Retrocomputing Stack Exchange
Retrocomputing Stack Exchange

Most Popular

more tags
1500 questions
36
votes
22 answers

Was self-modifying code possible using BASIC?

Was self-modifying-code possible using BASIC? Parameters: On commonly affordable home-computers before 1984 Code that changes its own instructions while it is executing Using BASIC only Not using peek, poke or assembly language Possible types of…
questiontype
  • 1,061
  • 7
  • 12
36
votes
3 answers

What modification is required from a PC floppy for use in Amiga?

Around the end of the time of Amiga popularity, obtaining a replacement Amiga floppy drive was a nuisance, while PC drives were ubiquitous and cheap. One could install a PC drive in Amiga after applying a small, trivial hardware modification - a…
SF.
  • 7,095
  • 7
  • 30
  • 58
35
votes
8 answers

Why did some early computer designers eschew integers?

Several early computer designs regarded a 'word' as representing not an integer, with the bits having values 2^0, 2^1, 2^2, ..., but as representing a fixed-point fraction 2^-1, 2^-2, 2^-3, ... (For the sake of simplicity in this question I'm…
dave
  • 35,301
  • 3
  • 80
  • 160
35
votes
2 answers

How did people program for Consoles with multiple CPUs?

I'm specifically interested in the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, which used a 68000 CPU, but also a Z80, mainly used to control the sound hardware and provide backward compatibility with the Master System. There was also the Atari Jaguar, with it's Tom…
Michael Stum
  • 1,680
  • 11
  • 21
35
votes
6 answers

Using DRAM as a camera sensor?

Back in the days when COMECON (RVHP) was cloning digital ICs usually the first wave of such ICs were in a ceramic package with a glass window (similar to EPROM) to check for bugs and stuff while used. Some chips were very sensitive to light and the…
Spektre
  • 7,278
  • 16
  • 33
35
votes
3 answers

Did the NES do anything special to support coprocessors?

Some of the later NES/Famicom games contained not just ROM, but coprocessors for better sound and graphics than the original console hardware could provide, such as the MMC5: https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/MMC5 Did the console itself, the…
rwallace
  • 60,953
  • 17
  • 229
  • 552
35
votes
7 answers

Why did Commodore 64 cartridge games disappear?

The Commodore 64 has a cartridge slot, but by the mid-eighties, cartridge games disappeared; everything was on tape or disk. Why? One answer that suggests itself is that by that time, a larger percentage of owners had disk drives. However, that was…
rwallace
  • 60,953
  • 17
  • 229
  • 552
35
votes
6 answers

Did the LET statement actually do anything in 8-bit Microsoft BASICs?

I know the LET statement was available in AppleSoft and other Microsoft 8-bit BASICs back in the day, but I can't think of a time where I actually used it. Frankly, I get the impression that it was supported to conform to the Dartmouth standard but…
bjb
  • 16,259
  • 46
  • 141
35
votes
10 answers

Is there a reason to prefer earlier versions of MS-DOS over later?

I understand MS-DOS to be backwards-compatible, so is there a reason to run a version earlier than the last (6.22) on an old computer? The only reason I can think of would be for period-accuracy, but is that it?
Sydius
  • 2,604
  • 18
  • 37
35
votes
2 answers

How did MS-DOS assign drive letters in the case of more than two floppy disk drives?

The IBM PC BIOS had provisions for up to four floppy disk drives, by virtue of returning the number of floppy disk drives in a two-bit field plus a none/some flag (allowing for reporting values of 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 floppy disk drives being installed).…
user
  • 5,286
  • 2
  • 26
  • 43
35
votes
4 answers

What was the IBM PC cost saving for using the 8088 vs 8086?

The decision to use the 8088, a version of the 8086 with the data bus restricted to 8 bits, in the original IBM PC, seems strange on the face of it, certainly hurt performance and intuitively shouldn't save all that much money. How much exactly did…
rwallace
  • 60,953
  • 17
  • 229
  • 552
35
votes
6 answers

Could you see what you are typing in a Teletype?

I have read that the early terminals were Teletypes, for example: So you send your input to the (large) computer, and then you receive the result which gets printed on paper I suppose. But could you actually see what you were typing? Does a…
user7681202
  • 1,837
  • 12
  • 17
35
votes
3 answers

Why did DOS-based Windows require HIMEM.SYS to boot?

My understanding is that all versions of Microsoft Windows that ran on top of DOS — that is, the lineage from Windows 1.0 up to Windows ME, even though the reliance on DOS diminished over time — required HIMEM.SYS, the extended memory manager for…
mkay
  • 699
  • 3
  • 6
35
votes
6 answers

Was the Amiga ever used by any U.S. Government agency?

This is a long shot question, and I'm asking only because, well, I'm not entirely certain why I am asking... NBC Nightly news did a short piece on April 18th, 2022 talking about the IRS being backlogged due to being understaffed, underfunded and…
Geo...
  • 10,177
  • 28
  • 82
35
votes
5 answers

What was the first Object Oriented programming language?

Back in 1980, I started programming in HP-Basic and later wrote quite a lot of Z-80 Assembly code. Then I progressed to Pascal and Modula-2. C++ looked too scary but later Delphi made life much easier. Yet it was Java that finally made me grasp the…
CEO tech4lifeapps
  • 771
  • 1
  • 5
  • 10
1 2 3
…
99 100