Category Archives: Documentation

AMD64 APM Archive Online

Posted on December 29, 2017 by Michal Necasek

Thanks to Konstantin Belousov, the OS/2 Museum AMD64 APM (Architecture Programmer’s Manual) is now available online. Big thanks to blog readers who recently supplied several missing revisions of the documents. This is a nearly complete archive of all published AMD64 … Continue reading →

Posted in AMD, AMD64, Documentation | 2 Comments

How Fast Again?

Posted on December 27, 2017 by Michal Necasek

Or, Yet Another Wikipedia Mystery Looking for something on the Wikipedia USB page, a detail caught my eye. In the version history section, both the table and the text claim that the original 1996 USB 1.0 specification defined 1.5 Mbps … Continue reading →

Posted in Documentation, USB | 36 Comments

AMD64 Manual Vol. 3 Rev. 3.24 Anyone?

Posted on December 24, 2017 by Michal Necasek

AMD tricked me. After not updating anything for months, they updated the AMD64 documentation and not only that, they updated Volume 3 (instruction reference) twice within a few weeks. First to revision 3.24 in November, then 3.25 in December. I … Continue reading →

Posted in AMD, Documentation | 3 Comments

HTT Means Hyper-Threading, Right?

Posted on December 11, 2017 by Michal Necasek

In a logical, ordered world, the HTT bit in CPUID would indicate a processor with Hyper-Threading Technology enabled. But of course the world with Intel inside is anything but logical. The actual meaning of the HTT bit changed several times … Continue reading →

Posted in Documentation, Intel, Pentium 4 | 13 Comments

MS KB Articles

Posted on October 17, 2017 by Michal Necasek

A recent blog post over at pcjs.org explores some of the mysteries surrounding information that at one point or another was published as a Microsoft KnowledgeBase article (or a KB article for short). It’s not entirely clear where the KB … Continue reading →

Posted in Documentation, Microsoft, PC history | 17 Comments

SGDT/SIDT Fiction and Reality

Posted on May 4, 2017 by Michal Necasek

PSA: Actual hardware behavior takes precedence over vendor documentation. Or, as they say… trust but verify. A reader recently complained how Intel and AMD do not implement the SGDT and SIDT instructions the same way. AMD documentation states that these … Continue reading →

Posted in 286, 386, AMD, Documentation, Intel | 39 Comments

Finally Free

Posted on January 4, 2017 by Michal Necasek

For a while I’ve been toying with the idea of buying the full official MIDI specification, but never went through with it. Not so much because of the cost ($100 for the core spec) but because of the hassle. Only … Continue reading →

Posted in Documentation, MIDI | 6 Comments

IBM OS/2 1.x Programming Documentation Added

Posted on April 15, 2016 by Michal Necasek

IBM’s programming documentation (Programming Tools and Information, aka PTI) for OS/2 versions 1.2 and 1.3 has been added. Big thanks to Bob Eager who scanned the originals and converted them to PDF. The documents have been added to the OS/2 … Continue reading →

Posted in Development, Documentation, IBM, OS/2 | 2 Comments

Periscope Manuals

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Michal Necasek

Some time ago I recovered a latter-day Periscope manual from storage. Since some readers might find it useful, I decided to scan the manual and convert it to PDF. It covers the basic Periscope debugger, variants and add-ons (remote Periscope, … Continue reading →

Posted in Debugging, Documentation | 7 Comments

Missing Intel SDM Documents

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Michal Necasek

I’ve been trying to complete my archive of Intel SDM documents circa 2000 and later. I have most of the editions archived but a few are missing. Readers of this blog could have something stashed away too, so perhaps someone … Continue reading →

Posted in Documentation, Intel | 11 Comments