Since the first time that I saw this here in HN I've been sharing it with several people around me. This including CS students, CS professors and non-technical people who only asked "how does a computer work?". I only say "just type 'cpu.land' and read that". This is one of the best things that I've found here.
Meanwhile, companies are taking the "You" out of the CPU so they can control your hardware and by indirection, you.
How?
Secure boot etc. It's in every ARM device, including the management engines in x64 devices (which are ARM devices).
Oh, I see.
Fortunely there is still x86
There is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine
Anyway, it will be maybe a few years until the governments will get the idea of enforcing their own management engines into our hardware :/
> Oh, I see.
No, you don't.
Because of the SMI/ACPI/Intel Management Engine/AMD Secure Technology/UEFI, and optionally AMT-complex, where usually only parts of can be deactivated partially, but never all of it.
It's actually more bad than the above mentioned ARM-stuff, which is misinformed(maybe because of raspberry piish broadcomisms, or locked down dumbphones), because on ARM, you either can disable that stuff, or even can run your own instead.
I think this is a good overview for most people, this is probably what they want.
For me personally I was surprised given the name that very little is about cpus and most of the material is in the operating system.
I guess I gotta write one about CPUs now ;)
> The bottom of every page is padded so readers can maintain a consistent eyeline.
God bless
Great introduction to programming fundamentals as well.
Being able to explain something this simply usually requires a very good understanding of the entire subject.
Great presentation.
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