Jekyll2024-01-29T15:23:13-06:00https://www.xtof.info/feed.xmlXtoF’s LairPosts from a modern and retro developer, and also amateur photographer.XtoFHow software AV1 video decoding affects battery consumption on Macbook Pro2023-10-31T17:30:00-05:002023-10-31T17:30:00-05:00https://www.xtof.info/AV1-decoding-energy-usageXtoFAV1 is the codec preferred by Internet streaming services for serving videos. But not every SoC comes with a hardware decoder. What is the cost, in terms of power usage and battery consumption, of using an AV1 software decoder?Intel 80386, a revolutionary CPU2023-09-02T09:30:00-05:002023-09-02T09:30:00-05:00https://www.xtof.info/intel80386XtoFThe 80386 is the most important CPU Intel ever produced. It confirmed the importance of the x86 line and sparked a computing revolution. And yet it almost never saw the light of day. This is the history of the 386 and why it was such a landmark.Apple M2 Pro vs AMD 3950X2023-03-12T13:00:00-05:002023-03-12T13:00:00-05:00https://www.xtof.info/M2-vs-3950XXtoFThis article compares the performance of a Macbook Pro running on an Apple Silicon M2 Pro against a PC Desktop running on an AMD Ryzen 3950X. Application tests are done using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, and a voluminous code base is compiled.Inside Windows 32023-01-12T17:00:00-06:002023-01-12T17:00:00-06:00https://www.xtof.info/inside-windows3XtoFWindows 3 is often said to be just an UI on top of DOS. This article presents some of the inner side of Windows 3.x and will show that it is more ambitious and advanced than that.Sometimes, emulation is not enough2022-12-05T16:45:00-06:002022-12-05T16:45:00-06:00https://www.xtof.info/sometimes-emulation-is-not-enoughXtoFWhen developing a homebrew for an old computer or console, it is important to regularly test it on the real machine. Why? Because emulators are often not 100% accurate and you can miss important bugs.Timing on the PC family under DOS2022-02-26T17:00:00-06:002022-02-26T17:00:00-06:00https://www.xtof.info/Timing-on-PC-familly-under-DOSXtoFTechniques for timing on the IBM PC family under MS-DOS, and many related subjects. Sample functions and programs are included. This article is a repost of a piece by Kris Heidenstrom from the mid-90s.Rendering 3D animations on early PCs from the 90s2021-10-28T07:00:00-05:002021-10-28T07:00:00-05:00https://www.xtof.info/rendering-3d-animations-on-early-pcs-from-the-90sXtoFA presentation of the 3D short movies I produced on PC more than twenty years ago, using 3D Studio on MS-DOS then 3DS Max on Windows NT. What was it like to model and raytrace during those early days? The videos can be watched in all their glory from the 90s.Loading a modern image on an Amiga 5002021-01-24T06:00:00-06:002021-01-24T06:00:00-06:00https://www.xtof.info/loading-a-modern-image-on-an-amiga500XtoFAmiga computers were renown for their graphical capacities. But they do not represent images in memory as modern computer do. Is it possible to load a modern image on an Amiga 500? This post explores some low-level aspects of Amiga graphics and present some conversion applications.Migrating from WordPress to Jekyll2020-12-31T10:30:00-06:002020-12-31T10:30:00-06:00https://www.xtof.info/migrating-from-wordpress-to-jekyllXtoFI just migrated this blog from WordPress to Jekyll. What are the advantages of Jekyll? The migration process is detailed, step by step. It is not as difficult as we could imagine.Archiving on cold storage2020-09-05T09:47:43-05:002020-09-05T09:47:43-05:00https://www.xtof.info/archiving-on-cold-storageXtoFpyArchiver is a script dedicated to archiving huge volume of data into cold storage. But what is cold storage? How is an archive different from a backup?