The Race to Zero

 I had read  several reviews about the "new" HP-35s, it was introduced as a successor to the HP-33s to commemorate the 35th Anniversary of the original HP-35 from Hewlett Packard. I decided to buy one when the price was right on eBay.

I will tell you what I think of it.

I titled this blog entry because I really don't know where this planet is going with technology, it seems at every stage of progress, we go backwards. If I harken back to my family tree roots, around the turn of the 20th Century, several of my family worked at the Lancashire Watch Company in Prescot, they were involved in making timepieces of excellence, clockwork pocket watches that kept good time and some that only needed winding every eight days. Here we are a hundred and thirty years later, and people with so called "smart" watches need to recharge them every third day and if there is no power, then the watch will die.

It seems that the planet is going backwards, not forwards and the HP-35s is a good example of consumer products that on first look, appear to be robust, but in reality are not meant to last. 

This is a rant, and I am sure many find the calculator a little powerhouse, but I will be quite surprised if calculators such as this have the lifespan of the original Hewlett Packards, these new calculators are branded HP, but are basically Chinese crap.

The case is bonded leather that deteriorates as soon as you open the package, for those that do not know, bonded leather is not leather, and it does not wear well. It will protect the device, but in a matter of weeks, will look like the dog's breakfast.

The calculator itself feels nice, and a lot of the enthusiasts are all happy about it having the big "enter" key and the ability to use RPN as the input method, but that is where the similarity to the classic calculators ends, in my humble opinion, this is an absolute train wreck. I am sure many will disagree, the calculator is very powerful, it has classic looks, keys that almost feel like the original keys, but not quite, because someone in production along the way decided they could save a few cents per key, and then the next generation decided to do the same.

The race to zero.

Decades

Back in September I bought an HP-11C Owner's Handbook and Problem Solving Guide and a week or so ago the actual calculator arrived, it had slowly winged it's way through the Global Shipping Program from a seller in the USA.

In 1985 when I was working at McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach, California, I had "leaned into" buying one of these at the local speciality camera shop near the facility. Instead, a month or so later, back in the UK, I bought a Texas Instruments TI-66 programmable calculator. 

It is a bit of a none story really, in 1985 I didn't do something, let us not start a list of things I did not do in this life....

The TI-66 provided a lot more programming steps than the HP-11C, and also offered labels within programs. At the time of course I considered it was a better choice and was the right decision. I have recently thought about obtaining another one, so that may pop up on the blog at some point. 

This particular HP-11C is in good condition, a few signs of use but quite acceptable for the collection, I will report back about my opinions at some point.

The Throwaround HP-12C

This is the reveal of the improvements to the sad HP-12C - I am quite pleased with how it turned out, I still need a battery door, but I have used some black insulation tape for now, which is fine.

There was some sanding done on the bezel to remove the gold finish and most of the scratches, I used automotive polish on the screen (very gently as it is a liquid crystal display) and some cleaning of the case of course and a little paint touch up and cleaning on the keyboard area. It was about an hour or so work to bring a little life back into the calculator.

TLC on an HP-12C

I want my belongings to be pristine, and I keep them that way, and that's the way I am.

However, this calculator caught my eye on eBay and I decided it was an unwanted orphan that needed some TLC, it was scratched up, the keyboard was filthy and scratched and it had no battery door.

I know.....

It did work though and I discussed with the Canadian seller what would work for both of us, because he needed to pay shipping, pay eBay and Paypal fees, and make a little cash. We worked out in Canada he could send via lettermail (you can send anything as long as it is light enough and fits through a 2cm slot) and an extra buck for fees and five dollars for him, so it worked out at ten bucks.

It has arrived and I have done work on it, my next post will be the resulting "throwabout" calculator for on my desk so that my pristine models can sit around and just collect dust.

Days between Dates : HP-12C

 How to calculate the days between two dates on the HP-12C calculator.

This is quite straightforward, and the default method of entering a date is mm.ddyyyy so the 19th September 2007 would be 9.192007 and todays date would be 9.202020 so step one would be to key in the first date and press enter to add it to the stack. 

Then key in the second date, press the blue "g" function key and then the EEX key which gives the answer, in this example, 4750 days.

Age of Excellence

I'll once again rewind back to 1985 when I was working at McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach, California and explain myself a little as to why I am having quite an obsession at the moment with Hewlett Packard.

I bought this off a Canadian seller a week or so ago, and it arrived yesterday and made me happy, as you can see, it is not for the HP-12C it is in fact for the HP-11C Scientific calculator. Including shipping this little gem cost me C$27 and it is worth every penny in my opinion. 

Spiral bound, 260 pages, printed in the USA.

It has the feel of a piece of history and it transports me back in time to the moment I did not buy one.

If you use algebraic calculators using infix notation, schemes such as AESH, AESP or the combination system of AOS then more than likely you will, at some point in your career, be shown how inefficient it can be when compared with postfix notation, specifically RPN or reverse Polish notation.

In the engineering building at McDonnell Douglas there seemed to be a fair few engineers with an HP calculator and the "new kids on the block" at that time were the HP-11C and the higher end HP-15C both of which were Voyager revision RPN calculators. 

In 1985 the HP-11C was US$75 and the HP-15C was US$120 which was a lot of money and even though most of my peers in the office were running RPN calculators, I decided to stick with infix and ended up buying a TI-66 AESP calculator which had a lot more program steps that the HP-11C and was a little cheaper.

In 1986, my car was stolen in the UK, and that was the last I saw of the TI-66

I have ordered an HP-11C from eBay, it should arrive in a few weeks, we will review that when it arrives, in the mean time I will hold my spiral bound manual and take a peek to see what I will be attempting when it arrives.

The Brazilian versus the Singaporian

 Another HP-12C arrived today, again a Voyager model and this time the serial number is 2943B84989 which means that it was built in (1960)+29 = 1989 and perhaps week 43 in the Brazilian facility. The 84989 is the unit number and I wanted to identify differences between this one and the newer Singapore unit I received a few weeks ago.

First off, the slip case has slight differences, but that might be expected with items made in different countries, material is perhaps a slight shade of brown darker, edge pressing is deeper. If I had not taken a photo of the Singapore unit I would probably get them mixed up, except for that edge pressing which you can see on the following photo.

Top is Singapore, bottom is Brazilian.

They are both showing the result of the self test, which is switch off, hold down the on button, press the X button, release the on button, release the X button for this particular model.

The calculators look identical, however, there are subtle differences. On the 1994 Singapore unit the HP12C logo is mirror finish, the 1989 Brazilian has a brushed texture, gold plastic woodgrain almost which I think is more stylish.

The keys on both units are of the double shot molded type, that means they are durable and will last a long time. 

The flipsides....

The Singapore unit has the CE91 logo and the earlier Brazilian does not, but it does have the 871B battery type printed. The earlier unit also has thicker feet and weighs 114 grams (133 with case) versus 112 (130) for the Singapore calculator. 

So, comparison wise very similar, quality appears the same and just a few slight differences which is certainly not true for the (downhill) progression of the HP-12C to the present day incarnations.

 

Ebay arrival

This is another arrival this month, plus there are more on the way for my musings.

Another Hewlett Packard from the history pile, this one a faster business calculator that can be set as RPN or Algebraic entry. The HP-17B II which was introduced at the start of 1988, coincidently on the day we emigrated to Canada.

It is a Pioneer model, introduced in 1988 and the serial number is 3544S09832 which means that it was built in (1960)+35 = 1995 and in week 44 in the Singapore facility. The 09832 is the unit number which is a little spooky as the unit number from the HP-12C was 03298

The age difference between the HP-12C and this unit is approximately one year and nineteen weeks, and they were made in the same facility. The technology however is six years advanced and it shows when running the simple TVM calculation we have been discussing. The calculation is almost instant on the HP-19B II, perhaps half a second, whereas the older HP-12C takes about three times as long.

It was progress, and there were a great many improvements in the HP-17B II including many more functions, a built in clock and a powerful algebraic solver.

However, by the time this was released the real estate industry had adopted the HP-12C as the trendy desktop accessory, and no future business calculator would break its hold. Later variants of the HP-12C would be made with faster processors and it is still sold, albeit "Made in China" to this day.

HP-12C and the Canadian mortgage factor

Assuming all financial registers are cleared, according to the manual, the keystrokes to calculate the Canadian mortgage factor on the HP-12C are:

 

Key in 6 and press [n ].

Key in 200 and press ENTER , then PV .

Key in the annual interest rate as a percentage and press [+ ], CHS , then FV .

Press [i ].

Clear as mud, so what does that actually do?

 It is using the TVM formula to create the modified mortgage factor for a six month compound regime, prior to running the payment calculation.

 The first instruction places the number of periods, 6 months in this case, into the [n]   register and then 200 is keyed in and enter is pressed and then stored as the present value [PV]. The interest rate is entered, added to the 200 that is on the stack, the sign is changed and then it is stored as the future value [FV]. When [i] is pressed, the HP-12C runs the TVM routine with payment [PMT] as zero and calculates the Canadian mortgage factor.

 Simplified, for our previous interest rate of 6%, it runs the standard TVM calculation with n=6, PV=200, FV=-206, PMT=0 and calculates the modified interest rate to make that so. If the interest rate was 9%, n=6, PV=200, FV=-209, PMT=0 etc

 In the previous example, with the annual interest at 6% the above routine calculates [i] as 0.49386220 for use in the second TVM calculation, so key in number of periods (300) and present value (100,000) and future value (0) and press [PMT] which results in the correct Canadian mortgage payment of -639.81 (note the sign of the payment and present value are always opposite)

The only thing to be wary of is that there is a retained future value of -206 in the register from the manual key sequence and interest rate of 6%, so that has to be zero for the final Canadian payment calculation to be correct.

Code Monkey

 This might be an odd set of characters, but it will mean something to someone.

<< 200 / 1 + 6 INV ^ 1 -100 * >>

The << and >> indicate the start and end of a program for the HP48G calculator and the mode of calculation is reverse polish notation, or RPN, so you may ask what little secret does that piece of programming titled CINT unlock?

I've been playing about on the HP-12C calculator and the TVM functions calculate mortgage payments based on the USA, and perhaps the rest of the worlds, rules.

Loan Amount $100,000 with interest rate 6% per Annum, 25 year mortgage.

The HP-12C calculates that over the 25 years, the monthly mortgage payment would be $644.30

I asked my East Coast buddy, Graeme Wright, to send me his spreadsheet that we would use long ago when we had mortgages, the spreadsheet was always correct to the exact penny when compared to printouts from the banks.

It said the monthly payment would be $639.81

The question was, why the difference?

Canadian Mortgage payments are required by law to be compounded twice yearly, so for a standard TVM calculation to work, the equivalent monthly interest rate needs to be calculated. In the above example, for the USA formula, the monthly interest rate is 6/12 = 0.500 and if I return to my little piece of program code at the top, the CINT program code will do the following if 6 is the number on the stack (X) when it is started, remember, this is in RPN so it acts a little differently than algebraic logic and does not require brackets, so I'll recreate the algebraic equivalent and put them back in.

(((X/200 + 1)^(1/6))-1)*100 = 0.49386

I may have put too many brackets in there, but no harm in that....

This adjusted monthly interest rate, when plugged into the intrinsic TVM solver of the HP-12C produces the monthly payment of $639.81 which is all fine and dandy, but not so sadly here in my advancing years there is little use for this type of financial arithmetic besides the occasional daily amusement.

Just call me Chuckles.

 

Why even bother?

I love well made electronic gadgets and the HP-12C is a very good example of just one. It was conceived and planned at the start of the 1980's and it is still current today, granted by todays standards the processor is a little slow, but the chap Dennis Harms, who led the team designing this calculator, who was told by Mister Hewlett himself to "not fuck it up" mentioned that, in todays age, we dispose of obsolete phones on almost a yearly basis and here is a calculator that has now endured almost forty years of useful life.

You can go to a dollar or a thrift store and buy a scientific calculator for next to nothing nowadays and it is all part of our throwaway society that we have somehow arrived at, stuff is not designed to last nowadays. Therefore, why even bother making that stuff out of quality materials that will endure.

So, the question to myself is "why even bother?" with a vintage calculator that, to most people, has an odd operating system in the form of reverse polish notation, or RPN. It comes down to something very simple and that is I want to continue learning how to do things, and that was true back in the middle of 1994 when I bought my first RPN calculator, the magnificent HP-42S and subsequently I went "all in" by buying the HP-48GX graphic calculator.

The HP-48GX was all I needed for the remaining thirteen years of my engineering career, and it is true that one of the most important aspects of those years was my ability to create programs on that calculator that would make my working life easier.

In retirement, there is little major use for a calculator, so I reason that if I do not bother, then the particular blob of grey matter that I used when I was working will simply erode away, to the point where it won't work, or my own personal version of non-volatile memory will no longer retain variables. It is that reason now, not to make things easier as I get older, but in a way, to present learning challenges to myself to attempt to exercise my brain and stall the inevitable downward spiral.

That's why I bother. 

Ebay Arrivals August 2020

This is just one of the arrivals this month, I'm always searching for things that I can buy with my "eBay dollars" that I gain from selling various things. It gives me guilt free pocket money that burns a hole in my pockets, and I decided I would travel down the RPN rabbit hole once again and purchase one of the most significant calculators in the HP lineup.

That is Hewlett Packard from "back then" and not the company it is nowadays.

The above unit is the HP-12C Financial calculator, it is a Voyager model, introduced in 1981 with an estimated life span, by the project team, of two years. In defiance of that projection the model has become HP's longest and best-selling product, in continual production since its introduction. This almost mint example cost me C$35.90 including shipping, from a Canadian seller.

The serial number on the HP-12C is 3425S03298 which means that it was built in (1960)+34 = 1994 and in week 25 in the Singapore facility. The 03298 is the unit number so there are a few fun nerdy facts for you.

A little personal history is in order regarding my interest in the RPN calculators and it was from my 1985 stint at McDonnell Douglas in California. I was so impressed at the time by the HP-11C and the HP-15C Scientific calculators that I was standing in a store in Long Beach about to buy the cheaper HP-11C (it was on sale at around US$75) and I rationalized I could "amortize" the cost into my expenses at the time.  

History shows that I walked out of that camera store without a calculator.

Nine years would pass before I would buy my first RPN calculator, and I felt at the time that I had wasted a lot of time using tradional "algebraic" units, but finally my "Reverse Polish Notation" days had arrived (complete with steep learning curve). 

The impact on my generation of handheld calculators is huge, I started as an apprentice in 1974 and was advised to buy British Thornton draughtsman instruments and a slide rule, within eighteen months we were all encouraged (by the Ford Motor Company) to leave the slide rule behind and buy a CBM (Commodore Business Machines) SR7919 Scientific Calculator, and the company allowed us to have the cost deducted from our pay slips over twenty weeks.

I still have one of those too.

I'll talk more about calculators, and eBay acquisitions, in future posts.

Installing an SSD and Memory in a second NUC

The 240GB Intel 730 series SSD arrived, so today I installed it, and an extra 2GB of memory into another of the NUC6CAYS computers. The 2GB of ADATA memory was taken from the original NUC when I installed the matched pair of SK Hynix memory, so for this new NUC it will have a matched pair of ADATA memory for a total of 4GB.

I'm leaving the plastic on the NUC, my OCD about this sort of thing has long faded and I have no issue in treating these devices like Italian furniture.

Four screws and the hard drive tray is exposed.

Lift that tray up and pivot to the right without disconnecting the cables exposes the pre-installed 2GB of memory.

I simply place the second piece in the upper slot and click into place. On the left of the photo you can see the pre-installed Wi-Fi card and the attached antennas.

The SSD slides into place in the hard drive tray and clicks into place, the base is screwed back in.

Total time elapsed about five minutes, I expect it can all be done in a minute.

The NUC6CAYS is pre-installed with Windows 10 Home on a 32GB eMMC drive and the UEFI BIOS has a record of activation. The next steps are to wipe that eMMC drive (to free up 32GB of storage) and to re-install the operating system on the 240GB Intel SSD which will become the boot drive. I will then update the BIOS from within Windows 10 using the Intel utility. 

After all that I will leave Windows 10 alone for an hour or so to bring itself up to date. 

eBay Arrivals, February

Amazingly, February is drawing to a close and as I said last post, I am still waiting on a few items before I can continue with a couple of projects, so to fill in the time I thought I would highlight some of the eBay loot from the last week or so.

The first items are a couple of Intel NUC computers from the original source, I had bought one from him at the great price of C$148 shipped and he told me he had one more left, so even though I had no idea what I needed it for, I could not resist.

I have a use for one of them, it will become an emulation machine for my old game library, I will detail the progress in the blog when a couple of other components arrive.

If I rewind to a year ago, my passion was with Raspberry Pi computers, mostly model 3B although I had a couple of previous generation models during those education months, suffice to say I learned a lot from them, and then in the middle of 2019 my interests moved back towards full sized computers.

All the Raspberry Pi units have now been sold back into the eBay ecosystem, developing cash for the new crop of projects. This is the circle of life for my continuing learning process with technology.

The next few pieces of tech are more modest, but they will be used for various important projects in the coming months :

A used memory module for one of the NUC machines, they come with 2GB preinstalled and this is a matching unit for the second slot, it arrived by Canadapost lettermail, total price six bucks.

I'll put that in perspective, travelling back through time to the early 1990's when I bought my first 386 computer, RAM was something like C$90 a megabyte, so applying that rate the above quantity of memory back then would have been (grabs calculator) C$180000

Next arrivals were a couple of 2.5" hard drives, one 500GB conventional unit with moving platter and a 120GB solid state drive.

This used 500GB unit is destined for a desktop project as I want to make the NUC machines as quiet as possible. This was C$18.90 delivered, so if I rewind once again to my original 386 when an extra 100MB hard drive cost me two hundred bucks, this amount of storage back then would have cost me (grabs calculator again) a cool one million dollars....

I think I still have the receipt for that original computer, so at some point I will post it to the blog.

The last arrival came all the way from Denmark of all places.

Samsung 128GB Solid State Drive, no moving parts and (apparently) 6.0 Gbps speed. This unit will be used for some project, perhaps a boot drive for a desktop. The price, including shipping across the planet, was C$23.94 which was rather impressive.

So, that's it for current eBay arrivals, I am waiting for a few more things so that I can kickstart the new NUC builds, and I will keep the blog updated as they arrive.

Waiting for eBay

I started on eBay back in 1998 when it was a very different experience than it is today, the primary difference is that nowadays there is enormous competition and so, over the two decades, eBay has grown and changed to compete and in many ways, that has made the experience worse for small sellers like myself.

I still find eBay is a great place to buy, but not as great to sell.

The thing about having a hobby is to enjoy it, and my ongoing interest over the decades has been the tech side, or electronics in general, and I made a decision a while ago that I would attempt to make my hobby revenue neutral.

I would achieve this by selling items that I found in thrift stores, yard sales or at the Computer or Hamfest events, to generate cash to buy things that I wanted, often at good prices on eBay, even when shipping costs were taken into account. This has been a very good system and I hope to continue as long as it is viable, but as I say, eBay is not as great a place to sell as it used to be.

The fees have risen over the years, plus now fees apply to the shipping costs as well, a smart move for the eBay shareholders, but effectively squeezing profit margins for all the little guys.

But hey, that is life, so live with it.

I'm not attempting a rant about eBay, just saying how things have changed and it is a challenge to keep a tech hobby like mine at a no cost point, but I am mostly achieving that. The title of this blog entry is my current condition, waiting for Canada Post to deliver several items I have purchased on eBay so that I can progress current projects that are sitting on the bench.

The Dell D326T Power Supply is not like the other

I discussed lightly during the T1700 project that Dell build certain proprietary features into their computers, this is never an issue as they produce their identical machines in such vast numbers that spares will always be available.

The caveat is that using a Dell component in another build can often provide various hurdles to overcome.

Take the D326T power supply as an example, also known as the less sexy L255EM-00

The D326T is a solid beast, ATX sized power supply with one (quite short) 24 pin ATX motherboard connector, one 4 pin ATX CPU, one 4 pin FDD and four 15 pin SATA connectors. It supplies 255 Watts total and is rated as 80 Plus Silver.

But not one molex connector.

I did say it was ATX sized, but that is a little bit off, mainly as it is taller than a standard ATX power supply by an annoying amount. It will not fit (without modification) into a bog standard ATX case, and I mean a sort of standard case from five or ten years ago.

When compared to a standard older ATX power supply, the Dell unit on the left measures about the same width and length, but the height is noticeably deeper.

Actually one half inch deeper.

If you can live with the lower number of connectors, and the proprietary shorter length, then all is good. The power output is more than adequate for general computer use, and the 80 plus rating means it can consistantly perform.

The only problem is that it won't fit in most cases.

Memories....

Installing a PCIe mSATA Solid State Hard drive into an Intel NUC

While one of the newly acquired NUC6CAYS units is utilized as a TV box, it gives me a chance to upgrade the SSD drive, and operating system, in my oldest DC3217BY Intel NUC.

Difficulty : Easy

1. Remove the base plate, use a standard Phillips screwdriver and unscrew the four corner screws, they are retained in the base plate, lift the plate off and place to one side.

In this orientation, the PCIe slots are on the left and the memory slots on the right. There are two PcIe slots, one on top of the other. The upper is the mSATA solid state drive (SSD) held down by a single small Phillips head screw.

If we unscrew that, the SSD will pop up (make sure you don't lose the screw).

You can now see the WiFi card in the lower, shorter, slot.

With the mSATA drive removed you can see the Intel 512AN_HMW which is a PCIe WiFi link 5100 dual band card with two antenna connectors. Intel call this a PCIe Half Mini Card form factor. The Intel NUC comes preinstalled with the two antenna and they just clip on.

Installation of the higher capacity SSD is the reverse process, slide into the slot, push gently down and secure with the single screw.

That's it!

Replace the base plate.

Total time taken less than five minutes.

The next step is to install the operating system.

That's a wrap on another project.

Ok, now it's all over, a quick rundown of the specifications of the NUC and a brief explanation of certain terms.

• CPU: Intel Celeron J3455 CPU, quad-core, 1.5 GHz (2.3 GHz burst), 10W TDP
• GPU: Intel HD Graphics 500, 12 EUs, 250 MHz base frequency, up to 750 MHz
• Memory: 2 slots, up to 8 gigabytes of DDR3L-1600/1866, 1.35 V, dual-channel
• USB: 2 front USB 3.0 ports (one with fast charging), 2 rear USB 3.0 ports, 2 USB 2.0 headers on mainboard
• 2.5″ SATA slot: Single slot for a 2.5″ SATA SSD or HDD drive, max. height 9.5 mm
• Display connectivity: Full-size HDMI 2.0 port, VGA port
• Audio connectivity: 7.1 channel digital audio over HDMI, 3.5 mm headphone jack in front panel, 3.5 mm speaker/TOSLink connector in the rear panel
• Networking: Gigabit Ethernet (Realtek), 802.11ac m.2 2230-size WiFi card preinstalled, Bluetooth 4.2
• HDMI CEC: CEC header on the mainboard, TV on/off functionality supported without a separate CEC adapter
• Infrared: Infrared receiver in the front panel

The NUC I've been playing with is the NUC6CAYS which arrived preinstalled with Windows 10 Home on a 32 GB eMMC drive, and installed memory, out of the box was a single stick of DDR3L, 2GB at 1600 MHz.

TDP at 10W means that during normal use the CPU will give off a below average amount of heat, and there is a small, almost silent fan built in to exhaust it. This is one of the key things that make the lower powered NUCs excellent for a modest HTPC unit and of course, HDMI out and CEC will be compatible with most modern flat panel TVs.

Although I run with CEC disabled, I don't want my NUC turning off my TV when I switch devices.

I would say that this unit has the horsepower to run a 1080P signal without too much effort, and as I am an old tech geezer, 1080P is a wonderous thing, there's no need for anything higher in this household which is a good thing as I do not think the NUC6CAYS will be comfortable at 4K.

I won't discuss the 7.1 digital audio output, mainly as our use will always be HDMI audio to the TV with a pass through to the amplifier. 

It's been a happy week. I have installed some software, my music library and given this NUC a good test drive, It will now temporarily take the place of our DNS shielded NUC as I do some maintenance and a small upgrade. After that I will have to decide what NUC goes where which might be complicated by the fact I could not resist buying another in the last few days.

What is Apollo Lake?

The recent NUC6CAYS is an Apollo Lake based computer with a quad core 1.5 GHz Celeron J3455, at the time it was released it represented the lower-end of the performance spectrum for that architecture. It has an onboard graphics chip on the system board (motherboard) and that is Intel HD Graphics 500. This is "on-die" which fundamentally means that the graphics processing unit (GPU) is on the same die as the Central Processing Unit (CPU).

So, Apollo Lake, what does this odd Intel name calling mean?

Well, from what I understand, Apollo Lake was another of the multiple code names for Intel's generations of Core processors. The previous generation was called Braswell. I think we need a table of those generations.

Sandy Bridge
Ivy Bridge
Bay Trail
Haswell
Braswell
Apollo Lake

That's not the entire story of the six generations as Intel began confusing the issue even more starting at the Bay Trail point, but I expect it was all to do with low power options, after Apollo Lake the situation is even more confusing, but we're not there yet.

The second generation Ivy Bridge had a 22 nm lithography and Apollo Lake 14 nm. This basically means that for the same square-millimetre you could fit more transistors because the size of the transistors in Apollo Lake are smaller than the Ivy Bridge.

So, without reverting to misguided mathematics again, Apollo Lake would have significantly more transistors per square millimeter. This is where my limited technical knowledge of stuff comes in, after all, even if I expound on building computers for 28 years, in reality, I only assemble computers and have the "skill" to install operating systems, drivers and software.

It is not just about a bigger number.

It really should be about what the features of the different generations offer, and the sixth generation Apollo Lake NUC provides a wide array of better system features than the second generation Ivy Bridge. A few of those being improved graphics capability, support for faster RAM and SATA transfer speeds, faster USB speeds and more features. In other words, an overall product improvement from previous generations.

Which is what we would expect.

The Purpose of it all. NUC number three.

I'm sitting here at the moment, copying all my music files over to the NUC6CAYS which takes quite a while (there are about ninety gigabyte of files - plus I will be adding more) and thought I'd explain what the purpose of it all is.

The NUC, and many other PCs with HDMI output, can be attached to the home TV and become a HTPC and media server. HTPC stands for Home Theatre PC and if you look back to my entry from February 2016 you will see that I've been tinkering with them for around sixteen years now.

The first HTPC cost me a couple of thousand dollars and was far too noisy to be of any real joy, the case alone cost me C$200 which is about what I paid for the NUC6CAYS, Memory and SDD and the NUC is virtually silent.

Attaching a real computer to a big screen TV results in the ability to run everything you could expect from a modern PC or Laptop, however, these machines will not be running word processors, spreadsheets or anything like that, they will be running media programs that will play audio or video, they will be using browsers to stream music and video from the internet and they will do all of that without any annoying fan noise.

The big screen TV becomes the computer monitor and audio can be played either through the TV speakers or via the attached surround sound amplifier via HDMI audio.

A computer is no real use unless there is a keyboard and mouse attached, so I use one of these wireless devices for input :

Logitech K400r a keyboard and trackpad combination that communicates to the NUC via a small USB dongle.

NUC6CAYS conclusion

The installation of the memory and the solid state drive took little time, the initial setup and then the boot into a working Windows 10 Home system was also rapid, but let me put my critical hat on for a short while and discuss the "out of the box" appliance that is the NUC6CAYS.

In 2020, the 2GB RAM that arrives with the NUC is really not sufficient to run Windows 10 well, nor for that matter is the integrated 32GB eMMC drive actually big enough to be considered a boot drive and I really don't think it was adequate even back when this NUC was released in 2016. This was painfully apparent today during the first Windows update cycle when the update to build 1903 stalled and asked me to "free up some space" on the target drive, a drive that only had Windows 10 installed at the factory, nothing else.

I think Windows 10 will run in around 24 GB of RAM, but while updating requires temporary file space on the drive, so the NUC would have been better equipped if that soldered eMMC drive was 64 GB. However, it was an easy job to reinstall Windows from a USB drive and change the primary boot drive to the larger SSD.

I reinstalled Windows 10 Home onto the 240GB SSD which I made drive zero, the 32GB eMMC became drive one and will be used as a small media drive, I will also eventually add a large SD card to the external slot as drive two, more room for the media for the jukebox. The NUC now boots directly from the Kingston SSD.

At the time of writing, a 64GB class 10 SD card is available for around twenty bucks.

The final setup, before adding any programs, was to use the Intel Express BIOS update that is designed to be used on Windows systems from the desktop. This was available on the Intel NUC website and installation was straightforward.

On that topic, a review of the device manager showed that during the installation, and subsequent update process, every hardware driver had automatically been installed.

I like that.

The entire process, even with the subsequent installation of Windows onto the SSD, took only an hour or two, I would say the skill level required is low, but Intel had still not created an out of the box experience in 2016 that I would consider to represent an appliance. The NUC6CAYS is like a four slice toaster that needs some rewiring to actually toast four slices.

It is however, a cracking little machine and I will now load it up with all my audio and video media files and install my favourite players.

It does not toast bread by the way.

The Wi-Fi card

While the case was open I took a photo of the preinstalled Wi-Fi card.

It is an Intel model 3168NGW and it sits in the M.2 Slot with PCIe x1 lane. You can see the two antennas that clip onto the card.

The technical specifications of the card report that it has a 433 Mbps max speed, dual band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, 802.1ac Wi-Fi certified with a 4.2 Bluetooth version. It is another of those amazing little things with all that in a unit that measures 22mm x 30mm x 2.4mm (Hence the M.2 2230 designation) and weighs in at 2.4 grams.

Timetable of a NUC build

I've been building computers since 1992 and over the 28 years I have learned to take my time, savour the construction of a PC, debug and when I sold computers, deliver a fully functional machine to my customers, which were usually my workmates.

They called us home brewers back then.

The last project I detailed here on the blog took me around 10 days to complete, I took my time, there were certain technical challenges in placing a proprietary motherboard in another case, it was satisfying, I'll do it again, and again...

This morning, I thought I'd demonstrate the timeline of "building" a NUC. I started at 8.50am with this photo comparing the size of the NUC with the previous project case.

Another photo to show the NUC, the Kingston 240GB SSD and 4GB of DDR3L memory.

It was 9.00am and I thought I would start the build. To access the working end of the NUC there are four Phillips head screws holding the base, when opened the 2.5" hard drive caddy is lifted away, but not detached, to show the innards. This model of NUC came with a single 2GB stick of DDR3L memory, which I replaced with 2 pieces (matched) of 2GB DDR3L for a total of 4GB - interestingly I bought this memory from eBay and it was originally from a Macbook Pro Mid 2012 Laptop, total price including shipping was C$20.

It was a little fiddly to install the memory, mainly as I have big sausage fingers and the eyesight of Mister Magoo. The only difference I can see between this SKhynix memory for the Macbook and the PC variant is the nomenclature PB NA AA which appears to be PB NO AA for the PC. As a note, this NUC requires 1.35 Volt memory and the PC3L designation indicates that it is DDR3 memory and the lower voltage.

I took a photo of the wireless card, something I'll review later.

The memory installed, the SSD card installation was as simple as sliding it into the caddy and it clipped into place. If I'd installed a moving disk hard drive I would have secured with a couple of screws (belt and braces) but as the SSD has no moving parts the latch mechanism on the caddy is enough.

An entire five minutes had passed by as I screwed the base back on. As an ancient homebrewer I find that setting up the hardware on a NUC to be unfulfilling, although granted, I am not the target market for these "appliance" type computers.

I connected a wired keyboard, mouse and for initial setup, used the VGA graphics option. I selected F2 on startup and set the date and the time in the Intel visual BIOS, it was 9.09am. The build process had taken my big fat fingers less than ten minutes.

I played around with the various screens for about five minutes then saved the settings (it is always advisable to do this when first setting up a PC so that the BIOS is aware of the new memory and hard drive configuration) and then the machine booted into the Windows 10 Home start screens, asked for my wireless password and Microsoft account details. It was 9.23am and my NUC was complete!

Well, a little white lie there, Windows 10 will need to update a little, but I've found that process to be a lot more straightforward than it used to be, I expect the update process will take about an hour.

I will then update the NUC BIOS.

The Intel NUC Project, January 2020

This UCFF system kit, NUC6CAYS,  is based on the 6th generation Celeron-branded Apollo Lake SoC 14 nm processor family. It was launched in Q4/2016 so it is a few generations above my previous two NUCs.

This NUC will be the basis for the new project, it is different in many ways than the previous two, two unique differences being that it arrives with 2GB of RAM and a 32GB eMMC solid state drive that is preinstalled with Windows 10 Home. In theory it is ready to roll right out of the box.

The TDP on this processor is a mere 10 watts. Thermal Design Power is a guideline to the maximum heat that a processor will output (under normal operation) and is also an indicator of CPU efficiency.

There are other additions, there is Wifi and Bluetooth built in, USB 3.0 ports front and back, a memory card slot, dual microphones, VGA output as well as HDMI and as you can see on the second photo, an optical audio port with 7.1 Surround sound.

The NUC is also taller than my current models, because there is space for a 2.5" hard drive in there, in addition, the power button is no longer on the top of the unit, it is on the front of the case.

I will be adding extra RAM and a Kingston 240GB Solid State Drive (SSD) which will give me plenty of (quiet) storage space for this audio and video jukebox that I have been promising myself for years now. 

In the next few days I will document my progress with this new device. 

What is Ivy Bridge?

I will talk a little about that second NUC that I mentioned, it is an Ivy Bridge-based NUC DC3217IYE armed with a 1.8 GHz Core i3-3217U, at the time I purchased it represented the lower-end of the performance spectrum. It has an onboard graphics chip on the system board (motherboard) and that is Intel HD Graphics 4000. This is "on-die" which fundamentally means that the graphics processing unit (GPU) is on the same die as the Central Processing Unit (CPU).

So, Ivy-bridge, what does that mean?

Well, Ivy Bridge is the code name for Intel's second generation of Core processors. The previous generation was called Sandy Bridge. I have learned that Intel had what they called a "Tick-Tock" method of processor development and Ivy Bridge had a smaller physical size, and had more processing power than the previous generation.

When I say size, I mean die size, and the Sandy bridge had a die size of 32 nm (nanometer) and the next generation Ivy Bridge was 22 nm. This basically meant that for the same square-millimetre you could fit more transistors because the size of the transistors were smaller than the previous generation.

When I was at training school in the UK, we called them millimetres, not millimeters but regardless there are a million nanometers in a millimeter, so in a square millimeter, there would be 1E12 square nanometers. So, if you reduce the size of the transistor, you can fit a lot more transistors into the same space.

I can be shot down on this one, as I am indeed an "old tech geezer" but my misguided mathematics says that Sandy Bridge, at 32 nm would yield an estimated 1000 million transistors per square millimeter and Ivy Bridge, double that.

It depends on the actual CPU die size as well, so online it says that the die area of Ivy Bridge is 160 mm², it has a total transistor count of 1.48 billion, compared to the Sandy Bridge silicon, which has 1.16 billion transistors crammed into a die 216 mm² in area, built on the 32 nm process. Ivy Bridge has essentially the same layout as Sandy Bridge.

At this point, you're possibly wondering what the point is, but for me, I too am wondering about this "upgrade" and I can demonstrate that it gets worse. I would consider that with all those extra 27.5% transistors there must be an equivalent performance upgrade. So, as an example, my two existing NUCs run on an i3-3217U 1.80 GHz processor, which are Ivy Bridge "third generation" and that processor has a passmark "average CPU mark" score of 2306 and single thread rating of 901 

I do some digging and find it is difficult to find the equivalent low power Sandy Bridge processor which perhaps is something like the i3-2377m at 1.50 GHz which has a passmark of 1824, single thread 722, and an identical TDP of 17 Watts. If I factor the GHz up, that gives me a 1.80/1.50 x 1824 number of 2189 (866 single thread) which only seems to be a 5% increase in power for all that design effort between Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge.

Mind you, if we increase the Ghz then the TDP is going to rise, nevertheless, I am going to make my point....

I am sure an Intel boffin would explain the numerous ways that Ivy Bridge is far better than Sandy Bridge, but for the end user, I am sure that we don't expect that a "next generation" processor would only be about five percent increase in processing power than the previous one.

So much for Moore's law.....

The Intel NUC

The Intel NUC is a tremendous device, we already have two of them and they are used for streaming Canadian and worldwide content to our TV via HDMI. They are the core of our media setup and they have been extremely dependable and reliable.

The worldwide unit is a red, "Ivy Bridge" DC3217BY and is our oldest NUC from around 2014. It is still running a 32 bit Windows 8.1 (but can be upgraded to 64 bit Windows 10 free) and is shielded from geoblocking by a DNS rerouter service (C$50 a year) - this is the unit that we use to watch British TV "on demand" programs from the BBC and Channel 4. The processor is an Intel core i3-3217U at 1.8 GHz and it has integrated HD 4000 graphics. I added 4GB of ram, a wifi card and a 32GB solid state drive.

The dimensions of the NUC are 4.6" x 4.4" x 1.6", this isa tiny PC. It weighs a little over a pound.

At the time, I think the whole unit, including the RAM, WIFI and SSD cost me in the region of C$350 and it was an education to set up and even in those pioneering days of streaming, an amazing little machine.

The second unit is a black, "Ivy Bridge" DC3217IYE and was bought less than a year later. It is running 64 bit Windows 10 home. This is the unit that we use to watch Canadian TV "on demand" programs from the likes of Youtube, Netflix, Crave, Amazon, Reuters etc. The processor is an Intel core i3-3217U at 1.8 GHz and it has integrated HD 4000 graphics. I added 4GB of ram, a wifi card and a 64GB solid state drive. It was about a hundred dollars less than our original NUC and this model has a second HDMI output and a Gigabit Ethernet port. It does not however have the internal Thunderbolt connector of the original unit, although that is not a feature that we use.

I have no plans to improve either unit as they are still working very well at 1080p and what do they say? - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So instead of doing superfluous work on these two, I have purchased a later model, which is to be the basis of project NUC, 2020

Stay tuned.