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1500 questions
28
votes
25 answers
Which computers had redefinable character sets?
My first computer was an Exidy Sorcerer, bought in the late '70s. It featured a full keyboard including lower case, on screen text of 64 B&W characters by 30 rows, 2 MHz z-80 processor, up to 48 kbytes of RAM, 8 kbyte ROMpacs (an msBASIC pac came…
RichF
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28
votes
6 answers
Was there a specific benefit to inverted (XOR) mouse cursors other than aesthetics?
As far as I can remember the inverted (aka "XOR") style of mouse cursor has been around as long as there have been mice. I mean something like this:
(source)
where the cursor shape is formed by dynamically inverting the colors of the individual…
StayOnTarget
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28
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4 answers
How did games like Doom offer free trials? What was packaged in their free trial software packages?
I remember that Doom had a free trial version where you can play the first episode but the other two you have to buy. There are other games that did that as well. If I understand it, in order to do that the entirety of the game engine would have…
Michael Stachowsky
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28
votes
1 answer
Who ended up owning Commodore's semiconductor IP?
The question of ownership of Amiga-related intellectual property post-Commodore is famously difficult to answer. My question is: does anyone "own" Commodore's semiconductor IP now, and if so, who?
I imagine that patents have expired everywhere that…
Graham Lee
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28
votes
10 answers
Why did 8-bit computers choose BASIC dialects as "de facto" command-line interface, instead of contemporary Shell/Lisp dialects?
While all three clans of languages predated 8-bit computers, they shares features like 1) imperative programming, 2) English-alike keywords, 3) Prompt-Command-Parameters pattern interface. Why was BASIC chosen rather than the other two families, or…
Schezuk
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28
votes
4 answers
Unix Haters Handbook - guaranteeing synchronous, atomic operations
I've come across Filesystems with versioning and have been reading through the Unix Haters Handbook, linked there. I came across page 85:
On the other hand, techniques for guaranteeing synchronous, atomic operations, even for processes running on…
Mr Redstoner
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28
votes
1 answer
Did the Windows 95 screensavers use hardware acceleration APIs?
The windows 95 is known for introducing a couple of classic screensavers including: Maze, Pipes and starfield among others. It looks like DirectX is a collection of multimedia APIs but for this question is really only Direct3D sublibrary.
It looks…
nabulator
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28
votes
2 answers
How does the Gameboy Link Cable work?
I've been looking into implementing Gameboy Link Cable compatibility into Bizhawk (which does not support it yet) using Lua. The problem is that I can't find any mention of how it works online.
I want to know how I can modify the gameboy's memory…
Badasahog
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28
votes
2 answers
Looking for PC graphics demo software from the early 90s called "Unreal"
Back in the early 90's I remember downloading a graphics demo called, I think, "Unreal". This was on DOS on a standard PC and probably downloaded from a BBS.
Identifying information:
It ran for several minutes at least and contained multiple…
StayOnTarget
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28
votes
3 answers
Why does PAUSE key have a long make code and no break code?
On IBM keyboards, scan code sets 1 and 2 have a long make code and lack a break code for the Pause/Break key. Moreover, when Ctrl is pressed, the make code is different, although break code still doesn't exist.*
In scan code set 3 there does appear…
Ruslan
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28
votes
4 answers
What's the relationship betweeen MS-DOS and XENIX?
Browsing MS-DOS sources on GitHub, I often see mentions of XENIX:
DOSSYM.ASM:
; XENIX calls all return error codes through AX. If an error occurred then the
; carry bit will be set and the error code is in AX. If no error occurred then
;…
Igor Skochinsky
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27
votes
4 answers
Why wasn't DOSKEY integrated with COMMAND.COM?
Why did Microsoft make DOSKEY a separate command, instead of integrating it with COMMAND.COM?
I don't think DOSKEY uses a lot of RAM or was useless in the '80s... Maybe there was another reason not to enable this command automatically?
user7710
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27
votes
2 answers
Why were 5.25″ floppy drives cheaper than 8″?
The first floppy disks were eight inches. This size was set by IBM; I haven't been able to find any indication of why they chose it, but maybe it was just because it seemed quite small to them compared to the hard disks they were used to.
According…
rwallace
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27
votes
8 answers
Did a shuttle launch take most of the world's computing power?
The 1998 movie "Armageddon" depicts two Space Shuttles launching simultaneously. I read some expert say that "There isn't enough computing power in the world to launch two shuttles at the same time".
I always wondered if that was literally…
Shawn V. Wilson
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27
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2 answers
How to obtain 256 arbitrary colors with limitation of 64 per line in Amiga (ECS)?
The game Universe for Amiga boasted ability of use of 256 different Amiga colors available through the ECS chips, with only limitation of 64 colors in halfbrite palette (32 arbitrary + 32 at half brightness of the first 32) per scanline.
This was…
SF.
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