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1500 questions
23
votes
5 answers
Why is the unchangable Nintendo Game Boy logo in the cartridge?
According to Gameboy [sic] Development Wiki page The Cartridge Header, locations 0x104 through 0x133 in the cartridge contain a bitmap of the Nintendo logo that's displayed when the Game Boy is turned on. (Presumably that's the "Nintendo®" text/logo…
cjs
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23
votes
4 answers
Can my floppy disk still work without a shutter spring?
One of my floppy disks' shutter spring got lost. Now the shutter can't slide normally. Can I still use the floppy disk?
Ryan Almirañez
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23
votes
5 answers
Where can I find software for the PDP-6?
We are planning to build a reconstruction of the PDP-6. The project is making a lot of progress, but currently we have a critical lack of software. Does anybody know where we can find software to run on the reconstructed machine?
fuz
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22
votes
3 answers
Why did the ZX Spectrum use an internal speaker?
I was surprised to note recently that the Sinclair ZX Spectrum used an internal speaker. I knew the BBC Micro used one, presumably because it was designed to be optionally used with a monitor which likely would not supply one, but as far as I know,…
rwallace
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22
votes
6 answers
Commodore BASIC and binary floating point precision
I am mildly curious that though the 6502 provides BCD arithmetic which would be useful for implementing decimal floating point, Commodore BASIC uses, like all (?) Micro-Soft BASIC, binary floating point instead.
Are there any easy example that show…
rwallace
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22
votes
2 answers
Why did Apple remove booting from external drives in later IIc ROM versions?
Apple II computers don't come with DOS in ROM, but rather need to boot from a floppy disk to make the disk drives usable. The IIc was the first Apple II that came with a built-in disk drive, so booting it was a must (it also omitted the cassette…
tofro
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22
votes
1 answer
Why did Windows pick 260 characters as the maximum path length?
I just got burned by the 260 character path limitation in Windows. Why did Microsoft decided to limit paths to 3 characters for drive + 256 characters + 1 character for the terminator? Mac OS of the same vintage has a 31 character filename limit but…
Michael Shopsin
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22
votes
2 answers
Reason for gold lines on old ICs?
A lot of older (ceramic) ICs have a gold-plated line extending from the die cover to the edge of the package. Did this serve a practical purpose or was it just bling?
I suspect that it might be what's left of the lead frame leading to the pad under…
Alex Hajnal
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22
votes
6 answers
How do arcade ROMs work
The way I understand it, ROMS are like virtual games, and emulators are like virtual game consoles, or handhelds. What I don't understand is how there are ROMs for arcade games, which don't have removable cartridges. All arcade machines are…
Badasahog
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22
votes
5 answers
Why were 3D games on the Amiga not faster than on similar 16 bit systems like the Atari ST
It seems that 3D games, especially simulations like Falcon, were not faster (fps) on the Amiga than on the Atari ST - even a bit slower due to the CPU clock.
I was wondering why this is the case, since the Agnus seems to me as an early model of a…
Marco
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22
votes
3 answers
Why did MS-DOS choose the percent symbol to designate variables?
I couldn't find anything but is there any reason for choosing % over $ like in *nix shells?
phuclv
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22
votes
2 answers
Identify this front panel
It was in the movies "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982) and "Serenity" (2005). It resembles the Honeywell 6000 series but I can't find a photo of it that matches exactly. Could it be a custom design or a prototype that never went into…
snips-n-snails
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22
votes
2 answers
Who made the Atari 2600 TIA video chip?
At the heart of the Atari 2600 was the TIA video chip, designed by Jay Miner, well known for his later work on the chips for the Atari 400/800 and the Amiga.
Who manufactured the TIA? As an in-house custom design, it couldn't be simply purchased off…
rwallace
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22
votes
6 answers
What caused the downfall of Pascal?
From 1985 to 1990 Borland's Turbo Pascal was at least as popular as C for DOS systems. Turbo Pascal was especially popular because of it's ground breaking BGI graphics interface while C was stalled in standardization committees.
What caused the…
jwzumwalt
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22
votes
5 answers
Are later 68000 variants backward compatible with earlier ones?
The 68020 is an improvement over the 68000 because it includes new instructions, possibly better speeds and so on. The 68040 is an improvement over the 68020 again for the same reasons, as is the 68060 over the 68040.
But is there any…
Omar and Lorraine
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