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Inside the 8086 processor's instruction prefetch circuitry
The groundbreaking 8086 microprocessor was introduced by Intel in 1978 and led to the x86 architecture that still dominates desktop and se...
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History & Retro Computing
The most popular blog posts about history & retro computing on Hacker News. 325 posts.
242
Reverse-engineering the division microcode in the Intel 8086 processor
While programmers today take division for granted, most microprocessors in the 1970s could only add and subtract — division required a sl...
243
Reverse-engineering the 8086 processor's address and data pin circuits
The Intel 8086 microprocessor (1978) started the x86 architecture that continues to this day. In this blog post, I'm focusing on a small p...
244
When is a PC not a PC? The PC-98
I’ve covered PC compatibility in the past, and tried to explain how just having an x86 CPU and running DOS does not necessarily make your machine compatible with an IBM PC. At the time, this …
245
The complex history of the Intel i960 RISC processor
The Intel i960 was a remarkable 32-bit processor of the 1990s with a confusing set of versions. Although it is now mostly forgotten (outs...
246
Unix is both a technology and an idea
You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace , the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately you're using a browser version that my anti-crawler precautions consider suspicious, most often because it's too old (most often this applies to versions…
247
The Pattern Language of Project Xanadu
Project Xanadu as a pattern language, rather than a failed software project
248
Japan’s silent movie culture is still going
There was a cultural divide in benshi preferences, rather like the difference in taste between those
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The Greatest Counterfeiter (2021)
What if you could counterfeit so much money that it stopped being illegal?
251
IBM PC 8088 replaced with a Motorola 68000
I was wondering what the IBM Personal Computer would have been like if they had chosen the Motorola 68000 instead of the Intel 8088, so I used my MCL86+ to emulate the 68000 and find out! The MCL86…
252
Fitting 44% More Data on a C64/1541 Floppy Disk
The physical data format on a Commodore 1541 5¼-inch floppy disk as used by the C64 is completely defined in software. The drive’s operating system fits 170 KB on a disk. This article explores different strategies, each with its pros and cons, to fit up to 246 KB.
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A Personal History of APL (1982)
October 1982 TR-03.214 A PERSONAL HISTORY OF APL by Michael S. Montalbano International Business Machines Corporation General Products Division Santa Teresa Laboratory San Jose, California A PERSONAL HISTORY OF APL Introduction I have several reasons for calling this talk a personal history. For one, I want to make it…
254
The curious Soviet mini-sub of South Alabama (2018)
While running around South Alabama, I came across the sleepy shrimping capital of Bayou La Batre along the Mississippi Sound. The basis for Winston Groom’s (who grew up in Mobile County and f…
255
On medieval cats
The other night I was mindlessly scrolling about on my phone through Instagram, as one does when they really ought to go to bed but are stuck being entertained instead of resting, when I came upon …
256
How the C64 Keyboard Works (2017)
I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but just 1 year ago when I started working on C64 OS, I didn't have the first clue how the C64 Keyboard worked. I knew there was a thing called the keyboard buffer, but I had cloudy thoughts of it being inside the keyboard itself. When I had to actually write the keyboard scanning…
257
How Many People? Ancient Demography
One of the first questions anyone asks about past societies is, ‘how many people were there?’ It is one of those basic bits of information and generally speaking those of us who teach t…
258
PC keyboard hides an interesting secret
I found this keyboard on eBay recently, although it wasn’t quite the one I was looking for I still think it is interesting. Let me show you why. This is the keyboard, and you would be forgiven for…
259
M.U.L.E. 40th Anniversary Special
Written and copyrighted by Christian A. Schiller , World of M.U.L.E. curator, with contributions from Andrew Dieffenbach, M.U.L.E. Online developer. No reprint without permission. Happy to get feedback on this feature, either via the contact form or one of the following social media accounts: Facebook , Twitter or…
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The Internet Free Zone (1997)
The Internet Free Zone Home Page.
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The Last Express
A moving train at night is an incredible place to hear stories. Like a campfire.
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Early computer art by Barbara Nessim (1984)
Whilst searching for something else entirely I stumbled across these images and was struck by just how beautiful they are. The September 1984 (Vol 9, No 10) ...
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The Backbone: A History of the Internet
This page provides a single entry point to all the posts in the story of how the world got online. Now available as a book, buy here. The Backbone: Introduction One System, Universal Service? The U…
264
My Meeting with David Bohm
June 29, 2023. Some scientists seek to clarify reality, others to mystify it. Physicist David Bohm seemed driven by both impulses. He is renowned for promoting a sensible (according to experts like Einstein, John Bell and philosopher Tim Maudlin) interpretation of quantum mechanics. But Bohm also a
265
The 8-bit era: Eight processor designs
Why do the 8-bit designs of the 1970s still generate so much interest?
266
Highway to Ruin: The crash of Southern Airways flight 242 (2022)
When a Southern Airways DC-9 loses both engines during a storm, an attempt to land it on a rural highway goes horribly wrong.
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Atari Tempest: Time-Lapse Photography (2016)
Thought we’d try something different this week. For the record, I am definitely a ‘point and click’ photographer – my mobile phone has always been my camera of choice. The e…
268
Explore the Silk Roads
Experience history's greatest journey along the veins of the world. Relive the interactive journey from Europe to China, explore the map of the Silk Roads, or choose an outpost to trave back in time to.
269
Why Finland Selected the F-35A (2021)
Back in 2017 I was fortunate enough to travel to RAF Lossiemouth together with a bunch of Finnish media courtesy of BAE Systems to get up and close with the Eurofighter Typhoon group operating ther…
270
The (Almost) Definitive 486DX/50 Article
(Source: Infoworld, 25th May 1992, p56) We need to start at the beginning, because understanding the timeline of the 486 - Intel's 4th gener...