Back in time #33: dual-core CPUs, browser selection screens and OVpay tests

Dozens of news items appear on Tweakers every day, but when we write we rarely know how the products, techniques and developments we discuss will end. In this section we read old messages and see what happened next.

For the 33rd edition of Back in Time we rummage through the archives of the month of June from 2004, 2009 and 2014. We see how AMD developed its first dual-core CPU and how the EU enforced a browser selection screen in Windows 7, and discuss how the NS and banks started a trial with an early version of OVpay, which allows travelers to check in on public transport with their bank card.

Twenty years ago: dual-core processors, open source software and Half-Life 2 arrests

Nowadays, if you build a modern PC, you quickly accept a processor with six, eight or perhaps more cores. Twenty years ago, in 2004, things were different. Single-core CPUs were still the norm at the time, although manufacturers were already taking steps to change that. For example, AMD completed the design phase of its first dual-core processor in June 2004.

The manufacturer said at the time that the first of those CPUs would appear on the market about a year later. Initially, this mainly concerned multicore Opteron CPUs for servers; desktop chips would hit the market later in 2005. They would be made on a 90nm process, about which AMD also shared the first details twenty years ago. This node had to be considerably faster than the previous 130nm chips and of course also considerably more economical and take up less space.

Nowadays, CPUs almost standardly have more than one core and often more than two. It was also AMD that took that step. For years, consumer processors were stuck with quad cores, with four cores. The tone was set by Intel. It was only with the introduction of AMD's Ryzen processors in 2017 that CPUs with up to eight and later sixteen cores became available on a consumer platform.

The 90nm process is also, as you might expect, quite outdated. Although AMD no longer has its own chip factories, the company's upcoming Ryzen 9000 processors will be produced on TSMC's 4nm process. Later, AMD could switch to TSMC N3, which Apple now also uses in its Apple Silicon socks and Intel is having its Lunar Lake processors produced this year.

IIn component country there were more advances in June 2004. For example, Intel released the source code of EFI, or Extensible Firmware Interface. It would be the successor to the BIOS that manufacturers have so far used as firmware for their motherboards. EFI had to offer manufacturers the option to modularly expand the firmware with additional services. Releasing the source code was supposed to promote adoption, as many manufacturers were still building on BIOS. However, things did not immediately turn out well after that. In 2006, Intel called on manufacturers to hurry up with the introduction of EFI and the phasing out of BIOS. Nowadays many systems use UEFI, a variant of EFI.

Twenty years ago we also wrote about arrests surrounding the iconic game Half-Life 2. Just under a year earlier, the source code of that game had been partly leaked. That started in October 2003, when Valve boss Gabe Newell discovered that the source code of his game was on the Internet. It turned out that Valve's computer network had been broken into, and the source code of the then unreleased title was stolen. This happened via a leak in Windows, it turned out.

More than six months later, in mid-2004, 'several arrests' were made regarding the theft. A German hacker was ultimately sentenced to a two-year suspended prison sentence. Years later he told his story to Eurogamer, among others.

Nowadays paying with your phone is indispensable, but that was far from the case at the beginning of this millennium. The road has already been worked on. In June 2004, the Ministry of Economic Affairs wanted to encourage payments via the Internet. The then economy minister in the Netherlands, Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, stated that year that consumers would like to do this, but refrain from doing so for safety reasons. Digital payments were also supported in few places. A project group was set up to promote this. Several banks, vendors, telecom and IT companies agreed to cooperate.

Twenty years ago, politics was more concerned with technology. In June 2004, the German government indicated that it was concerned about monopolies in the search engine market. In 2004, the market was already dominated by a limited number of players: Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. The government was concerned, among other things, about the ability of these powerful players to censor information. It advocated solutions such as setting up an independent search engine or supporting external search engines.

The concerns turned out not to be entirely unfounded. The power of search engines has been further consolidated in recent years. Google in particular has become very powerful in this, with a market share of over eighty percent. Microsoft's Bing is in a distant second place, with a share of only ten percent.

Concerns surrounding search monopolies are also still an issue. For example, there is currently a lawsuit against Google filed by the American government. It states that the tech giant has obtained an illegal monopoly position, including by paying Apple billions annually to be the default search engine on iOS. The closing arguments in that case have already been made, but the ruling has yet to be made at the time of writing.

Fifteen years ago: Project Natal, netbooks and browser selection screens

We wrote again about competition concerns fifteen years ago on June 1, this time from the European Union. Shortly after an earlier case involving the bundling of Microsoft's Media Player software in Windows, the EU again went after the tech giant, this time for including Internet Explorer with the OS. That would harm the competitive position of alternative web browsers.

The Dutch European Commissioner Neelie Kroes advocated that Microsoft should also supply other web browsers with Windows. The EU wanted to enforce this with the American company by means of a 'browser choice dialogue'; users would be shown a browser selection screen for their OS. In addition to Internet Explorer, this also had to include alternative choices such as Firefox, Chrome and Opera.

A few weeks later, Europe announced a formal investigation into Microsoft. Shortly afterwards, Microsoft announced that it would choose a different option. The tech giant would initially release a separate Windows 7 version within the European Union, called Windows 7 E. The company said it chose to release Windows 7 in the EU 'on time'; the release of that OS was scheduled for just a few months after the EU complaint.

Later, Microsoft actually introduced a browser selection screen, something the EU was satisfied with. Such browser screens are still relevant today. At the beginning of this year, the Digital Markets Act came into force in the European Union, with which tech giants such as Apple, Google and Microsoft, among others, show a browser selection screen on their platforms. In addition to Windows, this also includes iOS and Android.

Microsoft was more in the news in early June 2009. For example, the company first presented Project Natal, which would later become known as the Kinect, at the E3 gaming fair. It involved a camera that allowed Xbox players to play games 'controller-free', using hand gestures, body movements and voice control.

As part of the demonstration, Peter Molyneux, known from the Fable series, showed a 'game' in which players could interact with a game character. The demo showed a boy recognizing the player, commenting on her clothing and then looking at a drawing held up to the camera. The boy, named Milo, could also converse with 'emotion' by speaking at different pitches.

This game was never released; while it initially seemed to be reported that it would actually appear, Microsoft later said it was nothing more than a tech demo. Fifteen years later, these types of interactive game characters are still not really an issue. Nvidia is working on ACE, a system for NPCs with generative AI that Tweakers recently did a hands-on with, but that will not be used in actual games for the time being. The Xbox Kinect did come onto the market, but it never became a success.

In addition to the E3 gaming fair, the Computex also took place in June, as usual. At that fair, which is entirely dedicated to PC components, several manufacturers showed new netbooks. These devices, the name of which was coined by Intel, were mainly small, cheap and not very powerful laptops that were mainly intended for surfing the Internet.

At Computex 2009, a netbook was shown that ran both Windows and Android, in the form of a dual boot option. The manufacturer, Acer, actually wanted to release a netbook with only Android, but out of caution, equipped the device with Windows. After all, the company did not know how consumers would receive such Android laptops. Moreover, shortly after the announcement, Arm warned that Android is not yet mature enough to be used in a netbook, since that OS is mainly intended for phones.

Several manufacturers showed netbooks with Arm chips instead of an x86 processor. These devices would also ideally use Android instead of Windows. However, laptops with Arm have never become popular, although that may soon change. Apple switched to the instruction set architecture in 2020 with its successful M1 chip. Windows on Arm has been around for years, but may finally experience a bigger revival with the introduction of the Qualcomm Snapdragon X chips earlier this week.

Ten years ago: OVpay principles, Breath of the Wild and Chinese chip ambitions

E3 was still in full swing in 2014, with several major announcements. For example, Nintendo shared a short teaser of its next big Zelda game, in which Link was chased on his horse by a fire-breathing monster. The game would eventually become available for the Wii U. The manufacturer shared few details, but did talk about a release sometime in 2015.

That deadline was ultimately not met. The game was finally released in March 2017, as a launch title for the Nintendo Switch. The game, which was eventually named Breath of the Wild, is still one of the best-reviewed games of all time, with a score of 97 on Metacritic. Last year a sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, was released, which was also very well received.

In 2014, the NS and a number of Dutch banks announced a trial to travel by public transport with your bank card. In the future, travelers should be able to use their bank card to check in for the train. It had to become an alternative to the existing public transport chip card. Cooperation between the NS and the banks was necessary. After all, the latter placed the NFC chip, which should make check-in possible, in their cards.

The NS reported that traveling with your bank card would become possible at existing gates and check-in posts, without any changes. The first tests would be conducted among staff and only later would the public be involved. In the following years, the parties conducted various tests, both with bank cards and with smartphones. The technology is now officially available in the form of OVpay.

OnePlus officially launched its first device fifteen years ago. The then-starting smartphone maker officially announced its first phone, the OnePlus One, earlier in 2014, but delivered the first phones to customers in June 2014. The smartphone was initially only sold to users who received an invitation.

AMD, in turn, showed the first monitors with FreeSync support ten years ago. This technology, which gives screens a variable refresh rate for a smoother image without tearing, had to compete with Nvidia's then existing G-SYNC. FreeSync, unlike G-SYNC, did not use separate hardware to realize this variable refresh rate, as AMD used the VESA Adaptive Sync standard that is incorporated into the DisplayPort standard. This would make FreeSync screens work at a smaller refresh rate range, but would also be considerably cheaper.

Nowadays, FreeSync support is almost indispensable in monitors; many screens now have the technology on board as standard. Nvidia has also partly switched to VESA's Adaptive Sync standard in the form of G-SYNC Certified, although screens with separate G-SYNC modules are still offered. Adaptive Sync, and therefore also FreeSync, can now also be found in many televisions.

Ten years ago, China announced its ambition to become the world's largest chip manufacturer by 2030. The country not only wanted to generate more income from chips, but also to become less dependent on foreign powers. China was already one of the largest importers of chips in the world and was technically years behind the leading-edge producers in Taiwan, South Korea and the United States.

In concrete terms, China also had goals of being able to produce enough chips to meet eighty percent of domestic demand by 2030. To achieve this, China would support the local chip sector, mainly in the form of subsidies. In recent years, the country has had a large subsidy pot to help local chipmakers. China is still working hard, but has not yet achieved its ambitions. Although SMIC previously achieved a technical breakthrough by producing 7nm chips, the country is heavily affected by international policy. Two years ago, the United States introduced far-reaching restrictions on the export of chips and chip production equipment to China. Japan and the Netherlands later followed. For example, the Dutch ASML had not been allowed to supply EUV machines to China for some time. These machines are needed to produce the most advanced chips. Since the beginning of this year, the export of older, but still advanced immersion lithography machines has also been subject to export restrictions.