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US inflation surges to 3.3% as Iran war fuels energy price shock

https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/04/10/us-inflation-surges-to-33-as-iran-war-fuels-energy-p...
1•geox•32s ago•0 comments

Amazon ending support for older Kindles

https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/08/amazon-to-end-support-for-older-kindle-devices-2012/
1•eggy•1m ago•0 comments

AI on the couch: Anthropic gives Claude 20 hours of psychiatry

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/04/why-anthropic-sent-its-claude-ai-to-an-actual-psychiatrist/
1•Levitating•3m ago•1 comments

'Survivor' Style Corporate Retreat Descends into Hellish Nightmare

https://www.thedailybeast.com/survivor-style-corporate-retreat-descends-into-hellish-nightmare/
1•cainxinth•3m ago•0 comments

Cerebras Is Coming to AWS

https://www.cerebras.ai/blog/cerebras-is-coming-to-aws
3•jbredeche•4m ago•0 comments

Mauna Loa Solar Observatory Reopens to Support Artemis II Mission

https://www.meteorologicaltechnologyinternational.com/news/space-weather/mauna-loa-solar-observat...
1•lgeorget•5m ago•0 comments

US summons bank bosses over cyber risks from Anthropic's latest AI model

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/10/us-summoned-bank-bosses-to-discuss-cyber-risks...
1•ascold•5m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Why Databases Instead of Filesystem?

2•uticus•5m ago•1 comments

Ask HN: Will we ever do something about patent trolls?

2•giancarlostoro•7m ago•0 comments

Fewer than 3 in 10 register for HMRC's Making Tax Digital shake-up

https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/10/mtd_hmrc/
1•Brajeshwar•7m ago•0 comments

Claude Mythos and misguided open-weight fearmongering

https://www.interconnects.ai/p/claude-mythos-and-misguided-open
1•speckx•9m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: How do designers and marketers use Command Line? AI? Technical tools?

1•vietthan•9m ago•0 comments

How do you and your team manage secrets day to day?

1•markvm•10m ago•0 comments

The Chilling Role of ChatGPT in Mass Shootings and Other Violence

https://www.motherjones.com/media/2026/04/chatgpt-tumbler-ridge-fsu-openai-chatbots-mass-shootings/
1•cdrnsf•12m ago•0 comments

Powell, Bessent discussed Mythos cyber threat with major U.S. banks

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/10/powell-bessent-us-bank-ceos-anthropic-mythos-ai-cyber.html
2•kaycebasques•13m ago•1 comments

Propulsion and Energy Physicist Photos at Deep Tech Week NYC 2026

https://www.flickr.com/photos/timventura/albums/72177720333020849/
1•timventura•13m ago•1 comments

The growth metric Silicon Valley loves most is also its least trusted

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-04-07/growth-metric-silicon-valley-loves-most-is-also...
2•1vuio0pswjnm7•13m ago•0 comments

The effects of caffeine consumption do not decay with a ~5 hour half-life

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vefsxkGWkEMmDcZ7v/the-effects-of-caffeine-consumption-do-not-deca...
5•swah•13m ago•1 comments

Show HN: LightningWindowSwitcher – search for open windows on macOS/Win

https://lightningwindowswitcher.com/
1•afonso_soares•14m ago•0 comments

A Chicago Fan's Recordings of 10k Music Shows Are Now Online

https://blockclubchicago.org/2026/04/10/from-early-nirvana-to-phish-a-chicago-fans-secret-recordi...
2•xnx•15m ago•0 comments

Most Americans are using AI but are sick and tired of hearing about it: survey

https://nypost.com/2026/04/09/tech/most-americans-are-using-ai-but-people-are-sick-and-tired-of-h...
2•1vuio0pswjnm7•15m ago•0 comments

Journalists, whistleblowers and activists should set a Dead Man's Switch

https://alcazarsec.com/deadmanswitch/use-cases/journalists
1•alcazar•17m ago•0 comments

Rethinking the Riemann Hypothesis through wave interactions (Flux perspective)

https://zenodo.org/records/19450903
2•kimhanhee•18m ago•0 comments

Show HN: AI Readiness Checker – See how AI bots interact with your website

https://zerokit.dev/tools/ai-readiness.html
1•SCbusiness•19m ago•0 comments

EU Big Tech fines top $7B in 2 years

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/10/google-meta-big-tech-6-billion-euros-eu-fine.html
3•1vuio0pswjnm7•19m ago•0 comments

Founders, Open Your App

https://timleland.com/founders-open-your-app/
1•TimLeland•19m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Zeroclawed: Secure Agent Gateway

https://github.com/bglusman/zeroclawed
3•bglusman•19m ago•0 comments

Is Schoolwork Optional Now?

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/04/ai-agents-school-education/686754/
1•JumpCrisscross•20m ago•0 comments

A full-on embrace: how the EU's largest news publisher fell in love with the US

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/apr/08/how-axel-springer-germany-mathias-doepfner-us-polit...
1•doener•21m ago•0 comments

Proton: Born Private

https://proton.me/mail/born-private
2•qkc3p3Jbf4•21m ago•1 comments
Open in hackernews

Intel 486 CPU announced April 10, 1989

https://dfarq.homeip.net/intel-486-cpu-announced-april-10-1989/
64•jnord•1h ago

Comments

fabiensanglard•1h ago
The 486 killer app was DOOM. It was butter-smooth at 20 fps if you also had a VLB graphic card.

The 486 DX2 66MHz was the target platform for gaming during almost two years (1992-1994). That was an huge achievement back in the days to be at the top that long.

throwaway_20357•1h ago
Doom was released end of '93. In 1992 most of us were in the 286 -> 386 upgrade wave and a 486-33 was easily at $2.5k+ ($5.5k in today's terms). The 486 DX2 66 was a good choice even 1994-1996.
simmons•51m ago
Yes, the latest chips were very expensive back then, and out of reach for most people who would continue buying new computers with older chips. (As opposed to how most people today buy an iPhone or a Mac or whatever with the latest semiconductor technology.) I got my 25MHz 386 in 1991, over two years after the 486 was announced, and I had one of the fastest computers of anybody in school... for a short time.
blitzar•1h ago
They need to bring back the turbo button.
einr•1h ago
You’re in luck!

https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/computer-chas...

blitzar•1h ago
How could I possibly forget the lock!
einr•1h ago
The DX/2 66 is a true legend of a chip. It was so good. The final nail in the coffin for the Amiga and for 68k. I love the Amiga, but it just didn’t Doom.

Before it, you could claim that a 68040 was kinda-sorta keeping up with the 486 and that the nicer design and better operating systems of other computers made up for the delta in raw performance, but the DX/2 66 running Doom was the final piece of proof that the worse-is-better approach of using raw CPU grunt to blast pixels at screen memory instead of relying on clever custom circuitry was winning.

Faced with overwhelming evidence, everyone sold their Amiga 1200s and jumped ship to that hated Wintel platform.

darkwater•59m ago
At that point in time I would not have called it Wintel yet. That started after Windows 95, IIRC.
whizzter•58m ago
As I noted in my other comment (1), in 1985 Amiga OCS bitplane graphics (separate each bits of a pixel index into separate areas) was a huge boon in 2d capability since it lowered bandwidth to 6/8ths but made 3d rendering a major pain in the ass.

The Aga chipset of the 1200/4000 stupidly only added 2 more bitplanes. The CD32 chip actually had byte-per-pixel (chunky) graphics modes but the omission from the 1200 was fatal.

Reading in hindsight there was probably too many structural issues for Commodore to remain competitive anyhow, but an alt-history where they would've seen the needs for 3d rendering is tantalizing.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47717334

einr•55m ago
The CD32 chip actually had byte-per-pixel (chunky) graphics modes but the omission from the 1200 was fatal.

I agree. Unfortunately, even with chunky graphics and/or 3D foresight, 68k would still have been a dead end and Commodore would still have been mismanaged into death. It’s fun to dream though…

actionfromafar•42m ago
There were no tech problems IMHO, it was all mgmt problems. They could have chosen a handful of completely different tech paths and still have won, but instead they chose to do almost nothing except bleeding the company dry.
feintruled•40m ago
> The Aga chipset of the 1200/4000 stupidly only added 2 more bitplanes. The CD32 chip actually had byte-per-pixel (chunky) graphics modes but the omission from the 1200 was fatal.

The intention was good, but the Akiko chip was functionally almost useless. It was soon surpassed by CPU chunky to planar algorithms. I don't think it was ever even used in any serious way by any released games (though it might have been used to help with FMV).

TMWNN•20m ago
Commodore so slowly and ineffectually improving on the OCS didn't help, but the original sin of the Amiga was committed in the beginning, with planar graphics (i.e., slow and hard to work with, even setting aside HAM) and TV-oriented resolutions/refresh rates (i.e., users needing to buy a "flicker fixer"). It's like they looked at one of the most important reasons for the PC and Mac's success—a gorgeous, rock-solid monochrome display—and said "Let's do exactly the opposite!"
whizzter•1m ago
Iirc interlaced display and 6 bitplanes were a compromise to allow color graphics in 1985 with the memory bandwidths available at the time.

If it's a sin or feature can of course be debated but I remember playing games on an Amiga in the early 90s and until Doom the graphics capabilities didn't look outdated.

By 1992 with AGA however I agree, flicker and planar graphics(with 8 bitplanes any total memory bandwidth gains were gone) was a downside/sin that should've been fixed to stay relevant.

gattr•56m ago
My classmate kept his Amiga 1200 a bit longer! ...eventually he got a PC with Pentium 60 MHz.
einr•53m ago
Yeah, there were holdouts of course but the DX/2 really seems like the breaking point.

(Also, a Pentium 60 is barely faster than a DX/2 66 at many tasks — it is a Bad Processor — but that’s another conversation ;)

Synaesthesia•9m ago
Pentium is a bad processor? It's way faster than 486, especially on FP it's not even close.
Sheeplator•4m ago
The Pentium was great, but the 60 and 66MHz versions were not liked, they ran way too hot.
icedchai•49m ago
Yep. 486DX/2 was when I started seriously looking at moving on from the Amiga. I wound up with a DX/4 100 sometime in 1994.
bombcar•21m ago
I remember arguments (and benchmarks) around all the variations of the 486 since the bus speed/clock speed was uncoupled (the /2 is clock doubling). For some applications, a 50Mhz 486 with a 50Mhz bus would beat a DX/2 66Mhz with a 33Mhz bus.

And sometimes the DX/4 100Mhz would be slowest of all those at 25Mhz bus.

Sheeplator•6m ago
Nearly correct. The DX/4 100MHz had a 33MHz bus. The DX/4 75MHz had the 25MHz bus. I remember well because I had both.
bombcar•28s ago
Now I remember being annoyed that it wasn't the DX/3 as it should have been!
esafak•31m ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_Local_Bus for the younger crowd.
roody15•1h ago
I remember getting my first 486 33mhz computer and being able to play Ultima 7 the black gate, and later Ultima 7 part 2. This was a turning point for me as the game was way ahead of others on the console side of things. DOS 6 !
whizzter•1h ago
I think the turning-point was that flat-framebuffers and plenty of CPU-power for the first time eclipsed specialized 2d hardware (Amiga,Megadrive, Snes, etc).

Flat framebuffers and "powerful" CPU's also enabled easier software rendering (Doom/Duke) of 3d, compared to the Amiga where writing textured rendering for an Amiga is a PITA due to video memory layout with separted bitplanes spreading bits of each pixel into different memory locations (the total memory bandwidth reduction in 1985 by using 5 or 6 bitplanes became a fatal bottleneck at this point).

It wasn't really always full framerate though and the 2d chipsets did help in "classic" actiongames that were still much in the rage.

The Pentium further widened the gap, but at the same time consoles gained hardware 3d acceleration (PSX/Saturn/Jaguar) yet the Pentium could do graphics better in some respects (As shown with Quake).

Once 3d accelerators landed, PC's has more or less constantly been ahead apart from when it comes to price (and comfort/ease).

loloquwowndueo•1h ago
We ran a 3-line BBS (Renegade and then Wildcat) on OS/2 on a 486-33 with 12 MB RAM. This was in 1994 or so. Great way to multitask several dos applications!
skerit•1h ago
It comes over as so incredibly insane to me that people from the late 80s (people working with computers! Reporting on them!) would look at their current technology stack and basically go: "I have no idea whatsoever what else we can do with these things, we've reached the end"

The lack of imagination is just disturbing.

ahartmetz•52m ago
On the other end, you have people who have no idea how insanely fast computers are today, and how little computing power is "really" needed for most things that computer users do - or how much you can do with one average machine ("Oh no, 1000 requests per second - let's erect another rube goldberg machine to handle that!").
bombcar•26m ago
The 80s and 90s were filled with new things computers could do - spreadsheets, wysiwyg word processors, games - things that simply were impossible before (or not done).

In the 2000s through now we've mostly had improvements - 4k Youtube is much better than realplayer, but it's still just "online video". AI is definitely a "new" thing and it's somewhat awoken a similar spirit to the 80s/90s - but not the same breadth. Dad bringing home a computer because he wants to do spreadsheets and you finding it can run DooM or even play music.

TMWNN•25m ago
The first 80286-based system (IBM PC AT), 80386 (Compaq Deskpro 386), and 80486 all had people writing about their suitability as servers, with the consensus's implication being that normal people didn't need them.

The Pentium is the first one, I think, that this didn't happen, because by then it turned out that people need a computer that can do what they are currently doing—but faster—much more often than they need servers.

christkv•1h ago
486 SX 33Mhz, could not afford the DX
bluebarbet•43m ago
My experience too, as I dimly remember it.
bombcar•24m ago
The 486 SX was a fine chip, just no math copro.

The 386 SX was a crap, 16 bit wide bus IIRC.

mauriciolange•14m ago
Ahhh but it gave me the opportunity to ran real programs, coming from an XT! *Edited to add an example: I could for the first time use AutoCAD. The price difference between a 286 and a 386SX was negligible, but the software I could use, was other league.
welfare•54m ago
How was the person incorrect that speed increases won't continue forever? Pentium 4 was 3.8GHz and Ryzen 7 has 4.7Ghz some 20 odd years later?
bombcar•25m ago
Clock speeds used to be going up in a straight line (the normal "interpretation" of Moore's law) - but once the P4 hit a (kind of useless 3.8GHz) we leveled off for decades.
scrlk•17m ago
More specifically, it was the end of Dennard scaling [0] that killed off the growth in clock speeds.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennard_scaling

phplovesong•37m ago
Uuh! I recall i had this setup, not in 89, but sometime in the early 90s.

Played some awesome games, like DOOM, Wolfenstein. Later duke3d was the shit. But i cant remember if i run on the same setup or something newer.

markbnj•20m ago
I've got one sitting on the shelf above my desk, a 33 Mhz dx, I don't even remember what machine it came out of.