Questions tagged [x86]
The Intel x86 family of architectures in general. Contemporary systems are OFF-TOPIC! Use the specific architecture’s tag if applicable.
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How do you find the EBDA address?
Normally, the "Extended BIOS Data Area" (EBDA) is located at the segment stored at 0x0040:0x000E, but this is only true for EISA and MCA systems (at least that's what I found in various ...
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Were there any PCs using the i376?
The Intel 80376 was an x86 CPU that didn't support Real Mode or paging. It was targeted for embedded applications and it wasn't very successful at that (the 80386EX overtook it).
Under these ...
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Creating 8086 binary larger than 64 KiB using NASM or any other assembler
For fun I'm developing an IBM PC emulator. I would like to test all instructions to see if I implemented them correctly. For most instructions this is straight forward, for "FAR CALL/JMP" it ...
11
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What is the best way to set up multiple operating systems on a retro PC?
I have an old Pentium II computer, and I would like to set it up as a retro gaming machine, but I would also like to play around with old distributions of Linux, OS/2 and other operating systems.
What ...
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Is it possible to trap 387 FPU opcodes on a 287 connected to a 386?
The 8087 and 287 FPUs were designed before the IEEE 754 standard was released. Because of this, they contain some instructions which are not compliant with it. When the 387 was released in 1987, it ...
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Who designed the ALi M1386SX core?
The ALi M1386SX is a 386 compatible microprocessor. I believe it was released around 1995, rather late for a 386 but since it was targeted at the embedded market (e.g. word processors and point-of-...
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How can a 32-bit x86 CPU start with reset vector 0xFFFFFFF0 even though it starts in 16-bit real mode?
As far as I know, x86 CPUs start up in 16-bit 'real' mode (maybe some don't).
The reset vector is 0xFFFFFFF0 (in most CPUs and in this context)
In this 16-bit real mode, we can only access 16 bit ...
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5
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Are there any statistics or data showing how much more productive the C programming language is compared to x86 assembly language?
I found out today that a large project like Microsoft Windows 1.0 took 80 man-years to develop. And this one was written in x86 assembly language.
Is there a form or rule of thumb that states how much ...
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Is it possible to detect a CGA card on an IBM PC 5150 by write/reading the Motorola 6845?
I am trying to programatically detect the CGA card on old IBM 5150-ish PCs.
The Paku Paku game source code doesn't directly detect it. The strategy is to detect VGA, EGA, Tandy, PCJr, etc etc, then if ...
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Did x86 CPU vendors like Intel, NEC, AMD, and Cyrix provide their own debugger for DOS with better CPU support and was it free?
MS-DOS's debugger DEBUG.EXE did only support the assembly/disassembly of 8086 opcodes.
DR-DOS's debugger SID86.EXE, SID.EXE and Novel's debugger DEBUG.EXE did support 80286 opcodes and more, but no ...
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What is the difference between the different versions of the SID or SID86 debugger for the x86 PC that was shipped with the different DR-DOS versions?
I did a little research about Digital Research's 8086 Symbolic Instruction Debugger. Short name SID86.EXE and SID.EXE in later versions. But I couldn't find some sort of version history?
I would ...
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What if ATX 12v P4 power connector was introduced 4 years earlier? [closed]
AT power supply handled +5 and +12 volts, +5 for ISA and processors, +12 for motors in disk drives.
In 1995 486DX2 was introduced with 3.3V core, so it derived that from a simple but inefficient ...
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Detecting the version of i486 CPU
Detecting the CPU model has been easy since Intel added the CPUID instruction to their Pentium processors (and some late 486s). However, earlier CPUs did not have this feature, so software had to rely ...
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Intel 80188 & 8087 clock frequency differences
Today I saw that the Intel APX-188/186 User's Manual states that you can use a 8087 as coprocessor for the 80188/186 (as the 80187 is only usable with the 186). But I was wondering about the clock ...
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What is the history of SysV i386 calling convention for struct return?
I would like to understand historical roots of the quirk in the SysV calling convention for the 32-bit x86, which was inherited by the ELF standard, and so remains used on Linux to this day. Consider ...
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14
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What sequence of instructions is the equivalent to `fcomip` on i486?
Do you perhaps happen to know, what would be the easiest way to modify my AEC-to-x86 compiler (you can run the core of it in browser: https://flatassembler.github.io/compiler ) to be able to target ...
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What was the last x86 processor that didn't have a microcode layer?
In the earlier days of microprocessors instructions were hard-wired, i.e. a particular instruction triggered circuitry that was mostly (if not completely) implemented for that instruction. I believe ...
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Why did x86 support self-modifying code in the 80s and 90s?
In this question, by 'self-modifying code', I mean software that writes to a section of code that the CPU will very soon fetch and attempt to execute.
I am not here talking about the software ...
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Why was there a need for separate I/O address space in addition to a memory address space already?
I was reading through PCI and PCIe configuration access mechanism in Chapter 3 (page 96) of PCIe System Architecture (Mindshare series). As a solution to prevent locking (in case of multiple threads) ...
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Chaining IRQs in x86 ROM code
Objective Summary: I need to write a sleep() function to be used in 8088 (PC/XT ISA) ROM code with 1 ms resolution. Though the question can be more generalized to chaining INTs with data in different ...
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What was the first motherboard with UEFI? [closed]
UEFI is a publicly available (and a bit controversial) specification that replaces the legacy BIOS which has been in x86 computers since the original IBM PC (12 August 1981)
At first, I know that this ...
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Why does the x86 not have an instruction to obtain its instruction pointer?
This has always confused me. Why can you not directly obtain the IP, and instead have to go through some odd assembly hoops such as calling a function whose only purpose is to push its own return ...
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x86 memory alignment
For the 8086, unaligned word loads (first byte at an odd address) require two memory accesses, but an aligned word (first byte at an even address) can be loaded in one. This is excellently explained ...
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Did any software attempt to perform 8086 emulation on the 80286 using LOADALL, in the vein of the later virtual 8086 mode of the 80386?
I know that Virtual 8086 mode was added on the 80386 to make it possible to run old applications in a Protected Mode environment.
The 80286 had a lot of shortcomings, such as not being able to switch ...
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17
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2
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Why did the 8080's PUSH PSW write one reserved bit as 1 and the other two as 0?
The x86 "flags" register, which holds condition codes and other processor status bits, has several reserved bits with fixed values, but these fixed values are not all the same. In ...
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What are the "virtual machines" that were running on 80386 and later x86 CPUs before full hardware virtualization?
When reading techy articles about older Windows versions I often come across the term "Virtual machine". Apparently even Windows 3.11 had some sort of virtual-machine-thing going on in it, ...
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Did Intel syntax for x86 assembly come from an Intel assembler?
I'm wondering where the so-called Intel syntax for x86 assembly came from. Did Intel release their own assembler for chips like the 8086 or do we just mean the syntax they used in the manuals?
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How is the ‘Coprocessor segment overrun’ exception supposed to be handled?
The Intel 80386 CPU didn't have an on-board x87 FPU (maybe with the exception of some non-Intel clones). It was, however, able to use either a 80287 or 80387 as an external FPU. When the x87 FPU ...
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In x86 real mode, how does BIOS know what hardware is present?
I know that BIOS is obsolete, hence why I'm asking here :-) BIOS needed to do things like start loading the OS, for which it (usually?) would have needed things like a hard disk driver.
However, BIOS ...
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If a PS/2 device on a 32-bit x86 sends a byte to the IO port 0x60 and you read it, what happens next?
I'm writing a hobby OS and the first thing I want to do is access PS/2 devices (it's a somewhat legacy, 32 bit OS, so I figured it's relevant to ask here?).
I can see my PS/2 devices and I want to ...
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How were the test registers used on the i386 and the i486?
The Intel 386 and 486 CPUs (and some clones too) had some test registers (TR3–TR7) which were used to test features like the TLB and caches. Starting with Pentium, these were replaced with MSRs (Model ...
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How to use "AND," "OR," and "XOR" modes for VGA Drawing
I've been trying to implement a blitter in MS-DOS, but before I do that I wanted to test the various graphics modes of the VGA graphics card. (I'm emulating using DOSBox.) According to this paper on ...
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Which "very esoteric processor instructions" are used by OS/2?
According to the Oracle VirtualBox 6.0 manual, "Certain rare guest operating systems like OS/2 make use of very esoteric processor instructions that are not supported with our software ...
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Why can't I invoke the next interrupt service by incrementing the AX register after calling the same interrupt?
I have two snippets of 8086 assembly code, both of which are supposed to do the same thing: make the mouse appear on the screen.
Show_Mouse:
push ax
mov ax,0 ;Reset Mouse
int 33h
...
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How does an 8086 CPU remember the memory address where it should write back the operation’s result? [closed]
I have an instruction: ADD [BX][SI] + 5FFDH, EABFH and I want to know how it operates exactly on 8086 microprocessors. I've realized that this instruction ADD [BX][SI] + 5FFDH, EABFH, works in this ...
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Undocumented instructions in x86 CPU prior to 80386?
I have questions regarding some x86 instructions that were documented for the 80386 and later x86 CPUs, but not for earlier chips.
"OR reg/mem16, immed8" (0x83/1) "AND reg/mem16, ...
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32-bit PCI riser cards: different types?
[copied from superuser.com]
I'm duplicating an existing compact PC; I'd love to replace it with modern components, but for various reasons I can't.
I'm having a tough time finding the correct 32-bit ...
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The NexGen's x86 internal RISC architecture
NexGen was best known for the unique implementation of the x86 architecture in its processors. NexGen's CPUs were designed very differently from other processors based on the x86 instruction set at ...
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What to do with stone age x86 computers? [closed]
Not sure if retro is proper place... I have two old notebooks with x86 processors in the 100s range of MHz. While nostalgics might appreciate them, I'm wondering if there is any proper point in ...
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Difference between INT 0x20 and INT 0x21 (0x4C)?
Checking the MS-DOS interrupt list we see INT 0x20 "Terminate the program" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_API) but if we check the same page we see INT 0x21 with function 0x4C will &...
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Did the Harris 80C286 differ from Intel's 80286 in its behaviour?
The Harris company, well known for being an early second source making x86 chips under license, eventually produced a fully static CMOS 80C286 of their own design (later known as the Intersil 80C286 ...
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Is the Raspberry Pi Model B (2014) technically inferior to an original Xbox (2001) in compute power/specifically for emulators? [closed]
(I first asked this in the Raspberry Pi section, but it received no responses. I think this, Retrocomputing, might be a better fit.)
I the year 2003, I had my Xbox chipped in order to be able to run ...
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Detecting the number of disk drives installed
When the BIOS gives control to the MBR (or the bootloader, for non-partitioned media), it passes the drive number from which the bootloader was loaded in the DL register. This number is most of the ...
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Detecting the external x87 FPU
On modern processors the x87 FPU is integrated in the CPU chip, but it used to be a separate chip before the 80486. So is there any way to detect its presence, and maybe even its generation (8087, ...
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Intel CPU bug in the 90s
My teacher who teaches "Logic" at the university told us a story about Intel processors, which goes: "In the 90s, Intel had a bug in the calculation of mathematical functions like sine ...
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BIOS interrupts vs Hardware interrupts
On an x86 chip running in Real Mode, interrupts are resolved with the help of the IVT (Interrupt Vector Table), which is an array located at address 0000h:0000h that consists of 256 entries, 32-bit ...
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Should I install Gentoo i586 packages on my PC? [closed]
I've recently commenced revitalizing an HP Pavilion Slim. She's running an Intel Pentium, x86_64. I thought I'd give Gentoo a go because I've found it very appealing and as a Bedrock user I wanted to ...
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Swapping endian-ness on the 68000
In the 80s, the two great 16/32-bit desktop CPU architectures were the x86, used in the IBM PC and compatibles, and the 68000, used in the Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh, early UNIX workstations and ...
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6
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Which x87 first acquired the ability to flush denormal to zero?
On modern Intel FPUs, you can set a flag to cause all denormals to be automatically flushed to zero. On some workloads, this improves performance.
I cannot find any mention of that flag in the data ...
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5
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Do all Intel Celeron processors support "FCOMIP"? [closed]
I am interested, did all Celeron processors support the FCOMIP instruction? I've made a compiler for my programming language and it uses FCOMIP for every floating-point comparison. I've noticed that ...
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