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1500 questions
19
votes
2 answers
What is a DVD add on card?
I have a MS-6340 micro ATX motherboard in my retro PC. It has multiple audio connectors and one is called JAUX1. It can be used to input analogue stereo sound.
But the description in the motherboard manual about this connector is strange:
This…
zomega
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19
votes
10 answers
Why does cat with no argument read from standard input?
In advice about how to design good CLI commands I read:
If your command is expecting to have something piped to it and stdin is an interactive terminal, display help immediately and quit. This means it doesn’t just hang, like cat.
This seems like…
John Skiles Skinner
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19
votes
5 answers
How did it come that SATA HDDs use ATA while SATA CD drives use SCSI as protocol?
SATA HDDs and SSDs use ATA as software protocol for data transmission (on the SATA cable).
SATA CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drives use SCSI.
Please note that AHCI is the protocol used between the SATA controller and the CPU. Neither SATA HDDs nor CD drives talk…
zomega
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19
votes
1 answer
In what sense would the Atari 3200 have been a 10-bit machine?
The Atari 3200 was a canceled project that would have produced a compatible successor to the 2600. Little seems to be known about it; about the best reference I have been able to find is…
rwallace
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19
votes
8 answers
How were Acorn Archimedes used outside education?
Anyone who experienced the UK education system from the mid '80s to the mid '90s would no doubt have experienced Acorn computers (BBC and later Archimedes). At the time, these computers were almost the pinnacle of 'un-cool' for someone my age (wrt…
lfgtm
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19
votes
3 answers
Why was the VIC-II restricted to a hard-coded palette?
The MOS VIC in the VIC-20 and the MOS VIC-II in the C64 were capable of outputting 16 colours drawn from a hard-coded palette.
It's clear that the palette size was fixed at 16 colours as a memory-saving measure. It's also clear that it is immensely…
Psychonaut
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19
votes
4 answers
What graphical effects can be created by changing the VIC-II settings?
I read in this answer that one could create graphics effects outside the usual specifications of the hardware by changing the settings of the machine's VIC-II at specific cycles during the video drawing interval.
What effects can be produced in this…
wizzwizz4
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19
votes
1 answer
How did SmartDrive work?
I've recently unearthed an old book called MS-DOS 6 pour les nuls (More DOS for Dummies) by famed C programmer Dan Gookin. It was (still to me) a very interesting book in which he talks about MS-DOS in a very simplistic way. Obviously explaining…
user10191234
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19
votes
2 answers
First computer emulator in Windows
I released my ZX Spectrum emulation Wspecem, and GPL sources first time publicly in the Internet at large, the 15th May 1996, for Windows 95.
I am quite sure it was the first ZX Spectrum emulation developed specifically for the Microsoft Windows…
Rui F Ribeiro
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19
votes
4 answers
How to keep running DOS 16 bit applications when Windows 11 drops NTVDM
I have a business client who runs an old DOS 16-bit accounting and point-of-sale system in his industrial supply warehouse. He does not want to switch from the legacy DOS application since all of his sales and back-office staff are very comfortable…
TaoRich
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19
votes
8 answers
Why did IBM PC have horizontal cursor instead of vertical or block cursor?
Most 8 bit machines, like C-64, seem to have block cursors, while modern user interfaces often have vertical cursors. PC has horizontal cursor of two (or 3) scanlines by default, and block cursor for special cases (such as INSERT mode).
I know this…
tuomas
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19
votes
2 answers
What are the common sources of incompatibility on different MSX computers?
I remember that a LOT of games for my MSX (I live in Brazil) don't work without some modification. For example, several need some kind of tweak on the loader, like poke -1,0.
I would like to know what are the causes that make those adjustments…
flavio
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19
votes
3 answers
Windows 98 setup preparation hangs while probing floppy drives in the preparation stage
I am trying to install Windows 98 on a pretty modern computer, from 2010. Why? Because I want to see if I can.
Anyway, I am booting off a USB flash drive with FreeDOS on it. I formatted the USB flash drive with Rufus and copied the files to the USB…
ILOVETOMATOES69
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19
votes
4 answers
What was the purpose of those special user accounts in Unix?
In a modern Linux system – modern enough to have upgraded useradd to a version from no earlier than February 2008 – it is usually the case that user accounts with UIDs no less than 1000 (other than the nobody user) represent human users, while those…
user3840170
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19
votes
3 answers
What is happening in this algorithm scaling an 8-bit 0-99 value to full-range 16-bit?
Can anyone help me understand what is happening inside this algorithm scaling an 8-bit value to 16-bit?
PATCH_LOAD_QUANTISE_VALUE:
ASLA
LDAB #165
MUL
ASLB
ROLA
…
ajxs
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