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Category Archives: 386
Upcoming Fun
Finally got one of these: There are pluses and minuses. Detailed report later.
Posted in 386
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IBM XENIX: One Step Forward, One Step Back
A while ago I wrote about why IBM PC XENIX 1.0 can’t work on any CPU other than a 286. But not content to leave well enough alone, I attempted to patch this version of XENIX so that it would … Continue reading
Posted in 286, 386, IBM, VirtualBox, Xenix
5 Comments
Windows 3.0 DR 1.14, February 1989
Another rather interesting software artifact surfaced just recently, after more than 25 years since its release: Windows 3.0 Debug Release 1.14 (further referred to as DR 1.14) from February 1989. This was an alpha version only provided to select ISVs … Continue reading
Posted in 386, Microsoft, PC history, Windows
90 Comments
Original CEMM Unearthed
An important fragment of PC history was unearthed a few days ago: An image of a Compaq Deskpro 386 supplemental disk from August 1986, containing among other things CEMM.EXE, Compaq’s original expanded memory emulator shipped with the Deskpro 386. The … Continue reading
Posted in 386, Compaq, DOS
28 Comments
386 Memory Managers and DMA
A while ago I ran into an odd problem: A virtual machine running QEMM 9.0 (aka QEMM 97) would crash more or less every time it tried to read something from a floppy. No such problem was observable in any … Continue reading
Posted in 386, Bugs, DOS, PC hardware
7 Comments
Floating-Point Exceptions and DOS Extenders
Recently I had a need to test the behavior of floating-point exceptions (FPEs) in environments where traditional FPE reporting is used. To briefly recap, in the original PC equipped with an 8088/8087 pair, floating-point exceptions, which are generally asynchronous events, were … Continue reading
Posted in 386, Bugs, DOS, DOS Extenders, PC architecture
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IBM Blue Lightning: World’s Fastest 386?
One of the OS/2 Museum’s vintage boards is a genuine Made in U.S.A. Alaris Cougar. These boards were produced by IBM for Alaris and are a bit unusual: There’s a small IBM DLC3 processor in plastic package soldered on board, … Continue reading
Posted in 386, IBM, Intel, PC hardware, PC history
62 Comments
Have You Seen This Board?
The OS/2 Museum recently acquired this mystery 386 board (click on the image to see a high-resolution photo): This is in theory a killer 386 board: onboard Am386DX-40, a socket for a replacement 386 or 486DLC processor, a FPU socket, 256KB cache, … Continue reading
Posted in 386
23 Comments
From the Annals of Branding
The following picture shows four essentially identical Intel processors in the top row: The real difference is that some of them are fabricated on an older process and thus sport a larger die size than others. (They’re also not all … Continue reading
Posted in 386, Intel
14 Comments
386 ZIF Socket?
I have a problem: Anyone familiar with 386 LIF (Low Insertion Force) sockets knows that the trouble isn’t installing the processors—that indeed doesn’t require much force and is easy to do. The real problem is getting the processor out without … Continue reading
Posted in 386
18 Comments