Most Popular
1500 questions
442
votes
8 answers
Why did moving the mouse cursor cause Windows 95 to run more quickly?
I was playing Hypnospace Outlaw, a game about a retro-themed OS. This OS has a peculiar behavior that when loading a webpage, wiggling the mouse cursor will load the page faster.
That reminded me of something. When I was young, if I remember…
user2652379
- 2,040
- 3
- 7
- 7
193
votes
1 answer
Why does trying to break into the NT 3.1 kernel reboot my 486DX4 machine?
I installed Windows NT 3.1 on a Compaq ProSignia 3080 system, because of several reasons: I know that this machine was running Windows NT 3.1 when it was in productive use. And I think this machine was one of the machines Microsoft explicitly…
Michael Karcher
- 7,941
- 3
- 25
- 49
185
votes
4 answers
What algorithm did Microsoft use to dither colour in early versions of Windows?
In the late 1980s to mid 1990s, most consumer-class video hardware was not capable of displaying greater than 16 colours at a time. To create the illusion of greater colour, software often "blended" solid colours by placing single pixels of two or…
Mike Nielsen
- 2,897
- 3
- 14
- 11
148
votes
6 answers
Why is the keyboard and cellphone / telephone numbers in a different order?
Cellphone / Telephone have the seven bottom-left and the one top-left.
While the keyboard has the seven top-left and the one bottom-left
How did this come to be? Is there an interesting computing anecdote that gave rise to this?
Neil Meyer
- 6,275
- 9
- 29
- 44
147
votes
5 answers
It's now safe to turn off your computer
One thing I remember very well from my childhood is the screen you got at the end of a shutdown process on old computers:
I don't know if this was a Windows 95/98/2000/ME only thing but I wonder why computers back in those days had to be turned off…
arminb
- 1,351
- 2
- 7
- 8
125
votes
2 answers
How did Commodore's anti-Microsoft Easter Egg work?
A couple years ago the Toronto PET Users Group published an article (The Great Commodore/Microsoft Easter Egg War, on p. 7) about a newly discovered anti-Microsoft Easter Egg that Commodore hid in the ROM of the Commodore 64 and other machines. …
Raymond68
- 1,255
- 2
- 9
- 9
114
votes
5 answers
How can tilting a N64 cartridge cause such subtle glitches?
When the N64 cartridge is tilted in Super Mario 64, it reliably produces glitches such as this. Mario's limbs disappear, he rotates 90° and sinks into the floor, and the music gets messed up (usually it goes faster).
What surprises me about this…
Jack M
- 1,243
- 2
- 9
- 5
113
votes
23 answers
Was there ever any reason to wait 30 seconds to restart a c.1995 PC?
I owned a PC in the mid-to-late 90s, and while everyone said when you turn it off and back on again, count to 30. But it also had an instant reset button down below. Was there ever really any risk by not counting to thirty?
Mikey
- 1,171
- 2
- 7
- 6
110
votes
10 answers
Why do C to Z80 compilers produce poor code?
When reading some other questions about compiling C for the Z80,
How much benefit should be expected on a more advanced compiler for z80/r800 based computers?
Native C compiler for Sinclair ZX Spectrum
I am getting the impression that it is hard…
Omar and Lorraine
- 38,883
- 14
- 134
- 274
109
votes
7 answers
Why was `!` chosen for negation?
It seems that the use of the exclamation mark ! to denote negation started with the C programming language (as far as I can tell from my Google research). Nowhere though is mentioned who and why chose this symbol specifically, other than that it was…
blues
- 1,099
- 2
- 5
- 7
104
votes
6 answers
Why did base64 win against uuencode?
From the the two methods of encoding 8-bit data as human-readable ASCII, for a time, uuencode format was more popular. USENET 'binaries' groups were filled with uuencoded posts with whatever goodies were shared. The format was quite robust,…
SF.
- 7,095
- 7
- 30
- 58
104
votes
16 answers
Does "Disk Operating System" imply that there was a "non-disk" Operating System?
In the 1980's at primary school we saw MS-DOS and DR DOS competing before Windows 3.1 and subsequent releases took over that space.
At home we had Apple II's which booted up to a BASIC prompt. On these we ran ProDOS and CP/M.
30 years later my kids…
hawkeye
- 2,575
- 2
- 13
- 23
104
votes
7 answers
Exactly what color was the text on monochrome terminals with green-on-black and amber-on-black screens?
I am wondering what were the color shades and brightness of the text appearing on classic monochrome terminals?
If I were to recreate approximately the green-text-on-black-screen or amber-text-on-black-screen in the user-interface of an app on…
Basil Bourque
- 1,171
- 2
- 8
- 7
103
votes
19 answers
How did people use ed?
ed was the standard Unix editor, and is present on all POSIX certified systems (though it's not installed by default in Debian, FWIW).
It's a line editor (meaning, you can't see all the text at a time. You query line numbers and it spits it back,…
Unix
- 1,573
- 3
- 11
- 7
103
votes
18 answers
How was early randomness generated?
Many programs make use of randomness, from BASIC guess-the-number games to encryption key generators. This randomness could have been generated in many, many different ways: hardware, software, software seeded by hardware...
What techniques were…
wizzwizz4
- 18,543
- 10
- 78
- 144