All Questions
265
questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
19
votes
0
answers
1k
views
Oxford C compiler for Commodore 64
I kept one floppy from my Commodore 128 (which I used mostly in C64 mode), labelled ‘Oxford C compiler’. It is a 5.25″ floppy. Don't ask me why I kept just this one; probably because I thought I ...
- 973
18
votes
0
answers
406
views
Is an X Window System older than release 10 available online?
I'm looking for any copy of the X Window System older than release 10.
The oldest on x.org is X10R3.
Bob Scheifler doesn't have anything.
Jim Gettys may have something, but has yet to retrieve it ...
- 3,101
17
votes
1
answer
561
views
When was an image of an apple first used to promote the APL language
The APL community is contemplating the adoption of a common logo but some are worried about trouble from Apple lawyers. Now, IBM and others have been using apple motifs in promoting APL for a long ...
- 659
16
votes
0
answers
816
views
Was there a cartoon series in the UK computer press called "Computability Brown"?
My dad was a computing professional in Scotland in the 1970s. He received a couple of industry trade magazines every week, such as Computer Weekly and Computing. In one of them, I remember there being ...
- 20.5k
14
votes
0
answers
216
views
68060 CLKEN and CLK pins
Using an 68060 to 68040 Amiga adapter on another brand.
The adapter ties the 68040 BCLK to the 68060 CLKEN. The CLK pin on the adapter is left floating.
To run the CPU with 1/2 bus will I need to ...
- 141
13
votes
0
answers
415
views
Unix on the H11?
I'm curious if anyone is aware of actual uses of Unix on the Heathkit H11? I don't see any technical reason a memory-expanded H11 couldn't run Unix, but can't find any examples of it doing so.
- 19.5k
13
votes
0
answers
564
views
Who owns the intellectual property of Thinking Machines today?
Who owns the intellectual property regarding the Connection Machine and other products from Thinking Machines? I believe the remnants were bought by Sun, so possibly Oracle, but does anyone know?
- 171
13
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0
answers
484
views
Is there a simple BASIC program that demonstrates SID6581 distortion?
Many songs use a SID6581 design "flaw", distortion, as an effect. I tried experimenting with the filter and resonance registers, but was unable to reproduce the sound. What conditions are necessary ...
- 2,225
13
votes
0
answers
894
views
In search of.... SeaWar -- NOT Battleship!
Hopefully, sufficient background
Many years ago (40-45), I used to play "Sea War" on a good sized time-share system. It was a text/adventure war game between a couple remote players, played over a ...
- 231
12
votes
0
answers
417
views
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 ...
- 2,277
12
votes
0
answers
528
views
Original instruction set for the first ARM processor
I'm studying ISAs and would really like to see the very first ISA that Sophie Wilson chose/put together when designing the very first ARM CPU while at Acorn Computers around 1983 or so.
From what I ...
- 331
12
votes
0
answers
275
views
Why can SafeDisc disks be read faster if the game was opened before?
First of all I want to say I have the games in real and I am just making safety backups. The disks are old and tend to lose data.
I am using Alcohol 120 Retro edition and found something weird.
I have ...
- 4,670
12
votes
1
answer
1k
views
1990s BBS game featuring mining elements from a planet
Sometime in the 90s (sorry, can't be more specific) I used to dial in to a BBS and play a multi-player game that involved manually mining elements from a planet. It was very detailed, you got employed ...
- 121
11
votes
0
answers
225
views
Anyone know of older mentions of the word "trap" for software interrupts than the IBM 704 manual from 1955?
I've dug into the origin of the word "trap" in computer engineering. The older documented mentions of the term I can find, is the "trapping mode" in the IBM 704, specifically in ...
- 819
11
votes
0
answers
375
views
Was the RPL language for the Commodore PET ever used other than by its author?
Note that this question is about the programming language RPL for the Commodore PET, not the HP language with the same name. RPL was developed by Tim Stryker and sold through his company Samurai ...
- 1,026
10
votes
0
answers
247
views
How was BOS on the Apple III different from SOS?
The original operating system for the Apple III was SOS, a.k.a. "Sophisticated Operating System". Though the Apple III and SOS didn't last very long as the platform was considered a failure, ...
- 15.8k
10
votes
0
answers
278
views
What used EBCDIC code pages 1 thru 5?
For US English, the most commonly used EBCDIC code page is 37, which is one of the CECP code pages (Country Extended Code Page). The old IBM globalisation database has a 1986 copyright date for code ...
- 1,881
10
votes
0
answers
215
views
What was IBM's internal Specification Language of the 1980s?
Within IBM's internal Development community, there was a move in the 1980s to bring our skills up to date. As part of this, we were introduced to a specification language, independent of the ...
- 201
10
votes
0
answers
353
views
What's so different about Super Mario Brothers World T-1 that it doesn't look like level data at all?
Youtube video here: https://youtu.be/E6qRbk5Cscw?t=1127
Most of the glitched worlds are clearly ROM fragments of world data being loaded, most of them out-of-alignment and being rather messed-up.
This ...
- 1,647
10
votes
0
answers
340
views
Everex Systems EV1250: Perhaps a 286 accelerator? I need its manual
Recently I got an unknown card named EV1250 that I couldn't find any information on what it was.
I assume it's probably a 286 accelerator.
There are some memory chips on the left side of the card and ...
- 349
10
votes
0
answers
224
views
Which versions of StuffIt introduced backwards-incompatible changes to the file format?
In order to help people who want to integration-test tools which shell out to The Unarchiver's lsar and unar utilities, I'm trying to build a legally clean repository of test archives in StuffIt SIT ...
- 6,351
10
votes
0
answers
274
views
What happened to the Speakeasy computational environment?
After reading his interview with the Computer History Museum , Cleve Moler (creator of MATLAB), mentioned that the Speakeasy Computational Environment was a precursor to MATLAB, and served as some ...
user22459
10
votes
0
answers
495
views
How would toggling a bit in the POWCNT1 register cause hardware damage on the Nintendo DS?
From GBATEK, writes to a certain I/O port for power management may damage hardware:
4000304h - NDS9 - POWCNT1 - Graphics Power Control Register (R/W)
0 Enable Flag for both LCDs (0=Disable) (...
- 1,999
10
votes
0
answers
344
views
How much did Atari pay for GEM?
Atari licensed Digital Research's GEM graphic user interface for the ST. As https://www.filfre.net/2015/04/the-68000-wars-part-2-jack-is-back/ puts it:
And of course in the wake of the Macintosh the ...
- 58.4k
10
votes
0
answers
423
views
What is the timeline of NASA ground control computers?
In the movie "Hidden Figures", NASA receives an IBM 7090 in 1961. What is the subsequent timeline of the primary computing means for flight planning and orbit calculation?
Specifically, what was the ...
- 18.3k
9
votes
0
answers
254
views
How did Citrix for Windows NT 3.1 work?
The design of both Windows 9x and Windows NT (before NT4) was based on the assumption that the OS/kernel is driving a single local graphical console session (this is visible today: Windows Server 2022’...
- 781
9
votes
0
answers
554
views
When did Kay Nishi offer a million dollars for a competing DOS?
The development of Digital Research's fully-compatible MS-DOS competitor, DR DOS, was encouraged when, according to https://retrotechnology.com/dri/dri_wein.html
After DOS Plus for Philips we did a ...
- 58.4k
9
votes
0
answers
178
views
What should be put to the first 128 bytes of the code segment in Xenix 86?
I'm writing a hello-world program for Xenix 86 in NASM. See the full source code. If I only put this to the code segment, then it fails with segfault (Memory fault) on Xenix 286:
mov ax, 4 ; ...
- 1,425
9
votes
0
answers
212
views
Plessey computer at Stanford?
While updating the wiki article on the 4004, I came across an interesting claim by Ted Hoff, who stated the idea of using a general-purpose CPU in a calculator came to him due to a minicomputer that ...
- 19.5k
9
votes
0
answers
297
views
Looking for late 90s shareware open world racing game
I'm trying to track down a shareware racing game released somewhere between 1999 and 2004 - or at least, my parents found it bundled in a computer magazine during that time.
Here's what I remember ...
- 111
9
votes
0
answers
630
views
Behavior of lesser known illegal M6800 opcodes
The M6800 had a few illegal opcodes, including the (in)famous HCF (Halt and Catch Fire). The following illegal opcodes were revealed in BYTE Magazine, December 1977:
$14: NBA
$87: STAA immediate
$C7: ...
- 1,459
9
votes
0
answers
141
views
On the TRS-80 models I and III when is the directory track number written in the third byte of sector zero, and when in the second byte?
Earlier I had found that many but not all TRS-80 Model I and Model III disks begin with the three bytes 00h FEh 11h.
This is the beginning of the boot sector where the CPU interprets it as a NOP ...
- 6,333
9
votes
0
answers
779
views
What are all the patches that SetPatch applies to Kickstart?
SetPatch runs as the first command in the Startup-Sequence when Amiga boots up. It applies patches to the code in ROM to fix bugs and also enable features if necessary. For example, I seem to remember ...
- 3,716
9
votes
0
answers
709
views
How many Amiga 3000's were produced?
While revisiting this question: Seeking details relating to Amiga 3000 serial numbers I began to wonder how many actual Amiga 3000's were produced by Commodore.
I suspect (like most production ...
- 9,795
8
votes
0
answers
454
views
How was the Amiga console supposed to work with only 32KB of RAM?
During the development of the Amiga, one of the targets was a game console with 32KB of RAM. How was it supposed to work?
by blitting ahead of the beam with the Copper to avoid double buffering?
was ...
- 1,239
8
votes
0
answers
390
views
Can you name this 386/486 era computer case?
Escort Computer is a Local PC brand in Turkey. They had popular Escort Multimedia series in late 90's. Prominent with distinctive case design. They were using off the shelf OEM hardware. I believe, ...
- 2,728
8
votes
0
answers
332
views
Identify C64 Game About Firemen
I'm searching for an old game for the C64, it was about a group of firemen. I last played it in the 1989, 32 years ago, so I do not remember it very well.
I remember only that the firemen don't want ...
- 1,697
8
votes
0
answers
226
views
Systems that used the Rockwell R65C00/21 or R65C29
The Rockwell R65C00/21 and R65C29 are described in an October 1984 datasheet ("R65C00/21 dual CMOS microcomputer and R65C29 dual CMOS microprocessor," Document no. 29651N64, rev. 2) which is ...
- 1,255
8
votes
0
answers
434
views
What is the origin of executable compression?
According to the wikipedia article on the topic, the earliest executable compressor listed is Realia Spacemaker for IBM PC (since 1982, written by Robert B. K. Dewar, SM.COM, signature "MEMORY$&...
- 18.3k
8
votes
0
answers
300
views
Undefined opcodes for the Intel 8008 CPU
What happens when I8008 CPU reads the "undefined" opcode (22h, 2Ah, 32h, 38h, 39h, 3Ah; or in octal 042, 052, 062, 070, 071, and 072)? Are these opcodes evaluated as a NOP instruction, or ...
- 5,487
8
votes
0
answers
260
views
A learning gomoku in Lisp
Years ago I played a version of gomoku that was written in Lisp that learned as you played. After a few rounds, it became nearly unbeatable. This was on Unix System III on a small PDP-11.
I have ...
8
votes
1
answer
501
views
Why was the Altair numbered "8800" even though the processor was an 8080?
The Altair 8800 was a computer using the Intel 8080 processor. Why the difference in numbers?
- 15.8k
7
votes
0
answers
501
views
Looking for the name of a natural language Fortran compiler
Back in the 80s I ran across a book at a garage sale titled something like "Programming Fortran In English" or "Programming Fortran In Natural Language" that described a compiler ...
- 71
7
votes
0
answers
284
views
Were there ever any commercial products produced for the BeBox GeekPort?
I know that the BeBox was a short lived product, but whenever someone mentions it they never fail to also point out the "GeekPort".
While the possibilities of the GeekPort were tremendous, I'...
- 15.8k
7
votes
0
answers
310
views
Origin of Cisco-like CLI?
Loads and wagons of networking devices all over the world use the same manner for commandline interface (CLI). First I met it in 1990s at Cisco devices (switches, routers...) which used Cisco IOS. It ...
- 520
7
votes
0
answers
254
views
Bloodsport: Which version of Karate Champ is it?
In the movie "Bloodsport", there's a sequence which is famous among video game players, where Frank Dux and Jackson "fight" through a Karate Champ arcade game machine.
Now I'm ...
- 10.7k
7
votes
0
answers
192
views
What did CPU time and disk space cost at a CDC 6600 Data Center?
In the mid-1970s,there was a big time sharing CDC service center in Waltham, MA. I'm curious what it cost to run computer jobs there.
(My long winded story follows) In 1976, I had a summer job of &...
- 171
7
votes
0
answers
77
views
iRMX bootsector on a iRMX partition how to clone?
I have an old year 2000 instrument which has a 340MB hard drive. I am trying to clone the hard drive but I am having major issues.
First the instrument uses iRMX and MSDOS the bios is using the CHS ...
- 71
7
votes
0
answers
267
views
Was the Zilog Z8070 ever mass produced?
I only recently came across a mention of the Z8070 FPU for the Z8000 family. According to some benches, it was very fast given its HMOS implementation and clock.
Of the very little information I can ...
- 19.5k
7
votes
0
answers
125
views
Apple II floppy drive, pressure pad cleaning or replacement?
This is related to the following question: Cleaning 5¼" floppy drives
Is there a proper way to clean the pressure pad that simply presses against the back side of a single-sided 5.25-inch ...
- 3,639