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1500 questions
43
votes
11 answers
How did early laser printers get by with so little memory?
The first HP Laserjet only had 128K of memory. To print an area of 7.5 by 10 inches at 300 DPI requires 844K if it's kept as a single bitmapped image. Obviously they were doing something clever to minimize the hardware requirements, but was it ever…
Mark Ransom
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1 answer
Why does the kill-screen glitch occur in Pac-man?
Pac-man is a game where you navigate a small yellow circle around a maze, collecting dots and fruit whilst avoiding brightly-coloured monsters, or ghosts. As long as there was at least one 'man left, the game would play forever.
Except... it…
wizzwizz4
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43
votes
5 answers
Why do keyboards have an asterisk key?
While we're all accustomed to using * as the multiplication symbol (not to mention other esoteric meanings in programming, command-lines, etc.) it is of course not actually the everyday standard symbol for multiplication. And yet, there is no × key…
StayOnTarget
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43
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2 answers
Why were some early PC 3D cards unsuitable for 2D graphics?
Some of the early PC 3D graphics cards such as the 3dfx Voodoo Graphics cards had a passthrough port to enable them to switch to a secondary card to display 2D graphics.
I am curious to know why these cards were incapable of good 2D graphics in…
user3570736
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43
votes
1 answer
Can anyone identify this unknown 1988 PC card from The Palantir Corporation?
I'm trying to restore order to my junk pile office, and I ran across this card. I am usually pretty good at generally identifying old (PC?) stuff, but this one is outside my experience.
I think it is some sort of co-processor - the card is clearly…
Geo...
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42
votes
2 answers
Why did the C64 have ← and ↑ as dedicated keys?
I've always wondered why the Commodore 64 had discrete keys dedicated for the ← and ↑ symbols.
If I remember correctly, they weren't used in BASIC at all, and were not very useful for drawing, either, since right and down arrows were not part of the…
Mavrik
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42
votes
16 answers
Did anyone ever use the extra set of registers on the Z80?
The Z80 has the surprising feature of a second set of registers. I suppose these were intended to be used for rapid task switching or interrupt handling, though I think if I were programming a Z80 retrocomputer, I would be more likely to use them…
rwallace
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42
votes
3 answers
What is between the sectors of floppy disks?
I've found this page which has an informative description of how sectors were encoded on floppy disks: http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/ibm-pc-floppy-disks-deeper-look-at-disk.html
Do the gap bytes span the entire space between…
CJ Dennis
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42
votes
5 answers
Why did so many early microcomputers use the MOS 6502 and variants?
Quite a few successful early microcomputers used the MOS 6502 CPU. This included, but was not limited to, systems like the Apple I, Apple II, Commodore PET, and Ataris. A followup known as the MOS 6510 was used as the main CPU for the Commodore 64…
user
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42
votes
4 answers
When was this C function definition style, with type declarations of parameters after the parameter list, invented?
Recently I dug a little bit into old graphics libraries and found libxmi. The site was last updated on 08/09/2000. And in the source code I found the following style of function definitions which I have never seen before:
#include
int…
hefe
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42
votes
3 answers
How do DOS games like DOOM benefit from a PCI graphics card?
The original DOOM and its derivatives (DOOM II, Heretic, Hexen) were early 90s 3D games released at a time when DOS PCs usually had ISA bus Super VGA graphics cards. In the following few years, PCs would be upgraded to PCI bus graphics cards. The…
Brian H
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42
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17 answers
Is there any text to speech program that will run on an 8- or 16-bit CPU?
I'm wondering if any of the ancient 1980's style text to speech algorithms were saved from oblivion and are still available. It might be nice to hear that vintage sound like what appeared in War Games.
wudude
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42
votes
6 answers
How did old games from 8-bit era game consoles store music?
Some time ago I found that the audio of a game called Ninja Gaiden 1 (NES) is around 1 hour. This is excluding the sound effects like jump and hit e.t.c. Then I found that the entire game size is actually quite small and the sound data is not stored…
quantum231
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42
votes
6 answers
How did the SysRq key get onto modern keyboards if it's rarely used?
Was the SysRq key ever used on any common operating system?
Google tells me it wasn't. But then how did it end up on so many keyboards?
TheAsh
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41
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5 answers
Loading ZX Spectrum tape audio in a post-cassette world
My ZX Spectrum 48k seems very resistant to working with audio input. I no longer have any cassette players, so am relying on audio files from digital players. I have been able to save and verify a tiny BASIC program to a digital recorder, but…
scruss
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