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Retrocomputing

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Awarded 698 times.
Documentation for the ZX Spectrum ULA
Awarded Sep 4 at 19:42
Why did XML lose out to XHTML, then HTML 5, on the web?
Awarded Aug 31 at 22:09
How can I reverse-engineer the game Wizardry (1981) for PC, based on UCSD Pascal?
Awarded Aug 20 at 15:42
Why HIMEM was implemented as a DOS driver and not a TSR
Awarded Aug 17 at 14:47
Why did Borland ignore the Macintosh market?
Awarded Aug 16 at 11:26
Which programming language first used negative indexing to mean counting from the end?
Awarded Aug 8 at 4:23
Blue and yellow stripes on the screen when loading from tape on ZX Spectrum
Awarded Aug 5 at 11:05
What is the historical origin of lone CR as a line terminator?
Awarded Aug 4 at 14:48
Why were nested functions excluded from B and C?
Awarded Jul 22 at 21:20
What techniques were used to reduce the required re-rendering in 3D programs?
Awarded Jul 17 at 20:10
Why were early (personal) computer connectors so bulky?
Awarded Jul 13 at 21:51
Is there any hard data about type-in programs in the 80s?
Awarded Jul 10 at 13:28
Undocumented instructions in x86 CPU prior to 80386?
Awarded Jul 2 at 11:30
What actual purpose do accent characters in ISO-8859-1 and Windows 1252 serve?
Awarded Jun 28 at 19:55
I buy retrocomputing devices, but they set my allergies off. Any advice on sanitizing new acquisitions?
Awarded Jun 13 at 20:41
Why does CP/M use CALL 0005h for its syscalls?
Awarded Jun 8 at 8:51
How did ALT + F4 become the shortcut for closing?
Awarded Jun 7 at 9:42
What is the difference between the "Return" and "Enter" keys in the VT100 terminal?
Awarded May 22 at 19:45
How to use ISA card in modern PC
Awarded May 21 at 16:27
How and why did the ZX Spectrum use so many voltages?
Awarded May 19 at 15:41
After creating HTML, why did Tim Berners-Lee bother creating HTTP? Why didn't he just write a HTML renderer for a FTP client?
Awarded Apr 16 at 8:27
Was the MS-DOS window in Windows 95 an emulator like current DOSBox?
Awarded Apr 16 at 5:42
Did any processor implement an integer square root instruction?
Awarded Apr 7 at 13:33
Did any MS-DOS program ever use the System Request interrupt?
Awarded Mar 29 at 9:25
How did the Atari 2600 achieve a resolution of 160 x 192 pixels with only 128 bytes of memory?
Awarded Mar 21 at 16:52
Is it possible to know which lines in the Gameboy Color cartridge connection is missing by looking at the glitched Nintendo logo?
Awarded Mar 18 at 16:50
What is this large device labelled 'Telefunken Datenspeicher' and how does it work?
Awarded Mar 15 at 8:06
What were wait-states, and why was it only an issue for PCs?
Awarded Mar 12 at 17:11
What innovation helped CD-ROM speeds increase exponentially?
Awarded Mar 8 at 19:47
Why is the RM Nimbus PC-186 not IBM PC compatible?
Awarded Mar 6 at 12:11
Does this 8088 code in the Leisure Suit Larry 2 game actually do anything?
Awarded Feb 27 at 19:19
What did corporations use for long-distance networks in the 1980s?
Awarded Feb 16 at 12:30
First use of an OS in gaming consoles?
Awarded Feb 4 at 5:36
Since when does Windows support forward slash as path separator?
Awarded Feb 2 at 5:11
What "unusual" syntax assembly languages are/were there?
Awarded Jan 23 at 12:57
Why did some early computer designers eschew integers?
Awarded Jan 23 at 12:57
How did early green PS/2 to USB mouse adapters work?
Awarded Jan 17 at 4:05
How were Amiga games cracked circa 1987?
Awarded Jan 4 at 20:40
Why did older computers and OSes use UPPER case instead of lower case?
Awarded Dec 15, 2023 at 21:58
Why were those colors chosen to be the default palette for 256-color VGA?
Awarded Nov 9, 2023 at 15:17
What did it sound like when you played a cassette tape with programs on it?
Awarded Nov 8, 2023 at 23:10
What was the legal arrangement between author, publisher and end user for 'type-in programs' in old computer magazines?
Awarded Nov 7, 2023 at 18:42
Why have consumer-level graphing calculators seemingly not developed in 20+ years?
Awarded Nov 6, 2023 at 5:47
Slash versus backslash as directory separator – what/who caused this rift?
Awarded Nov 3, 2023 at 14:03
Who invented file extensions in file names?
Awarded Nov 2, 2023 at 14:09
Why does NT4 fail on boot if you give it an x64 CPU?
Awarded Nov 1, 2023 at 12:46
Which BASIC-like language has "ENDIF", "DIM ... OF" to declare arrays, and a double slash for comments?
Awarded Oct 15, 2023 at 11:34
What's the most recent version of AmigaOS?
Awarded Oct 7, 2023 at 20:27
Why did Visual Basic use parentheses for both function call and array access?
Awarded Oct 6, 2023 at 12:51
How did early computers deal with calculations involving pounds, shillings, and pence?
Awarded Oct 5, 2023 at 23:57
Why did the Motorola 68000 processor family fall out of use in personal computers in the 21st century?
Awarded Sep 26, 2023 at 12:48
Was leaving all xxxxxx11 opcodes unused on the 6502 a deliberate design choice?
Awarded Sep 21, 2023 at 8:34
Why does the Z80 include the RLD and RRD instructions?
Awarded Sep 13, 2023 at 19:26
Why did 1990s-2000s LCD all use 60 Hz refresh?
Awarded Aug 31, 2023 at 5:08
Why does the Commodore 64 have 4K of non-banked RAM at $C000?
Awarded Aug 23, 2023 at 18:11
"Quit all programs, and then restart your computer" in the Windows 95 "Illegal operation" dialog
Awarded Aug 12, 2023 at 8:57
Reconstruct the loop from "The Story of Mel"
Awarded Aug 10, 2023 at 17:15
Why didn’t the 1980s micros use MC68010?
Awarded Aug 7, 2023 at 19:51
In what ways was the Windows NT POSIX implementation unsuited to real use?
Awarded Jul 16, 2023 at 1:11
Do any FAT8 filesystem images survive?
Awarded Jun 25, 2023 at 15:09
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