General > General Technical Chat
Starting a new CompSci/Electronics career -need advice!
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tggzzz:

--- Quote from: dunkemhigh on September 08, 2022, 11:48:42 am ---
--- Quote ---If you think x86 processors are hardware, how do they, when powered down, detect and respond to "wake on LAN" packets to apply power to themselves to start operating again.
--- End quote ---

Well, they obviously aren't powered down - they are in a low-power state, presumably with the main processing stuff turned off. But, not knowing the internals of an x86 I am intrigued. How do they do it?

AFAIK there are a couple of ways:

1. They don't - the RTL whatever chip causes an interrupt which wakes  the CPU (or perhaps just dabs the 'wake up' soft button).

2. Some hardware bitstream monitor, no software involved (except for configuring).

3. The (not too secret now) separate onboard management processor does it all.

--- End quote ---

I presume, without having bothered to verify it, that the "secret" processor running Minix does it. Either way, it is sufficient to blow the simplisitic "it is obvious that x86 chips are hardware" concept out of the water. (That plus the behaviour modified after installation, for fixing "inappropriate behaviour")

It is all shades of grey, with no clear distinction between hardware and software :)
coppice:

--- Quote from: tggzzz on September 08, 2022, 12:01:16 pm ---
--- Quote from: coppice on September 08, 2022, 11:32:15 am ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on September 08, 2022, 09:18:23 am ---In the UK, as far as I can make out, there is little tendency to stay at home.

--- End quote ---
Pretty much, with one big exception - London. There are a lot of people going to places like Imperial and UCL who live at home. Even if you don't live at home, you are probably commuting a considerable distance to college each day at those places. They have very little student accommodation of their own, and anything nearby is fearfully expensive.

--- End quote ---

I lived on the very edge of London (there were iron tax posts in common land indicating that!). I didn't even look at the very good courses in IC or UCL because it would have been sensible for me to stay at home.

--- End quote ---
I went to UCL and about half my friends there lived at home. I have no idea how representative that is, but people I know who went to other universities were pretty much amongst 100% people living away from home. So, even one group being 50% home students seemed like a big contrast. That was in the 70s. Costs have risen faster in London than elsewhere, to I assume the percentage of home students may have risen. I lived in with my parents in Enfield, and commuted about an hour each way.

We now live in a village near York. My son is currently at York Uni, and drives in each day. I don't think he knows anyone else living at home, and he can me sure only a handful of undergrads drive into college. Even though we are only about 8 miles from the uni he was going to live in a hall of residence, because wifey through it might increase his independence. COVID stopped that in his first year, and he has settled into spending the whole 4 years at home.
tggzzz:

--- Quote from: coppice on September 08, 2022, 12:12:24 pm ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on September 08, 2022, 12:01:16 pm ---
--- Quote from: coppice on September 08, 2022, 11:32:15 am ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on September 08, 2022, 09:18:23 am ---In the UK, as far as I can make out, there is little tendency to stay at home.

--- End quote ---
Pretty much, with one big exception - London. There are a lot of people going to places like Imperial and UCL who live at home. Even if you don't live at home, you are probably commuting a considerable distance to college each day at those places. They have very little student accommodation of their own, and anything nearby is fearfully expensive.

--- End quote ---

I lived on the very edge of London (there were iron tax posts in common land indicating that!). I didn't even look at the very good courses in IC or UCL because it would have been sensible for me to stay at home.

--- End quote ---
I went to UCL and about half my friends there lived at home. I have no idea how representative that is, but people I know who went to other universities were pretty much amongst 100% people living away from home. So, even one group being 50% home students seemed like a big contrast. That was in the 70s. Costs have risen faster in London than elsewhere, to I assume the percentage of home students may have risen. I lived in with my parents in Enfield, and commuted about an hour each way.

We now live in a village near York. My son is currently at York Uni, and drives in each day. I don't think he knows anyone else living at home, and he can me sure only a handful of undergrads drive into college. Even though we are only about 8 miles from the uni he was going to live in a hall of residence, because wifey through it might increase his independence. COVID stopped that in his first year, and he has settled into spending the whole 4 years at home.

--- End quote ---

I was at uni in the mid 70s. The thought of an hour commuting on the tube was enough to discourage me from applying for a job at the Hirst Research Centre in Wembley!

A relative is living at home while going to Nottingham uni. That decision was nothing to do with covid, but I suspect was more of a delayed action subtle side effect of having a sibling die of leukaemia. Covid meant he took a year off university, which was almost certainly a sensible decision.
coppice:

--- Quote from: tggzzz on September 08, 2022, 12:33:15 pm ---The thought of an hour commuting on the tube was enough to discourage me from applying for a job at the Hirst Research Centre in Wembley!

--- End quote ---
That discouraged you, and not the thought of working at Hirst? Weird.  ;)
tggzzz:

--- Quote from: coppice on September 08, 2022, 12:46:47 pm ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on September 08, 2022, 12:33:15 pm ---The thought of an hour commuting on the tube was enough to discourage me from applying for a job at the Hirst Research Centre in Wembley!

--- End quote ---
That discouraged you, and not the thought of working at Hirst? Weird.  ;)

--- End quote ---

Nice snark :)

The milk round made me realise why I didn't want to work for GEC. Hirst wasn't the "normal" GEC, but was still very gloomy internally! Not a difficult decision to make.
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