How worried should I be about my chipped tooth? [more inside]
posted by Riki tiki on May 21, 2009 - 11 answers

I seem to have chipped a tiny bit of my upper-left wisdom tooth. My dental insurance also ran out a month ago. Now what? [more inside]
posted by special-k on Nov 29, 2008 - 16 answers

How can I make chip shop chips at home? [more inside]
posted by ericthegardener on Feb 6, 2008 - 24 answers

Where can I find covers of popular songs done in the style of c64/amiga/mod/xm etc? [more inside]
posted by anonymous on Jan 5, 2008 - 9 answers

This morning, my wacom tablet (graphire 2) sytlus stopped working, and I would like to fix it until I can buy a new tablet [more inside]
posted by Iananan on Aug 23, 2007 - 5 answers

What's best chip & memory bang for my buck? For my upcoming laptop purchase, any reason to upgrade the configuration from an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.66GHz 2M L2 Cache to something speedier like the Intel Core 2 Duo 2.00GHz 4M L2 Cache ($140 upgrade at Dell)? Is there a noticable difference? And, what's the ideal amount of memory? 2.0GB DDR2 SDRAM ($195 upgrade from 1GB at Dell)?... I'm inclined to skip the chip upgrade and get the extra RAM. Do you agree? What sort of use would necessitate the faster chip...gaming? No hi-graphics games for me. I just like my apps and my Web pages to load fast and tolerate multiples open simultaneously. And I'm not all that interested in a Vista upgrade...
posted by timnyc on Jan 26, 2007 - 16 answers

Computer chip process size: 130 nm -> 90 nm -> 65 nm. Why do we need to keep making it smaller? Why can't we just make the chips bigger? [more inside]
posted by chrismear on Nov 1, 2006 - 18 answers

Is the atom chip vaporware? [more inside]
posted by blueyellow on Jan 6, 2006 - 4 answers

I just got an xBox specifically to mod it out but I'm a bit lost. It appears as if I don't even need a physical mod chip but is that really true. If this is so what's the use of them? [more inside]
posted by Napierzaza on Aug 17, 2005 - 16 answers

Request for music recommendations! I'm looking for more music similar to Beck's Hell Yes EP and bands like Treewave and old school Nintendo music, but not campy "hey, I sampled a video game!" type stuff like Richard D. James's Powerpill Pacman. You know, stuff that's true to the SID chip and isn't kitschy and maybe has some vocals. Whacha got?
posted by mcsweetie on Feb 21, 2005 - 20 answers

fab-4 - what does it mean? Is that where Intel made the 4004?
posted by Kwantsar on Dec 10, 2004 - 5 answers

Does anyone know where I can find/order wasabi-flavored potato chips? [mi] [more inside]
posted by aramaic on May 28, 2004 - 6 answers

How do microchips work?

I understand it at a very basic level. I know that when you apply current to a semiconductor, it becomes conductive, and that this closes the gate in a transistor. By opening or closing the right gates, you're able to do basic counting and logical operations.

Here though, my conceptual model totally falls apart. Because try as I might, I can't get my head around exactly what it is that controls the current going to the semiconductor in the gate in the first place. How does the microprocessor know to open or close a particular gate? It seems like if it already knew to open or close a gate, then the operation has already been done. It's like you'd need another microprocessor controlling the current within the first microprocessor, and so an and so on back to some omniscient prime mover.
posted by willnot on Apr 12, 2004 - 13 answers

I got an Xbox for christmas, and I have been googling for Xbox hacks, and looking around I see a lot of people saying different things about it. Should I get a mod chip? Should I go with the software hack? Is there ways to hack the Xbox without resorting to using a pinout to plug a USB device into the controller? Who here hacks their Xbox? [more inside]
posted by Keyser Soze on Dec 29, 2003 - 8 answers