Most Popular
1500 questions
16
votes
3 answers
Are there any public tools for the TMS34010?
I am interested to learn about the Texas Instruments TMS34010, a 32-bit fully functional CPU with built-in graphics manipulation capabilities, which appeared in Atari's Hard Drivin' arcade boards amongst others. I was wondering if there were any…
user3570736
- 1,782
- 13
- 26
16
votes
1 answer
How to write directly to video memory using "debug.exe" in MS-DOS?
The base address for the video memory in MS-DOS is 0xB8000. I am trying to write to this address using debug.exe, but I am getting an error:
1165:0103 mov [b8000],ax
^ Error
user5161
- 475
- 5
- 7
16
votes
6 answers
What PC "Clone" technology standards were introduced by clone manufacturers?
IBM famously created the PC standard with the introduction of the first IBM PC in 1981. IBM also extended the standard with the introduction of the PC/AT (1984) and the PS/2 line (1987). However, by 1987, IBM had lost control of their market and PC…
Brian H
- 60,767
- 20
- 200
- 362
16
votes
4 answers
Did the Intel 8086/8088 not guarantee the value of SS:SP immediately after RESET?
I'm poking at the Intel 8086/8088 (iAPX 86/88) User's Manual, which states on page 2-29 (PDF page 48), table 2-4, CPU State Following RESET, that the state of the CPU after the RESET pin rising followed by going low is guaranteed to be:
Flags =…
user
- 5,286
- 2
- 26
- 43
16
votes
1 answer
Why was the percent sign chosen as escape character for URLs?
URIs use percent encoding to represent characters which would otherwise be reserved (like the forward slash - %2F), not always displayable or recognizable (Unicode characters, e.g. non-Latin letters) or otherwise inconvenient (like the space…
Glorfindel
- 407
- 1
- 3
- 16
16
votes
6 answers
Which 8 bit computer could display the most colors?
Which 8-bit computer could / can display the most colours on screen?
Please take into account undocumented/newly discovered video modes and other hacks. For example, static sprites supposedly allow for more colors on the c64.
user1095108
- 803
- 5
- 17
16
votes
1 answer
Why was BASIC's INT() a floor, and not a truncate?
Reading over some older bits I've collected over the years, it appears that some early BASICs used a truncate for their INT function, but this was standardized on floor.
Any ideas why? Poking about I find many descriptions of the differences between…
Maury Markowitz
- 19,803
- 1
- 47
- 138
16
votes
11 answers
How late were 80-column punched cards relevant?
I'm trying to avoid this being branded as "opinion based", but would be interested in accounts of punched cards being used in "live" environments later than expected.
In my case, when I joined Burroughs in late '79 my recollection is that all…
Mark Morgan Lloyd
- 2,428
- 6
- 22
16
votes
4 answers
How were the signs for logical and arithmetic operators decided?
I'm curious as to how exactly some of the logical and arithmetic operator signs were decided? The plus and minus operators make sense, but how was decided that / was the division operator or that * was the multiplication operator?
Also how did we…
Neil Meyer
- 6,275
- 9
- 29
- 44
16
votes
2 answers
Did the PC Engine/Turbografx Super CD-ROM have a standardized file system?
I have a few PC Engine Super CD-ROM games, and they have an unconventional mixed mode layout: Track 1 is an Audio track (a warning to not play this disc in a CD Player), Track 2 is a data track, then there are a audio tracks (actual audio, not…
Michael Stum
- 1,680
- 11
- 21
16
votes
4 answers
What is the earliest computer technology to be referred to as "Artificial Intelligence"?
It seems that in recent years, when people talk about "AI", they are usually referring to neural net-based technologies (ChatGPT being the most well known example at the moment). But computer scientists have been researching artificial intelligence…
T Hummus
- 261
- 1
- 5
16
votes
7 answers
Difference between program and application
When I started learning about computers in the mid nineties, all books used the word program to reference any executable that ran under MS-DOS (.exe, .com, .bat).
Applications was a math concept, at least in French, like application injective,…
user10191234
- 1,945
- 2
- 8
- 29
16
votes
4 answers
What was the first intentional malware that got spread over multiple machines?
I would like to know which program can be seen as the first malware.
To define the term "malware" in this question, I would suggest those criteria, but you may modify them if you feel the need:
real program, not just fiction
written intentionally…
Byte Commander
- 1,205
- 1
- 12
- 15
16
votes
4 answers
Did anybody use PCBs as macro-scale mask-ROMS?
Early on, even fairly small ROM's were quite useful. For example, you could fit a minimal upper-case only font for a terminal into something like 256 bytes. And that's a scale that a human could lay out fairly easily. Fabbing even a small mask ROM…
wrosecrans
- 2,264
- 12
- 20
16
votes
1 answer
What was the release date of the MOS 8502?
I have been unable to find when the MOS 8502 was first released to customers. The process it was made on was available from 1979, but MOS don't appear to have used it for their own parts at that time.
The 8502 was used in the Commodore 128, released…
user
- 15,213
- 3
- 35
- 69