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The Intel x86 family of architectures in general. Contemporary systems are OFF-TOPIC! Use the specific architecture’s tag if applicable.

17 votes
3 answers
4k views

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I know that BIOS is obsolete, hence why I'm asking here :-) BIOS needed to do things like start loading the OS, for which it (usually?)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 …
Michael Stachowsky's user avatar
20 votes
8 answers
7k views

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 addr …
Michael Stachowsky's user avatar
13 votes
2 answers
2k views

If a PS/2 device on a 32-bit x86 sends a byte to the IO port 0x60 and you read it, what happ...

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 rea …
Michael Stachowsky's user avatar