i am typing this on my 286!! :DD
i swear i am not a spam bot!
my 286 was at 25mHz with 16 mb of ram
but that mobo gone bad. the solder on the chipset chip
is not good and it breaks. i sent it to my friend to get
it fixed! because my hands shake and i have no space for a workspace >.<
i am proud of this system! <3
Great to hear of a 286 system running and actually being used too! I have a 486DX4-100 here as a BBS-era machine, but to be honest I rarely use it and just call in with Syncterm on my laptop like a lamer. ;)
What's funny, a user used to be a lamer if they had a
computer older than the current generation or a modem
slower than the fastest speeds the BBS could accept,
but nowadays it's reversed: Nobody is impressed by your
terabytes of disk space, hundreds of gigs of RAM, and
dozens of processor cores at gigahertz speeds. You have
to run some old piece of crap from the 1980's to really
impress us! ;-)
processor cores at gigahertz speeds. You have to run some old piece of crap from the 1980's to really impress us! ;-)
Re: hello! :DD
By: mary4 to All on Mon Apr 15 2024 09:33 am
I remember running a 286 system ages ago. It was an Orchid upgrade board.
You have to run some old piece of crap from the
1980's to really impress us! ;-)
Which OS are you running?FreeDOS 1.3
Which software is capable of utilizing that 16 mb of memory?nothing uses the entire 16mb! xD
I would be proud of that system too if i were maintaining it.yes!!
Do you have an online presence? (gopher hole, web site, mastodon, etc)yes https://4ch.mooo.com transfem.social/mary4
Online on a 286, sounds like you fit in here. :):DDDDD <3
Nice 286! That sounds pretty beefy on a 286. What kind of software are you running?FreeDOS 1.3 i play mod master XT on it and play some games and test software i develop on it xD
It definitely helps to have someone with some practice to do that kindi am a through hole master i cant do surface mount which is what that chip is :S
of work - the learning process can be frustrating when soldering,
usually we all break some things before we are able to actually fix things. Even with soldering experience, I still have a friend with more expertise who I can pass the really tough jobs off to.
Great to hear of a 286 system running and actually being used too! Ilol use the vintage pc! xD
use it and just call in with Syncterm on my laptop like a lamer. ;)
have a 486DX4-100 here as a BBS-era machine, but to be honest I rarely
Haha! You're right, a dozen cores running at gigahertz speeds sounds downright boring these days. On the other hand, I have a Pocket 386 ordered and en route to me and that is pretty exciting! Pocket 386 is a small notebook-form factor 386 machine sold on AliExpress, from the same place as the Book 8088 that you may have seen 'around' the past year or so. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005542582463.html
Perhaps I should take a pic of my 8-bit closet. It is fairly full of Commodores, including 64s, 64Cs, 2 SX-64s, and various 8-bit gaming consoles or handhelds. I also have an Amiga 2000HD that I haven't booted in a couple of years.
I still have a passion for 8-bit tech, but it comes and goes. Oddly, I feel it coming on again. :D
Great to hear of a 286 system running and actually being used too! I
have a 486DX4-100 here as a BBS-era machine, but to be honest I rarely
use it and just call in with Syncterm on my laptop like a lamer. ;)
Ben Collver wrote to mary4 <=-
I remember running a 286 system ages ago. It was an Orchid upgrade
board.
AKAcastor wrote to Mary4 <=-
It definitely helps to have someone with some practice to do that kind
of work - the learning process can be frustrating when soldering,
usually we all break some things before we are able to actually fix things. Even with soldering experience, I still have a friend with
more expertise who I can pass the really tough jobs off to.
I started with an 8088 XT (well, actually a TI 99/4A, but the XT was my first PC clone), skipped over the 286 era to a 386-40, then skipped over the 486 era to a used Pentium-120.
The 386 is still my favorite computer. ;) It was the first one I ran a BBS on. The BBSes now all run on single board Pis and PCs.
I put MINIX on it, installed an SMTP server, POP3 server and a web
server and create a mini-presence on our company LAN. I forwarded mail
to it, used it as a DNS forwarder, and created some web pages to share information inside the company.
not a version of minix for the 286
there is a good os in deep development called ELKS
it works on XTs and 286s
Very interting... I'll check it out.
I took a look at your github site and files. How cool that you are running your own BIOS! I didn't realize that the Impulse Tracker
source code had become available. I'll be looking at that for sure.
I was unable to view your Mastodon profile.
Chromium-ungoogled says:
No page corresponding to this URL could be found.
Palemoon says:
Failed to load
ERROR CODE: APP_IMPORT
I've been spending more time in FreeDOS 1.3 lately myself.
I've been asking myself philosophical questions like: Which is simpler, ASCII or UTF-8? There is no right answer. :>
What part of the world do you hail from? I am on the USA west coast.
I thought i saw Japanese characters on your Mastodon page. Are you
in Asia?
Once upon a time i was interested in game development. A friend askedYO THATS SICK!!! :DDDDDD
for help making a PlayStation game, back before the PlayStation 2 came out. I read online that Sony's development kit used a DJGPP cross- compiler on MS-DOS, so that motivated me to check out DJGPP. I only
had slow dial-up Internet at home, so i downloaded the bits at the
office and at the University computer lab and brought them home on floppies. I was proficient at splitting and re-joining files. I used screen captures of SNES emulators to rip sprites and then i coded a
fully functional local multi-player party game with VGA graphics and
MOD music. I was pleased with how it turned out, but by that time the PlayStation game project fizzled out. It did give me a lot of practice reading GNU TexInfo documentation and using GDB.
What part of the world do you hail from? I am on the USA west coast.
I thought i saw Japanese characters on your Mastodon page. Are you
in Asia?
I used list.com hex dumps to reverse engineer the database format, &
the shareware Desmet-C PCC compiler to write a program to export the
data to plain text, which i imported into Paradox. I remember using Borland grep.exe and i also remember using list.com multi-file views
to flip back and forth between old/new code listings page by page to
spot differences. I didn't have a diff command at that time.
yooooo i have a 4:3 ratio vga book 8088!! :DDDD
i should get the 386 version... but i feel that the 386
is modern to me :P i am only 33 so i am as old as a 286!! :D
I started with an 8088 XT (well, actually a TI 99/4A, but the XT was my first PC clone), skipped over the 286 era to a 386-40, then skipped over the 486 era to a used Pentium-120.
The 386 is still my favorite computer. ;) It was the first one I ran a BBS on. The BBSes now all run on single board Pis and PCs.
When I was a dumb kid, running a homebuilt 286 for my CS classes, I
noticed a clock crystal on the motherboard. Figured that if I bought a
faster chip, my system would run faster. I had a 16 mhz 286 for a
while, but it kept crashing. Went to 12 mhz and it ran fine.
Those solder jobs were embarassing at best. I'm surprised it still ran.
There's a special kind of fortune that shines on people who don't know
what they're doing shouldn't work.
version... but i feel that the 386 is modern to me :P i am only 33 so i am as old as a 286!! :D
When I was a dumb kid, running a homebuilt 286 for my CS classes, I noticed a clock crystal on the motherboard. Figured that if I bought a faster chip, my system would run faster. I had a 16 mhz 286 for a while, but it kept crashing. Went to 12 mhz and it ran fine.
Those solder jobs were embarassing at best. I'm surprised it still ran. There's a special kind of fortune that shines on people who don't know what they're doing shouldn't work.
Honestly I feel like the Pocket 386 might be a bit awkward of a system. It's a 386 SX so entry-level as far as 32-bit systems, but 40 MHz so
maybe not TOO sluggish? Just sort of an odd duck.
I think a 486DX2-66 or similar would open more options up for DOS gaming and probably more 32-bit DOS software in general. So I'm still holding out hope for something like that. But meanwhile, it's super cool that someone is producing this type of retro-but-new machine at all! (though
I gotta admit, I'm not sure what to do with the Book8088 after setting
it up and playing for an evening)
The 286 was introduced in 1982, which would make it 42 years old.. ?
I gotta admit, I'm not sure what to do with the Book8088 after setting
it up and playing for an evening)
lets get theat bad boi online! (book8088) >:3
How cool that your first dev work was in 1991!
What were you developing?
Telix was the first priority when I got the Book8088, downloading at 115.2kbps didn't go so well but with a more reasonable baud rate it's.. not bad!
https://imgur.com/a/JKq6XAy
Using one of the little wifi RS232 modems, it really is slick to be able to call into BBSes from an XT on wifi while I recline in the living
room. :)
I'm not up to speed with minix, but is that a currently active OS?
Meaning, is it getting constant patches?
LIST.com written by (IIRC) Vernon Berg.
Fell in love with it and have a BAT file on XP box
called L.bat since I use it regularly.
Alt-h is the On/Off toggle that You found.
Sometimes I look at html code to see and learn about how to write html.
yeah techincally!
i ment manufactured 286 mobos
I'm not up to speed with minix, but is that a currently active OS? Meaning, is it getting constant patches?
Not really. Minix 3.3.0 is the most recent version, and they have a
snapshot of 3.4.0 but it hasn't been updated in 5 years.
Peeking inside all kinds of files is such a great way to learn how things work! I'm surprised by how many people who are longtime computer users don't realize you can open files up in different applications, and that plain text editors or hex viewers exist.
LIST.com written by (IIRC) Vernon Berg.
Fell in love with it and have a BAT file on XP box
called L.bat since I use it regularly.
The batch file is a nice idea, I think besides 'cd' and 'dir' probably 'list' is typed more than anything else. Big efficiency win by cutting
it from 4 down to 1 keypress. :)
Alt-h is the On/Off toggle that You found.
It's such an obvious hotkey too, I am surprised I didn't find it even without reading the help screen! I am pretty good at being oblivious to things.
Sometimes I look at html code to see and learn about how to write htm
Peeking inside all kinds of files is such a great way to learn how
things work! I'm surprised by how many people who are longtime computer users don't realize you can open files up in different applications, and that plain text editors or hex viewers exist. (ok the last part doesn't surprise me quite as much, but the genuine lack of knowledge that it's POSSIBLE does surprise me sometimes.)
Do you have a favourite text editor? I usually use QEdit, but to be honest I lost the muscle memory for all the hotkeys so it's not really easier for me than any other text editor these days. I got spoiled by
the GUIs over the years.
Ah, 1984 then.
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/intel/iSBC/147532-001_iSBC_286_10A_Hardware_R ce_Manual_Oct84.pdf
I remember discovering disk/sector editors, and that I could change strings in executables. MSDOS became JRDOS (my initials are JR). Many
DOS commands in my command.com did not "work" because I had changed the "name" of the command. PC Tools and Norton Utilities were a lot of fun
for me in the mid to late 80s.
Not as much fun for my computer teacher, though...
I remember discovering disk/sector editors, and that I
could change strings in executables. MSDOS became JRDOS
(my initials are JR). Many DOS commands in my
command.com did not "work" because I had changed the
"name" of the command. PC Tools and Norton Utilities
were a lot of fun for me in the mid to late 80s.
Not as much fun for my computer teacher, though...
Telix was the first priority when I got the Book8088, downloading at 115.2kbps didn't go so well but with a more reasonable baud rate it's.. not bad!
https://imgur.com/a/JKq6XAy
Using one of the little wifi RS232 modems, it really is slick to be able to call into BBSes from an XT on wifi while I recline in the living
room. :)
Not really. Minix 3.3.0 is the most recent version, and they have a
snapshot of 3.4.0 but it hasn't been updated in 5 years.
Minix was created by a professor (Andrew Stuart Tanenbaum) as an educational tool for his classes/students. It was not intended to be an OS used daily by anyone who would want or need "constant patches". ;)
Probably meant more for someone who would get their hands in the code and fix it themself.
I'm not really talking about constant patches, I'm talking about the 3.4.0 branch hasn't been touched in 5 years.
https://transfem.social/@mary4
Norton Utilities was such an incredible product. The quality and usefulness of those utilities!! Good enough that they could bank on the name "Norton" selling software for years, no matter how terrible they eventually made it after the sale to Symantec.
Between Norton Utilities and his book The Programmer's Guide to the IBM PC, how would we have survived using PCs in the 1980s without Peter Norton?! Huge impact when it came to "making things work".
I started with an 8088 XT (well, actually a TI 99/4A, but the XTwas my
first PC clone), skipped over the 286 era to a 386-40, thenskipped over
the 486 era to a used Pentium-120.yooo the 286 is an awesome, vintage, forgotten, and cool system! you
should get one! :D
Honestly I feel like the Pocket 386 might be a bit awkward of a
system. It's a 386 SX so entry-level as far as 32-bit systems, but 40
MHz so maybe not TOO sluggish? Just sort of an odd duck.
I think a 486DX2-66 or similar would open more options up for DOS
gaming and probably more 32-bit DOS software in general. So I'm still
LIST.com written by (IIRC) Vernon Berg.
How did you become interested in retrocomputing? What got you started
on 286's?
I've been working on porting OpenBSD ed(1) to DOS. The DJGPP port was a breeze, but the 16-bit port has been a fun challenge and i am not
finished yet. :-)
I still have the XT and the TI, as well as the 386 and P-120. I think I am covered in the vintage department. ;)
Minix was created by a professor (Andrew Stuart Tanenbaum) as an educational tool for his classes/students. It was not intended to be an
OS used daily by anyone who would want or need "constant patches". ;)
Probably meant more for someone who would get their hands in the code
and fix it themself.
sorry for the heavy subject. i am light hearted and friendly like Mary from Ib
Honestly I feel like the Pocket 386 might be a bit awkward of a system.
It's a 386 SX so entry-level as far as 32-bit systems, but 40 MHz so maybe not TOO sluggish? Just sort of an odd duck.
I started programming in BASIC in 1982. My first paid work was in 1990,
LIST.com written by (IIRC) Vernon Berg.
Fell in love with it and have a BAT file on XP box called L.bat since I use it regularly.
Alt-h is the On/Off toggle that You found.
mary4 wrote to niter3 <=-
not a version of minix for the 286
there is a good os in deep development called ELKS
it works on XTs and 286s
Ben Collver wrote to Skylar <=-
I used list.com hex dumps to reverse engineer the database format, &
the shareware Desmet-C PCC compiler to write a program to export the
data to plain text, which i imported into Paradox. I remember using Borland grep.exe and i also remember using list.com multi-file views
to flip back and forth between old/new code listings page by page to
spot differences. I didn't have a diff command at that time.
AKAcastor wrote to Blue White <=-
Got stuck on with the Tandy a long time, then finally got a 486DLC-40
with 4 megs of RAM - what a machine! :)
AKAcastor wrote to Mary4 <=-
Telix was the first priority when I got the Book8088, downloading at 115.2kbps didn't go so well but with a more reasonable baud rate it's.. not bad!
https://imgur.com/a/JKq6XAy
Using one of the little wifi RS232 modems, it really is slick to be
able to call into BBSes from an XT on wifi while I recline in the
living room. :)
Ben Collver wrote to AKAcastor <=-
When i developed code on DOS in the mid 90's, I used Q.EXE now known as the Semware editor, i think.
niter3 wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
I put MINIX on it, installed an SMTP server, POP3 server and a web
server and create a mini-presence on our company LAN. I forwarded mail
to it, used it as a DNS forwarder, and created some web pages to share information inside the company.
I'm not up to speed with minix, but is that a currently active OS? Meaning, is it getting constant patches?
niter3 wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
I put MINIX on it, installed an SMTP server, POP3 server and a web server and create a mini-presence on our company LAN. I forwarded mai to it, used it as a DNS forwarder, and created some web pages to shar information inside the company.
I'm not up to speed with minix, but is that a currently active OS? Meaning, is it getting constant patches?
MINIX is a "teaching" OS, not really meant for production. Andy
Tanenbaum designed it for an OS class years ago. I wouldn't want to run
it on the internet, though.
It runs on an old emulator called bochs, but also runs natively and
with modern hypervisors. It ran (sort of) on 8088s, but was intended for
a 286 with a little more memory to play with, and later versions
supported 386's memory model and included an X server.
What's great about it is that the source code is available and it's designed to be walked through and understood as part of the class.
Hello mary4!
A belated welcome to you, Victoria, and I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself here in fsxNet -- there are lots of very friendly people here!
Speaking of 286s, I used to have an IBM AT with an original EGA monitor
(I remember this took up quite some space on the desk!). The power
switch had to be replaced in due time as it wore down... =)
That chassis was later on used to fit a 386SX/40 (boy, was that MB tiny compared to the chassis!) and later on a 486DX4/100, before I switched to Pentium and AMD K6-2 in a mini tower.
Best regards
Zip (Bjrn)
As I recall, 40MHz was a (the most?) popular/common clock speed for the AMD variant of the 386 SX CPUs/boards. With it's 16-bit data bus, it wasi want 16 bit power!!!!!!!!!!
a bit of a crippled processor, but not an odd duck for the time.
I wouldn't want to use one today! :-)i am using a 286 right now!
MINIX2 runs on XT and 286 - https://minix1.woodhull.com
I remember collecting all sorts of *nix utilities for DOS, trying to
make my DOS machine look unix-ey, I don't recall how compatible they
were, but do recall using *nix find, cut, and grep.
That was a wild time - 1993 to 1995 or so. 486es came out, then EISA
versus VLB versus SCSI wars, then wars over clock-doubling - was a
486DX50 a better choice than a 486DX2/66?
Then came the clones - AMD, Cyrix, IBM, andothers I've forgotten about
all came up with their down 486-esque designs. We had problems with
Windows 3.1 and the Cyrix chips, so the users would trade them for
Intel 486 boxes and we'd run BSD/OS in the server room on them just
fine.
Then, the first Pentium/66s showed up and blew them all away.the 486
era was gone, just like >that<.
DOSBOX-X allows you to redirect a TCP/IP port to a serial port. Redirect port 23 to COM1, fire up telix, enter the hostname as the phone number, and it "dials" out.
Qedit was my goto editor throughout the DOS days up until Windows 2000.
W2K had an OS/2 subsystem and could run OS/2 console apps. Qedit for
OS/2 dealt with long file names (if memory serves) and ran better than
the DOS version in Windows.
The Semware editor released a free version a while ago, I'm using it
now. It's a nice progression from Qedit.
After tolerating vi all these years, I'm trying to use it more. I have
a blog on my tilde that I'm writing with vim, trying to recover muscle
memory long gone from writing code under xenix. I'll still find myself
hitting "ctrl-K X" to exit instead of ":wq". :)
Before Logging on again, I turned the XP box on to see
the L.bat file that I
put in a sub-directory actually is: list/w .
At a cmd prompt I typed set and the sub-directory is located in the path= statement.
I looked, but I can't find where or when or how XP put
my location for l.bat in
the path. PC=1. Ed=0. again.
At a cmd prompt I use EDIT.EXE , occasionally.
I use WordPad for most of what I write.
Often I go to a Admin cmd prompt and make.txt files of
all files on the HDD.
AT C:\ I type dir /s/-p >> 'place to put the text file' .
And a second time I add /b ahead of the /s/-p portion of the command.
Ages ago I read an article saying .rtf files can contain problem code, but since I am writing text I don't think any .rtf file I ever shared with others would harm their system.
40 years ago when I bought the Commodore C=64 , 1541 and VIC Modem 300 EV> I also purchased a pack of two 5 1/4" floppy disks for $2.00 USD.
I read in the 1541 manual the Command new was used to format a disk.
I tried over and over typing new the disk name Comma two letters.
Never could make the floppy drive format one of the disks.
The 1541 drive had a Utilities Disk and I saw a PRG (Program) with the EV> title of "Test Disk", so I ran it, was asked to insert a blank disk in EV> the slot and press Return.
When the test finished I learned the blank disk had been formatted.
Much later in reading, I learned the Command on PAGE 1 of the book called 'open' was suppose to be typed first, then some numbers and then I could EV> type 'new' on the command line and my 1541 would format a disk for me.
No one needs to make up stories about Me, telling it as
You saw me do it is bad enuf.
Late one night I accidentally touched the mouse button as I had Windows Explorer open and saw a sub-directory disappear.
It was bed time so I shut the PC off.
The next morning at a cmd prompt I typed dir *. /s
to look for the missing folder.
I found that I had dragged the sub-directory down to the next one shown in Windows Explorer, so I moved it back where it originally had been.
THEN I told on myself in the FIDO Windows echo.
The next day a reply message mentioned all I needed to do after the sub-directory disappeared was to press CTRL z (which I knew was Undo).
DUH
I use less so much that my muscle memory types 'b' to go back a page.
In list.com it goes back to the beginning.
So i remapped 'b' to go back a page.
I've been working on porting OpenBSD ed(1) to DOS. The DJGPP port was a breeze, but the 16-bit port has been a fun challenge and i am not finished yet. :-)
When i developed code on DOS in the mid 90's, I used Q.EXE now known as the Semware editor, i think.
These days i tend to use calvin in DOS. It's a lean vi clone that may be too minimal for most folks. XVI is another nice one and i think it has a nice balance between features and minimalism. IIRC, xvi is descended
from stevie. Someone told me elvis 1.8 on simtelnet is decent, and it is real-mode.
I recently tried svared and i think they did a fine job
making that editor.
The only problem was that they scheduled our class in
the same room and time as the CS2 class. So, guess where
the teacher spent her time? She would give us projects
to work on, but we were seniors and not all that
motivated to complete them.
Anyway, for one of her "projects," she handed us Peter
Norton's book and told us to read it. That one I
completed and thoroughly enjoyed.
I still have the XT and the TI, as well as the 386 and P-120. I think II started with an 8088 XT (well, actually a TI 99/4A
am covered in the vintage department. ;)
Probably meant more for someone who would get their hands in the code and fix it themself.
Tell that to Intel. :-D
I think a 486DX2-66 or similar would open more options up for DOS
gaming and probably more 32-bit DOS software in general. So I'm still
IIRC, if it is an SX it is not completely 32-bit. I think that meant 32 bit processor on a 16 bit bus. I suspect you are correct re: a 486 or even a proper 386DX.
As I recall, 40MHz was a (the most?) popular/common
clock speed for the AMD variant of the 386 SX
CPUs/boards. With it's 16-bit data bus, it was a bit of
a crippled processor, but not an odd duck for the time.
I wouldn't want to use one today! :-)
Ditto. Same years, same tools too (started with Commodore BASIC, then Turbo C -> Borland C++, etc.).
qedit works on 16 bit dos?0
Never could make the floppy drive format one of the disks.
When the test finished I learned the blank disk had been formatted.
This spirit of experimentation is familiar to me, I can't count how many times over the years I didn't know what I was doing and just TRIED THINGS and stumbled onto a solution for a problem.
IIRC, if it is an SX it is not completely 32-bit. I think that meant 32
bit processor on a 16 bit bus. I suspect you are correct re: a 486 or
even a proper 386DX.
That's my understanding as well.
Interesting! I remember 386SX-16 and 386SX-33 but somehow I blocked 386SX-40 out of my memory. I do remember 386DX-40, not sure why I thought the 40 MHz 386 was the DX version only. I guess I was just lucky enough
But I'd swear at that machine at least once a day. I would have been thrilled to get the 286 back!
Yes, they did make a QEdit for DOS. Back when I got my first PC in
1992, it was running DOS, and I used QEdit.
Then came the clones - AMD, Cyrix, IBM, and others I've forgotten about
all came up with their down 486-esque designs. We had problems with
Windows 3.1 and the Cyrix chips, so the users would trade them for
Intel 486 boxes and we'd run BSD/OS in the server room on them just
fine.
Then, the first Pentium/66s showed up and blew them all away. The 486
era was gone, just like >that<.
My first experience was using a Commodore PET in my
school's library to play "educational games". The games
were loaded from a casette (or dataset in Commodore
speak). But I wanted to learn how to create those games...
I know it took several days for me to figure out that
the SAVE command (and record button) was needed *once I
was ready to save*. I was typing SAVE, pressing the
record button, and then type type type... expecting my
program to be written to the tape as I typed it! :D :D :D
I only had two 386 setups in the 90s: One was an Intel
386SX-16 and the other was an AMD 386DX-40. My next PC
was an AMD am5x86-133 (which was really a 486), and
after a little while, I learned it could be safely
overclocked to 160mhz by increasing the bus speed from
33mhz to 40mhz.
I only had two 386 setups in the 90s: One was an Intel 386SX-16 and the other was an AMD 386DX-40. My next PC was an AMD am5x86-133 (which was really a 486), and after a little while, I learned it could be safely overclocked to 160mhz by increasing the bus speed from 33mhz to 40mhz.
Yep, time to upgrade! If you can't afford anything else, then at least a Pentium Overdrive chip. :)
I never had a 5x86, but a little after that I had a Celeron 300 and that was an insanely overclockable chip. I don't remember the numbers for sure, but I think I had it at 450 MHz. Was it stable? Well, I was running Windows 98 - nothing was REALLY stable. :)
My project was to write a game called "Battle Checkers"
inspired by two other games: Scorched Earth and Battle Chess.
These systems were running DOS 3 and had Hercules Graphics.
I was using Borland Turbo Basic, which did not have built-in
support for Hercules. My teacher gave me a book with the PC
memory map and i disassembled programs to figure out how to
drive it. Then i wrote graphics routines in ASM that i
called from BASIC. I also wrote a keyboard-based pixel art
Unfortunately, though i was proud of this, i had backed it up
on floppies, and those floppies were destroyed while in
storage. I no longer have any of that code.
If you type faster you can fit a longer program on the tape!!
I suspect folks at Intel already know they can fix it. They don't need
me to tell them. :D
BW, I never had a TI 99/4A. One of my friends did. Between my friends
and
myself, we were able to try most 8-bit home computers. But none of us
had a "PC".
Interesting! I remember 386SX-16 and 386SX-33 but somehow I blocked 386SX-40 out of my memory. I do remember 386DX-40, not sure why I
thought the 40 MHz 386 was the DX version only. I guess I was just
lucky enough to not have dealt with many of the 386SX-40 machines
(which makes sense, I was pretty young and didn't have access to a
huge variety of hardware).
My project was to write a game called "Battle Checkers"
inspired by two other games: Scorched Earth and Battle Chess.
I loved Battle Chess and Scorched Earth both. I recently came across a retro DOS game archiving project called "eXoDos" and it had both of
those in it. I loaded up Scorched Earth and actually got my kids to play
a game with me. I was a lot of fun.
We played quite a bit of Scorched Earth duing CS3.
These systems were running DOS 3 and had Hercules Graphics.
I was using Borland Turbo Basic, which did not have built-in
support for Hercules. My teacher gave me a book with the PC
memory map and i disassembled programs to figure out how to
drive it. Then i wrote graphics routines in ASM that i
called from BASIC. I also wrote a keyboard-based pixel art
That's seriously impressive and far beyond what I was able to
accomplish, but then I've always been more interested in building the hardware than coding.
Unfortunately, though i was proud of this, i had backed it up
on floppies, and those floppies were destroyed while in
storage. I no longer have any of that code.
That's a shame. Last year I came across my name on a wiki of OS/2 software. I completely forgot that I wrote a little random tagline generator and the program and the file of taglines were still available
on an OS/2 archive site. I was able to download it and put it in my archive.
It's true that anything you put on the Internet is forever.
Blue White wrote to AKAcastor <=-
IIRC, if it is an SX it is not completely 32-bit. I think that meant
32 bit processor on a 16 bit bus. I suspect you are correct re: a 486
or even a proper 386DX.
Blue White wrote to Ed Vance <=-
LIST.com written by (IIRC) Vernon Berg.
Yep, that is the one. I still use it often in my DOSemu sessions.
I only had two 386 setups in the 90s: One was an Intel 386SX-16 and the
other was an AMD 386DX-40. My next PC was an AMD am5x86-133 (which was
really a 486), and after a little while, I learned it could be safely
overclocked to 160mhz by increasing the bus speed from 33mhz to 40mhz.
i over clocked my 486DX5@133mHz to 166mHz too :D
The joke was that there have been several very high-profile bugs in the ME; not due to Minix per se, but rather due to code that Intel wrote.
Ben, you keep showing me obvious things that I didn't realize I should
be doing, like configuring list and less to have the same behaviour.
I don't know if this is the case with the new DOS handheld, but Intel
made a super low power 386sx for mobile back then - of course power consumption of any chip pales in comparison to modern systems.
Interesting note I read while wiki-ing this - Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51 supported the 386 line of processors. 98 and NT 4 required a 486.
Re: Re: Minix
By: tenser to Skylar on Fri Apr 19 2024 12:30 am
The joke was that there have been several very high-profile bugs in t ME; not due to Minix per se, but rather due to code that Intel wrote.
I worked at Intel for a little over 8 years. I was in a team working on security software, and one component of the first project I worked on
with them used the Intel ME. It was interesting to learn about that stuff.. Later, the team worked on some software using Intel's SGX (Software Guard Extensions), which I heard also had some security flaws and was later discontinued.
Re: Re: Minix
By: tenser to Skylar on Fri Apr 19 2024 12:30 am
The joke was that there have been several very high-profile bugs in the ME; not due to Minix per se, but rather due to code that Intel wrote.
I worked at Intel for a little over 8 years. I was in a team working on security software, and one component of the first project I worked on with them used the Intel ME. It was interesting to learn about that stuff.. Later, the team worked on some software using Intel's SGX (Software Guard Extensions), which I heard also had some security flaws and was later discontinued.
The bug I was thinking of was rather pedestrian, and was in the built-in web server. It validated a user-supplied password against one that was stored somewhere (presumably flash or some kind of NVRAM). The code was basically,
if (strncmp(pass, userpass, strlen(userpass)) == 0) {
return SUCCESS;
} else {
return FAILURE;
}
The bug, of course, is constraining to the length of the user supplied password; the effect was that entering _no_ password automatically authenticated the password (empty strings always compare equal). The fix is to read the user password into a pre-zeroed buffer the same size as `pass` and then compare.
The issue with SGX was that it was easy to break out of the enclave. Whoops.
I worked at Broadcom for 16 years and a large part of that time was in charge of the TruManage (Deuce is actually the one that came up with that name) project that competed with Intel AMT/vPro for embedded system management solutions (i.e. ASF, DASH, SMASH, IPMI/DCMI, etc.) for client systems and low-end servers. Intel was our biggest competitor and they were able to use system main memory and hide their die-cost in the rest of the chipset, so we were at a disadvantage on Intel platforms, but had virtually all the AMD platform marketshare for a long time. Intel also played dirty in the standards body (DMTF), using their position of power over their customers to win votes and vote-down enhancements to management standards they had abandoned. The Broadcom system management controller (AKA "BMC") was integrated into our network controllers (BCM57xxx) and was a very fun embedded supervisory system with a lot of power and control over the entire system.
The joke was that there have been several very high-profile
bugs in the ME; not due to Minix per se, but rather due to
code that Intel wrote.
Yeah, I had the TI. Other friends had the C64 so I got to try both. I never got to try any of the more obscure ones, though.
Wow, developing multi-media educational apps back in the DOS days.
That was cutting edge...
I right click a file in Windows Explorer, select send to, then select EV> List to get a looksee at a file I am interested in knowing whats what EV> about it.
Another thingy I learned is to use the mouse wheel while holding a CTRL EV> key down to change the size of the font on a page.
CTRL +. and CTRL - does that too, but not in as fine
increments as the mouse wheel method.
The summer that I turned 10, I bought my first computer with money I earned that summer. I waited for it to go on sale and got my VIC-20 at K-Mart for $79.i always lkike your stories! :D
But I remember walking past a Coleco Adam and thinking it looked a lot "cooler" than the VIC-20. I didn't have enough money for an Adam though. And I'm thankful that I didn't. ;)
That Christmas, my father bought a Commodore 64 for the "family". Yeah!
Yeah, I had the TI. Other friends had the C64 so I got to tryboth. I
never got to try any of the more obscure ones, though.
The summer that I turned 10, I bought my first computer with money I
earned that summer. I waited for it to go on sale and got my VIC-20 at K-Mart for $79.
That Christmas, my father bought a Commodore 64 for the "family".
Yeah!
Nightfox wrote to tenser <=-
On a side note, I know sales of movies & TV shows on blu-rays & such
have dropped, and a lot of people aren't playing them on computers
these days, but I always thought it was interesting how it was still possible to play blu-ray discs on a PC with certain restrictions
The 15" 'er was priced at $535 USD back then in Computer Shopper's Magazine. MAG's 17" 'er was priced at +$700 bucks then.
I had seen 17" Monitors at the Service Merchandise store and drooled at the size of the screen.
The 6 point something inch screen on this phone
(Motorola g play 2023) looks to
me better than the screens on the smaller Cellphones.
I turned Auto Rotate on so the image of the Keyboard looks larger.
The longer span of Keys helps Me not have to tap the <x| Button as often.
It's tolerable, at least I can Communicate with others on this BBS.
That is neat that you had both in the house at the same time.
Quoting Poindexter Fortran to Nightfox <=-
Did some research at the store on my phone and found out it can play movies from a USB stick. The next time I'm going up there, I'm taking
a half-terabyte of movies and TV shows with me...
If you don't have access to the internet, bring the internet with
you.
Tiny wrote to POINDEXTER FORTRAN <=-
Quoting Poindexter Fortran to Nightfox <=-
Did some research at the store on my phone and found out it can play movies from a USB stick. The next time I'm going up there, I'm taking
a half-terabyte of movies and TV shows with me...
Take a smaller device just in case. Our DVD player with the USB port works great but I have to plug a stick in that's less then 40GB or it won't work. We use a 32gb stick and it works great.
Quoting Poindexter Fortran to Tiny <=-
I plugged in a 512gb USB stick and a 1TB HDD and both worked great!
They need to be exfat or FAT32, no NTFS (so no movies over 4gb each)
processor cores at gigahertz speeds. You have to run some old piece of crap from the 1980's to really impress us! ;-)
Haha! You're right, a dozen cores running at gigahertz speeds sounds downright boring these days.
It's interesting to think that everything from the last century is now "classic" in antiques terms.
And, yeah, generally the cheapest stuff is stuff that's somewhat
outdated. Thus why computers from 2017 are barely functional and questionable if anyone wants them, but computers from the 1980s and
1990s are something collectible.
Though not by me, I think. Even my hand held gaming collection ended up
at my brother's place, and I went down that route because, sheesh, you
can get a _lot_ of systems and games into small spaces that way.
On the other hand, I know that most people use these systems for either high-end gaming or cryptocurrency mining, and _that_ sounds boring.
Where I worked, my section first got a 'hand me down' 8088 XT Clone when our boss got a 286.
When the boss got a 386, the 286 came our way.
My section used those PCs to send Morning and Evening reports to another office.
Myself, I thought the 286 seemed slower saving downloads than the 8088 clone had.
The 286 had a faster CPU and bigger Harddrive, but to me I wasn't as comfortable using it as I was with the first computer we used.
Later again, the 386 was put on our desk.
I was using the Commodore 64 system at home while learning to use DOS at work on those 3 computers.
My first DOS PC at home had DOS 5.0 , I couldn't get interested in wanting the early release's of DOS 6 .
But that's Me.
Sorry, tapped wrong area on this phone.
Last message to You was same as My I.Q. ZERO.
Ed
My first DOS PC at home had DOS 5.0 , I couldn't get interested in
wanting the
early release's of DOS 6 .
But that's Me.
Blue White wrote to Ed Vance <=-
IIRC, the early versions of DOS 6 were not a big improvement over DOS
5.0 and were actually buggy.
IIRC, the early versions of DOS 6 were not a big improvement over DOS 5.0
and were actually buggy.
Buggy in a serious way -- early disk compression software had some serious issues and ate filesystems occasionally.
Also, I remember hearing about a lawsuit against Microsoft because they apparently used code from another product (I believe it was Stacker) for their DoubleSpace disk compression software. Microsoft removed DoubleSpace in MS-DOS 6.21, and then added DriveSpace in MS-DOS 6.22, from what I recall.
I remember the AddStor/Stacker/Doublespace/Drivespace days well. Tried running the BBS with Superstor for a while, worked OK - especially since
We had people here trying to flog systems with "160Mb"
HDs in them, which for
the most part turned out to be 80Mb MFM's that had compression added. Back when 160Mb was still a large drive..
The 'big' disks, due to compression, didn't work out so well for making more space for BBS file downloads! (amongst other issues, of course)
Disk compression was rather ... underwhelming ... when storing a bunch of .ZIP files. :)
Honestly though, the times I used DriveSpace and it didn't destroy all my data, it did seem like magic - more disk space for FREE!
Where I worked, my section first got a 'hand me down' 8088 XT Clone when our boss got a 286.
When the boss got a 386, the 286 came our way.
Drive compression has its issues.. It generally slows down the
computer, and there was one time for me when DOS booted up and the
drive compression driver didn't load for some reason, so I couldn't
access my files. I don't remember what I had to do to fix that..
Spectre wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-
We had people here trying to flog systems with "160Mb" HDs in them,
which for the most part turned out to be 80Mb MFM's that had
compression added. Back when 160Mb was still a large drive..
Were those RLL drives? They used a special controller to write more sectors per track on MFM drives.
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|---|---|
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