Collaborate Disseminate
While we don’t see it used very often these days, BASIC was fairly revolutionary in bringing computers to the masses. It was one of the first high-level languages to catch on …read more Continue reading BASIC Classroom Management
On modern desktop and laptop computers, there is rarely a need to think about memory. We all have many gigabytes of the stuff, and it’s just there. Our operating system …read more Continue reading 640k Was Never Enough For Anyone: How DOS Broke Free
Video gamers know about cheat codes, but assembly language programmers are often in search of undocumented instructions. One way to find them is to map out all of a CPU’s …read more Continue reading Finding Undocumented 8086 Instructions Via Microcode
You might think assembly language on a PC is passe. After all, we have a host of efficient high-level languages and plenty of resources. But there are times you want …read more Continue reading It isn’t WebAssembly, but it is Assembly in Your Browser
One of the interesting features of the 8086 back in 1978 was the provision for “string” instructions. These took the form of prefixes that would repeat the next instruction a …read more Continue reading String Operations the Hard(ware) Way
The 8086 has been around since 1978, so it’s pretty well understood. As the namesake of the prevalent x86 architecture, it’s often studied by those looking to learn more about …read more Continue reading 8086 Multiply Algorithm Gets Reverse Engineered
A problem faced increasingly by retrocomputer enthusiasts everywhere is the supply of chips. Once a piece of silicon goes out of production its demand can be supplied for a time …read more Continue reading A Cycle-Accurate Intel 8088 Core For All Your Retro PC Needs
Few CPUs have had the long-lasting influence that the 8086 did. It is hard to believe that when your modern desktop computer boots, it probably thinks it is an 8086 …read more Continue reading Silicon Sleuthing: Finding a ancient bugfix on the 8086
You’d think that the 8086 microprocessor, a 40-year-old chip with a mere 29,000 transistors on board that kicked off the 16-bit PC revolution, would have no more tales left to tell. But as [Ken Shirriff] discovered, reverse engineering the chip from die photos reveals some hidden depths.
The focus of …read more
Continue reading Reverse Engineering the Charge Pump of an 8086 Microprocessor
As a layperson reading about some branches of mathematics, it often seems like mathematicians are just people who really like to create and solve puzzles. And, knowing that computer science shares a lot of its fundamentals with mathematics, we can assume that most computer scientists are also puzzle-solvers as well. This latest project from [tom7] shows off his puzzle creating and solving skills with a readable file which is also a paper, which is also a compiler for C programs, which can also play music.
[tom7] started off with the instruction set for the Intel 8086 processor. Of the instructions …read more