User Mark Morgan Lloyd

53 votes

Did type-in-programs or type-in-listings teach programming in the 70s and 80s or was it just tedious typing of the source code?

answered Jul 19 at 17:33

21 votes

When did compilers start generating optimized code that runs faster than an average programmer's assembly code?

answered Sep 12, 2020 at 21:56

14 votes

Zip drive eject "tool"

answered Jun 14 at 16:14

11 votes

Did Pascal programmers really move on to Java in the 90s?

answered Feb 10 at 9:07

7 votes

Which was the first OS having both isolated users and programs?

answered Feb 3 at 9:39

7 votes

Why is this gcd implementation from the 80s so complicated?

answered Dec 22, 2020 at 7:45

7 votes

Why was computer memory so expensive and scarce?

answered Jan 10, 2022 at 20:11

6 votes

Compatibility of printers with HP54645D oscilloscope?

answered Feb 13, 2022 at 13:14

5 votes

Accepted

What were the first BASIC interpreters to be programmed in high-level languages?

answered Sep 7, 2020 at 14:35

4 votes

What was the first programming language, other than Lisp, to have “short-circuiting” Boolean expressions?

answered Jul 8, 2021 at 20:23

4 votes

Which historical Unixes supported terminal I/O with five or six bits per character, and with what character sets?

answered Jun 1 at 7:35

4 votes

History of static analysis tools for defect identification

answered Nov 7 at 7:48

3 votes

Why did 1950s-60s computers have such wide words?

answered Sep 6, 2020 at 19:29

3 votes

Did computers come with circuit diagrams?

answered Nov 9, 2020 at 11:31

3 votes

Why did the Motorola 68000 processor family fall out of use in personal computers in the 21st century?

answered Sep 27 at 10:39

2 votes

What happened to exposed address pins/address bus?

answered Jul 17, 2020 at 21:07

2 votes

How were files transferred between different systems in the late 1980s?

answered Nov 13, 2020 at 21:51

2 votes

Commodore 64 - any way to safely plug in a cartridge when the power is on?

answered Nov 24 at 8:59

1 vote

Accepted

Windows screensaver showing "natural selection"

answered Jul 22 at 8:18

1 vote

How can a 32-bit x86 CPU start with reset vector 0xFFFFFFF0 even though it starts in 16-bit real mode?

answered May 29 at 7:16

1 vote

How was the 80186 incompatible with the IBM PC?

answered Sep 7, 2020 at 11:18

1 vote

How was the APL character set represented on IBM mainframes?

answered Oct 27, 2020 at 9:15

1 vote

Was Unix ever a single-user OS?

answered Mar 29, 2021 at 11:27

0 votes

Hardware assisted Graphical User Interface?

answered Mar 29, 2021 at 11:16

0 votes

How the I/O performance of legacy mainframes/minicomputers in different architectures is measured and benchmarked comparatively?

answered Feb 2 at 10:06

0 votes

Was X.25 solely about the connection from the DTE to DCE link?

answered Jan 3, 2021 at 11:10

-1 votes

Could a Z80 address a total of 128 KB of ROM and RAM?

answered Nov 16, 2020 at 15:11

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27 Answers

Did type-in-programs or type-in-listings teach programming in the 70s and 80s or was it just tedious typing of the source code?

When did compilers start generating optimized code that runs faster than an average programmer's assembly code?

Zip drive eject "tool"

Did Pascal programmers really move on to Java in the 90s?

Which was the first OS having both isolated users and programs?

Why is this gcd implementation from the 80s so complicated?

Why was computer memory so expensive and scarce?

Compatibility of printers with HP54645D oscilloscope?

What were the first BASIC interpreters to be programmed in high-level languages?

What was the first programming language, other than Lisp, to have “short-circuiting” Boolean expressions?

Which historical Unixes supported terminal I/O with five or six bits per character, and with what character sets?

History of static analysis tools for defect identification

Why did 1950s-60s computers have such wide words?

Did computers come with circuit diagrams?

Why did the Motorola 68000 processor family fall out of use in personal computers in the 21st century?

What happened to exposed address pins/address bus?

How were files transferred between different systems in the late 1980s?

Commodore 64 - any way to safely plug in a cartridge when the power is on?

Windows screensaver showing "natural selection"

How can a 32-bit x86 CPU start with reset vector 0xFFFFFFF0 even though it starts in 16-bit real mode?

How was the 80186 incompatible with the IBM PC?

How was the APL character set represented on IBM mainframes?

Was Unix ever a single-user OS?

Hardware assisted Graphical User Interface?

How the I/O performance of legacy mainframes/minicomputers in different architectures is measured and benchmarked comparatively?

Was X.25 solely about the connection from the DTE to DCE link?

Could a Z80 address a total of 128 KB of ROM and RAM?