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1500 questions
20
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6 answers
Wanted: 5.25" floppy to USB adapter
I have found inexpensive (~$15) 3.5in floppy to USB adapter cables but have been unable to find a similar adapter for 5.25 floppy drives. Does anybody make such a thing?
Are the pinouts of a 3.5 the same as 5.25 so that I could just make a cable…
jwzumwalt
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6 answers
How much data could a home computer store on an audio cassette?
The use of audio cassettes for storing data for home computers was a great example of repurposing an existing invention. Cassettes were sold in a variety of capacities, and labelled with their audio capacity, e.g. a C60 cassette would hold 60…
Kaz
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2 answers
When TCP was first invented, was the initial sequence number required to be random?
In current time, when a TCP connection is initiated, the initial sequence number is required to be random.
But I am wondering, when TCP was first invented, was the initial sequence number required to be random, or was this requirement added later?
user11455
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Are PowerPC processors still manufactured and used in desktop computers?
I have some disc images that run only on PowerPC. I've heard a lot about PowerPC being popular back in the day, especially being used with older Apple computers. I don't hear much about them anymore, yet they are used in game consoles such as the…
Retro Gamer
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Looking for a platformer game
All I can remember of the game is that:
It was a platformer game
The game might have been made in the 90's
I think it was a DOS game
It was a very colored game
The main character was human (I think it was a female character)
I think I had to…
F3L1X79
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2 answers
How did the RCA1802 'call' and 'return' instructions work?
The RCA 1802 processor was used in a number of systems such as the ELF and COMX-35, and also apparently in the US space program (with its hardened variant).
From memory, it had a rather unusual set of instructions for doing function calls and…
user6464
20
votes
3 answers
Did Cray computers use virtual memory?
I found a mention on page 777 of the Second Edition of the book "Computer Systems: a programmer's perspective" [Bryant - O'Hallaron] stating that Cray supercomputers still do not use virtual memory (please note that the book is from 2011).
I…
nbloqs
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3 answers
Why was the original Apple Computer labeled as the Apple I?
As we all know, the Apple I computer didn't last very long as it was supplanted by the hugely successful Apple II about a year later. From what I've been able to find, it seems that since Woz was the sole engineer in those early days, once he…
bjb
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What was the service offered by US Sprint for long distance data connections in the late 1980's?
Back in the 1980's long distance telephone calls were ridiculously expensive. This led more than one young aspiring geek to misuse the phone network when making those oh so important calls to BBS's on the other end of the country. But I remember…
Geo...
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20
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2 answers
What was the first language with regexes?
According to Wikipedia, Regular Expressions (AKA regexes) have only been around since 1956:
Regular expressions originated in 1956, when mathematician Stephen Cole Kleene described regular languages... Other early implementations of pattern…
Laurel
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4 answers
The smell of a computer while unboxing it
Don't know if this is on-topic, but I will give it a chance to go. If you feel this is off-topic, act accordingly.
Recently, a discussion has started about the feelings associated to the unboxing of your first computer. For me it's the smell of a ZX…
mcleod_ideafix
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20
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9 answers
Can modern AI be used to program impressive graphics effects on very low performance home-retrocomputers, in particular 'A 3D-rotating-cube'
Can modern AI be used to program impressive graphics effects on very low performance home-retrocomputers, in particular 'A 3D-rotating-cube', effects that would be too difficult for a human to program on the cheapest machines
( The time-range of…
texttext
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1 answer
Did Hewlett Packard really allow the use of the HP48 ROMs in emulators?
On the FAQ of the emu48 software, a famous emulator for HP38/39/40/48/49 calculators (https://hp.giesselink.com/emu48faq.htm#ROM), we can find the following assertion:
In general all HP-ROM files are copyrighted by Hewlett Packard. But since fall…
dim
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Apple IIgs: Hardware implementation of RAM shadowing
On the Apple IIgs, the 256K of built-in main memory is divided into two sections: The "fast" RAM, banks 00 and 01, and the "slow" RAM, banks E0 and E1. CPU access to slow RAM required the CPU to slow to the 1MHz speed of the earlier Apple II…
fluffysheap
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2 answers
How to check the C64 graphics mode used by Maniac Mansion
I have been investigating the MS-DOS port of the C64's Maniac Mansion game. The original MS-DOS port used the C64-specific character map to draw the various backgrounds in the game. I noticed that each background (i.e. room) has 4 colours.
These…
user4411