? Last time i had a phone that lasted 7 days it was a Nokia 6210 with a b&w screen.

> and - this isn’t completely irrelevant when you run your computer for a significant part of the day - lowered electricity cost.

I care about that too, but prolly not worth mentioning on an US centric site.

> I care about that too, but prolly not worth mentioning on an US centric site.

Always funny to see a European head to a "US-Centric" site just to constantly take jabs at the US, which your posting history confirms.

But HN is more California (and Bay Area)-centric, if you're being technical; which is generally considered energy and eco-conscious:

https://www.bobvila.com/slideshow/america-s-10-most-energy-e...

For future reference, and to realign your stereotypes.

> Always funny to see a European head to a "US-Centric" site just to constantly take jabs at the US, which your posting history confirms.

Oh well, good job Trump. But we're getting political so let's shut up.

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