Monthly Archives: January 2016

More CPUs in NT 3.x Workstation

The default processor limits of Windows NT 3.x are surprisingly difficult to establish. Quite possibly because although SMP was a big selling point of NT, in reality only a tiny fraction of PCs in the mid-1990s supported SMP, and of those, … Continue reading

Posted in NT, Software Hacks | 3 Comments

Windows NT 3.1 (and OS/2) Memory Detection

It is common knowledge that Windows NT 3.1 only recognizes up to 64 MB RAM, unlike NT 3.5 and later versions. This statement can be found in various places, including this blog. The limitation was empirically determined by installing NT … Continue reading

Posted in BIOS, NT | 39 Comments

NT 3.1 SMP

Generic x86 multiprocessing, Summer 1994 edition. There’s not much to say: Yep, that’s NT 3.1 running in a VM, and it sees two processors. Remember, you saw it here first!

Posted in Intel, NT, SMP | 67 Comments

386 LOADALL

I recently came across hints suggesting that in the 1987 timeframe, Microsoft contemplated the use of the 386 LOADALL instruction in OS/2. As far as I know, no released version of OS/2 (including the SDK betas) utilized the 386 LOADALL. … Continue reading

Posted in 386, Undocumented | 26 Comments