NextSilicon’s Maverick-2: The Future Of High-Performance Computing?

February 20, 2026 by Maya Posch 5 Comments

A few months back, Sandia National Laboratories announced they had acquired a new supercomputer. It wasn’t the biggest, but it still offered in their eyes something unique. This particular supercomputer contains NextSilicon’s much-hyped Maverick-2 ‘dataflow accelerator’ chips. Targeting the high-performance computing (HPC) market, these chips are claimed to hold a 10x advantage over the best GPU designs.

NextSilicon Maverick-2 OAM-2 module. (Credit: NextSilicon)

The strategy here appears to be somewhat of a mixture between VLIW, FPGAs and Sony’s Cell architecture, with a dedicated compiler that determines the best mapping of a particular calculation across the compute elements inside the chip. Naturally, the exact details about the internals are a closely held secret by NextSilicon and its partners (like Sandia), so we basically have only the public claims and PR material to go by.

Last year The Register covered this architecture along with a more in-depth look. What we can surmise from this is that it should perform pretty well for just about all applications, except for single-threaded performance. Of course, as a dedicated processor it cannot do CPU things, which is where NextSilicon’s less spectacular RISC-V-based CPU comes into the picture.

What’s apparent from glancing at the product renders on the NextSilicon site is that these Maverick-2 chips have absolutely massive dies, so they’re absolutely not cheap to manufacture. Whether they’ll make more of a splash than Intel’s Itanium or NVIDIA’s brute force remains to be seen.

Cheap Writing Deck Eschews Distractions

February 20, 2026 by Lewin Day 10 Comments

A modern computer can be a great productivity tool. It can also be a great source of distractions. To solve that issue, [Quackieduckie] built the e-typer—a device for writing without distraction.

[Quackieduckie] refers to the device as a “low-cost e-ink typewriter” which lays out the basic mode of operation. It consists of a 4.2 inch e-ink screen, combined with an Orange Pi Zero 2W running the Armbian operating system. It’s set up to boot straight into a document editor so there’s no messing around with other software that could get in the way of productivity. The components are all wrapped up in a tidy 3D printed housing, which includes a foldable stand so you can prop the screen up wherever you happen to be working. [Quackieduckie] built the device to work with any USB-C keyboard, probably figuring that those eager to maximize productivity will already have the typing device of their dreams on hand. Code for the project is available on GitHub for those eager to replicate the build.

We’ve featured similar builds in the past, often referred to as “writing decks.” They’re becoming increasingly popular as people look for distraction-free, ad-free tech experiences. A great example is this clamshell design with an integrated keyboard. If you’re building your own productivity aids in your home lab, don’t hesitate to notify the tipsline!

Upgrading An Old Macbook With An Old Processor

February 8, 2026 by Bryan Cockfield 19 Comments

The Core Duo processor from Intel may not have been the first multi-core processor available to consumers, but it was arguably the one that brought it to the masses. Unfortunately, the first Core Duo chips were limited to 32-bit at a time when the industry was shifting toward 64-bit. The Core 2 Duo eventually filled this gap, and [dosdude1] recently completed an upgrade to a Macbook Pro that he had always wanted to do by replacing the Core Duo processor it had originally with a Core 2 Duo from a dead motherboard.

The upgrade does require a bit more tooling than many of us may have access too, but the process isn’t completely out of reach, and centers around desoldering the donor processor and making sure the new motherboard gets heated appropriately when removing the old chip and installing the new one. These motherboards had an issue of moisture ingress which adds a pre-heating step that had been the cause of [dosdude1]’s failures in previous attempts. But with the new chip cleaned up, prepared with solder balls, and placed on the new motherboard it was ready to solder into its new home.

Upon booting the upgraded machine, the only hiccup seemed to be that the system isn’t correctly identifying the clock speed. A firmware update solved this problem, though, and the machine is ready for use. For those who may be wondering why one would do something like this given the obsolete hardware, we’d note that beyond the satisfaction of doing it for its own sake these older Macbooks are among the few machines that can run free and open firmware, and also that Macbooks that are a decade or older can easily make excellent Linux machines even given their hardware limitations.

Continue reading “Upgrading An Old Macbook With An Old Processor” →

An Event Badge Re-Imagined As A Cyberdeck

February 2, 2026 by Jenny List 5 Comments

We’re used to handheld Linux devices of varying usefulness appearing on a regular basis, but there’s something about the one in a video from [Rootkit Labs] which sets it aside from the herd. It’s a fork of a conference badge.

The WHY2025 badge had pretty capable hardware, with an ESP32-P4, a really nice screen, and the lovely SolderParty keyboard. Here it’s been forked, to become a carrier board for their previous project, the Flipper Blackhat. This is a Linux add-on for the Flipepr Zero, and it seems that plenty of people wanted it in a more useful context. The result is something that looks a lot like a WHY badge, but running Linux.

It’s a great shame when badges end up lying unused after the event, and ones like the WHY 2025 badge are a serious effort to make something that endures. Here, the badge endures in spirit by being forked and re-engineered, and we like it a lot. The full video is below the break.

Continue reading “An Event Badge Re-Imagined As A Cyberdeck” →

Surviving The RAM Price Squeeze With Linux In-Kernel Memory Compression

January 31, 2026 by John Elliot V 42 Comments

You’ve probably heard — we’re currently experiencing very high RAM prices due mostly to increased demand from AI data centers.

If you’ve been priced out of new RAM you are going to want to get as much value out of the RAM you already have as possible, and that’s where today’s hack comes in: if you’re on a Debian system read about ZRam for how to install and configure zram-tools to enable and manage the Linux kernel facilities that enable compressed RAM by integrating with the swap-enabled virtual memory system. We’ve seen it done with the Raspberry Pi, and the concept is the same.

Ubuntu users should check out systemd-zram-generator instead, and be aware that zram might already be installed and configured by default on your Ubuntu Desktop system.

If you’re interested in the history of in-kernel memory compression LWN.net has an old article covering the technology as it was gestating back in 2013: In-kernel Memory Compression. For those trying to get a grip on what has happened with RAM prices in recent history, a good place to track memory prices is memory.net and if you swing by you can see that a lot of RAM has gone up as much as four times in the last three or four months.

If you have any tips or hacks for memory compression on other platforms we would love to hear from you in the comments section!

Crouching Typewriter, Hidden PC

January 30, 2026 by Tyler August 10 Comments

Go back a couple of generations, and rather than a laptop or a luggable, the office accessory of choice was a portable typewriter. As the 20th century wore on, the typewriter became electric before eventually being eclipsed by luggable and laptop computers. On YouTube, [Prototype] is turning back the clock, by turning an old Smith-Corona electric typewriter into a luggable computer– with a stretch goal of still being able to type.

Yeah, just gutting the typewriter and shoving an SBC inside wasn’t ambitious enough for [Prototype]: his goal is a working typewriter and an x86 gaming PC. To facilitate this, he guts the Smith-Corona keyboard, and 3D-prints a new top plate to add a little more vertical space in the old typewriter. The new top does recreate the original layout and the Corona switches get printed adapters to fit them to mechanical switches [Prototype] is using with a vibe-coded Arduino. Why one would bother with ChatGPT when QMK is right there, we could not say, but feel free to skip 6:20 to 15:00 if you’re watching the video but want to avoid that side quest.

Unfortunately, the “get the keyboard working” side-quest is either faked or deferred to video part II, which has not been posted yet. In this video he demonstrates that he can actuate a single hammer with a servo, but that’s a far cry from a working typewriter so, we’re really hoping he comes through on that promise in Part Two. Even if the build stops with just one hammer, that would give the tactile sound-and-feel that other builds turn to solenoids for. Squeezing a small-form-factor motherboard and graphics card into the old Smith-Corona is also going to be an interesting challenge. It’s certainly going to be a step up from using the keyboard as a terminal.

If you like this project but balk at the idea of destroying a working piece of vintage office equipment, it is possible to turn a typewriter into a USB keyboard non-invasively.

If you like this project at all, join us in thanking [Katie] for the tip. Not your cup of tea? Tell us what is, with a tip of your own. Continue reading “Crouching Typewriter, Hidden PC” →

Post-rampocalyptic Chip-Swap Provides Desktop Memory At Laptop Prices

January 27, 2026 by Tyler August 21 Comments

When you can buy something at a low price in one location, and sell it at a higher price somewhere else, you’re engaged in what economists call “arbitrage”. We’re not sure if desoldering DDR5 chips from laptop SO-DIMMs to populate a custom PCB to create much-more-expensive desktop memory counts as arbitrage, but it certainly counts as a hack. [VIK-on], who built the cards, claims he’s getting DDR5 performance at almost DDR3 prices. Nice!

Installed, the RAM apparently works well, though [VIK-on] has not shared benchmarks.

Specifically, he’s put together a 32 GB UDIMM from donor chips from two 16 GB SO-DIMMs. The memory chips themselves aren’t enough to make a stick of RAM, however: the part where we wish we had more details was in the firmware. The firmware identifies this DIY DIMM as an ADATA AX5U6500C3232G-DCLARWH, specifically. [VIK-on] is still performing stability tests, if those go well, we’re told to expect a how-to guide.

[VIK-on] is in Russia, so SO-DIMM rates may differ in your local market, but he claims walkaway costs of 17,015 ₽ — about $218 or €188, an astounding price for DDR5 in these dark days.

Some say soldering SIMMs seems severe, but hardly strange to Hackaday, and desperate times call for desperate measures. It’s ether that or optimize software, and who wants go to that effort?