TSMC reportedly plans chip manufacturing price increases of up to 10% in 2027 as rising costs and global expansion reshape semiconductor production.
The post TSMC Reportedly Plans Chip Manufacturing Price Hikes of Up to 10% appeared first on TechRepublic.
TSMC reportedly plans chip manufacturing price increases of up to 10% in 2027 as rising costs and global expansion reshape semiconductor production.
The post TSMC Reportedly Plans Chip Manufacturing Price Hikes of Up to 10% appeared first on TechRepublic.
While the original name of what much of the world knows as the NES was the Nintendo Family Computer, or Famicom for short, it was very rarely used as a family computer. Sure, there was a basic cartridge and an add-on keyboard sold in Japan, but it was always a sideshow to the games.
Nintendo recognized that when they brought their Entertainment System overseas. Most of the various famiclones — which date back to the mid-80s — are the same. BIT in Taiwan had a different idea: their Bit 79 would be a full home computer. Picture a C=64 that plays Nintendo games, and you might not be too far off. [Inkbox] tells the full story in his latest YouTube video, and it’s a must-watch for anyone interested in the history of 8-bit machines that are totally unknown in the West.
BIT were both game makers and system cloners; you may even have seen one of their NES or Atari games, as they were exported widely. By 1989 they’d already gone through a surprising number of Famicom clones, but those were pure clones and just played games. The Bit79 is obviously different — for one, it’s got a built-in keyboard in a wedge case. Apparently a pretty good one at that. For another, it starts with a bootloader that lets you choose between BASIC on ROM and loading the cartridge. For a third, it’s got a full 8K of RAM, quadrupling the Famicom’s offering– plus an additional 2K for the PPU, in what you might consider an early example of video RAM. Both CPU and PPU are knockoff chips made in Taiwan by UMC. The system even has what looks like a DB25 connect a printer. There’s also an expansion port, but no evidence that add-ons were ever sold, despite reports of a 64K memory add-on.
Back to the BASIC ROM for a moment– it’s not Famicom BASIC, as was clear in the manuals. [Inkbox] dumped the ROM to find that it is actually AppleSoft BASIC, of all things. That’s not only an odd bit of piracy, it’s also a big miss, since Apple’s BASIC doesn’t have any commands to make use of the PPU the way Famicom’s version does. POKING the registers during the vBlank interval is apparently not an easy thing to do. Perhaps that’s why we’ve never heard of this machine — well, that, and the fact we’re not located in East Asia where it was sold.
While the Bit79 didn’t sell particularly well, apparently it inspired a whole wave of “educational computer” famiclones in 1990s China that are largely unknown to the English-speaking world, making it an important part of computer history.
While BIT Corp is long gone, if you want to play around with their great experiment in turning a famiclone into a home computer, an emulator is available online, and the ROMs are preserved on the Internet Archive thanks to [InkBox].
Thanks, too, to [Stephen Walters] for the tip.
Bitcoin Magazine
Taiwan Passes Crucial Crypto Law With Licensing Rules, Stablecoin Framework
Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan approved the Virtual Asset Service Act in its third reading on Tuesday, the island’s first comprehensive framework for the crypto sector. Lawmakers sent the bill to President Lai Ching-te, who is expected to sign it into law within ten days.
The act establishes a licensing regime for all virtual asset service providers in Taiwan and hands broad oversight to the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC). Under the law, crypto businesses must secure FSC approval before operating in Taiwan. The framework covers seven categories of providers, including exchanges, trading platforms, transfer firms, custodians, underwriters and lending services.
The legislation creates Taiwan’s first stablecoin framework. Issuers must win approval from both the central bank and the FSC before releasing tokens. The law requires them to hold full reserves, place those reserves in trust, and submit to routine audits and public disclosures.
Domestic stablecoin issuance is restricted to banks, a measure that ties the emerging asset class to the country’s established financial institutions.
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Penalties for breaking the rules are steep. Operating an unlicensed virtual asset service, or issuing a stablecoin without approval, can bring up to seven years in prison and fines that reach NT$100 million ($3.14 million).
Fraud and market manipulation carry sentences of three to ten years and fines between NT$10 million and NT$200 million ($314,000 to $6.28 million).
To ease the shift, the FSC set a transition window for firms that completed anti-money laundering registration before the law takes effect. Those companies get twelve months to file license applications and up to twenty-one months to obtain full approval. The FSC said it can extend the window by three months, a one-time option.
The vote positions Taiwan among a growing list of jurisdictions moving from patchwork guidance to a single statute. Kenya and Ghana signed virtual asset laws in recent months, and lawmakers across Asia continue to draft rules for exchanges and stablecoin issuers.
Taiwan’s approach pairs an open door for licensed operators with some of the region’s harsher criminal penalties, a balance regulators framed as a bid to protect investors without stifling the industry.
The passage builds on a broader shift in Taiwan’s stance toward digital assets. The government has disclosed holdings of 210 bitcoin valued near $18 million, and officials have floated plans to launch a strategic bitcoin reserve and study broader BTC regulation.
The new act gives that ambition a legal foundation, defining who may operate, under what conditions, and with what consequences for those who ignore the rules.
This post Taiwan Passes Crucial Crypto Law With Licensing Rules, Stablecoin Framework first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
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