It's the “hardware”, stupid • Hacker News Board

Re: It's the “hardware”, stupid

#121

Post by bee_rider » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 4:51 PM UTC

upboundspiral wrote: post #111

bee_rider wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s weird because in a hardware company the software becomes a cost. In a software company the software is a magical money printer with zero unit costs.

Nvidia would like a word. If a hardware manufacturer releases software and creates a strong bedrock for others to build on their work then its clearly a strong asset. Granted, this is not at all easy to do, and initial investment into it may be large, but when it works it pays off immensely.

Nvidia has definitely earned a word, but I think they fit here actually—do they make much money on software? They do have a little portal with some programs for sale. But, like, CUDA is zero-cost for users. All the work put into CUDA is purely an investment in enabling people who’ve bought their hardware.

Re: It's the “hardware”, stupid

#122

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Sat, Nov 01, 2025, 6:40 PM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #121

upboundspiral wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nvidia would like a word. If a hardware manufacturer releases software and creates a strong bedrock for others to build on their work then its clearly a strong asset. Granted, this is not at all easy to do, and initial investment into it may be large, but when it works it pays off immensely.

Nvidia has definitely earned a word, but I think they fit here actually—do they make much money on software? They do have a little portal with some programs for sale. But, like, CUDA is zero-cost for users. All the work put into CUDA is purely an investment in enabling people who’ve bought their hardware.

That's the deal, though. Hardware companies tend to think of software as a separate cost center/profit center from hardware.

In reality, a good software/hardware meld can make all the difference (hello, Apple). In those cases, the software is "free."

I am not that familiar with Nvidia, but, from what I hear, they do good software, to go with their hardware, and have a robust developer outreach program.

Re: It's the “hardware”, stupid

#123

Post by altcognito » Sun, Nov 02, 2025, 4:19 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #103

altcognito wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone was the first really well done general purpose computing phone. It had a real web browser, a real music player, apps that didn't suck. Adoption was huge because the design was great, but we would have just seen the same thing transpire over a number of years if iPhone hadn't been created. I know a lot of people basically who were basically saying "finally"

Nokia had a touch-screen based phone, with a real browser and a real music player in 2005. They didn't make an effort to sell it around here, though, but I don't think it's that either. I remember the first application that people were hyped about was Google Maps. The Nokia phone couldn't run that, and any map available there was much harder to use. But the iPhone only really took off after people could install any k…

Yeah, not totally surprised. As in the other thread, this feature set was a pretty obvious outcome. But you have to implement it well. It doesn't look particularly well done. Probably slow, no pinch, etc...

I'm not sure what model you are talking about, maybe the S60, third edition. It is hard to get any background on it.

I'd like to say that companies missed out on the fact that a web browser would be really sellable, but it's clearly all about tying everyone to their platform, and more importantly their store.

Re: It's the “hardware”, stupid

#124

Post by SAI_Peregrinus » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 3:40 PM UTC

estimator7292 wrote: post #101

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An "AI Hardware" device that needs a network connection, and makes API calls to the mother ship, in order to accomplish anything, is not interesting. It's a Raspberry Pi. Kind of an unnecessary dig at the Raspberry Pi, no? Modern Pis and SBCs in general are good at lots of things. I use mine for self-hosting some apps I use, and I've definitely seen them used in little compute clusters for AI inference. > On the ot…

RPis just aren't interesting. It's a full fat computer on a small board that does everything a normal computer does, just small. PCs just aren't interesting because they're all fundamentally the same thing and are capable of the same set of tasks. RPis aren't interesting because 99.9999% of projects they're put in are better served by a microcontroller and not an entire linux system. If not just a 555. It's boring to…

RPis (and similar) are interesting because they're a tiny full-fat Linux computer with user-accessible GPIOs. That's the only special thing about them. There are other tiny Linux computers, but RPi-like computers have GPIOs, so they can use communication protocols that don't have standard external headers like I2C & SPI, switch relays, etc. They're interesting precisely because they can do what a microcontroller can do, while still being a full Linux system.

I mostly use them for situations where I'd otherwise need a small Linux computer and a microcontroller together, e.g. for CAN + DoIP simulation with SCPI control of test equipment over Ethernet & relay control of a vibration table.