Welcome to The Drive, a weekly column looking at some wacky, interesting, cool, and pivotal things within the tech space!

Can you feel your PC or Mac running hot? We've found the best ways to check processor temps on your Windows PCs and Macs.

We recently looked at the origins of the integrated circuit (IC) and the calculator, which was the IC’s first killer app, but a surprise twist is that the calculator played a big part in the invention ...

The brains of the PC is a central processing unit (CPU) made by Intel or AMD (Advanced Micro Devices). It stems from the Intel 8086 (x86) architecture in the IBM PC in 1981. Following is a brief ...

I've been writing on CPU technology here at Ars for almost five years now, and during that time I've done my best to communicate computing concepts in as plain and accessible a manner as possible ...

Over the years there have been a few CPUs designed to directly run a high-level programming language, the most common ...

If you’re just learning about the world of computers and electronics, the terminology used to refer to different parts can be confusing. One component term you may have encountered is “CPU,” which ...