Category Archives: Documentation

MS C 4.0 Documentation Added

Posted on November 27, 2015 by Michal Necasek

Another library expansion. This time it’s Microsoft C 4.0 documentation (1986)—because it’s not available online, is not easy to find offline, and because Jeff asked for it. MS C 4.0 was an early Microsoft compiler, implementing first glimpses of the not-yet finalized … Continue reading →

Posted in C, Documentation, DOS, Microsoft | 7 Comments

More on the C&T Super386

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Michal Necasek

Since last week’s post, more information about the Chips and Technologies C&T has come to light. It now appears that at least some 38605DX processors were made. Whether there is any surviving working system is still an open question (since … Continue reading →

Posted in 386, C&T, Documentation | 28 Comments

OS/2 Technical Library Scans

Posted on January 10, 2015 by Michal Necasek

After a lot of scanning and OCRing, here’s the OS/2 2.0 Technical Library (well, most of it) in PDF form. This was IBM’s complete programming documentation for OS/2 2.0, covering general programming, GUI development, Workplace Shell, and device drivers. Certainly … Continue reading →

Posted in Documentation, OS/2 | 8 Comments

Curious Instructions

Posted on December 13, 2014 by Michal Necasek

Years ago, Geoff Chappell (the author of DOS Internals, among other things) published an article about mysterious instructions that Microsoft’s LINK knows but Intel’s documentation is silent about. The fourteen listed instructions were: LOADALL, CFLSH, WRECR, RDECR, SVDC, RSDC, SVLDT, … Continue reading →

Posted in Documentation, Intel, x86 | 11 Comments

ThinkPad 850 Hardware Maintenance Manual

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Michal Necasek

Thanks to a very helpful reader (Mike Senior—thanks!), the OS/2 Museum can now publish the ThinkPad Power Series 850 Hardware Maintenance Service and Reference manual in the form of a PDF. This is IBM document number 30H2383. The manual might … Continue reading →

Posted in Documentation, PowerPC, ThinkPad | 5 Comments

Windows Presentation Manager Documentation

Posted on July 20, 2014 by Michal Necasek

The OS/2 Museum just posted a three-volume set of draft Windows Presentation Manager reference documentation. This refers to the OS/2 Presentation Manager GUI but highlights the story Microsoft pushed in 1987: Windows and OS/2 both used the same graphical user … Continue reading →

Posted in Documentation, Microsoft, OS/2 | 5 Comments

OS/2 Programmer’s Toolkit

Posted on July 11, 2014 by Michal Necasek

For those wishing to write OS/2 1.x programs, the complete Microsoft OS/2 Programmer’s Toolkit documentation is now online. This is Microsoft’s programming documentation for OS/2 1.0 programming. It is worth noting that IBM’s programming documentation was different; worse yet, IBM’s … Continue reading →

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

Weekend Reading, OS/2 and Windows

Posted on July 4, 2014 by Michal Necasek

In a recent post I mentioned that the OS/2 Museum’s stack of PC Tech Journal issues ironically does not include the first PCTJ issue devoted to OS/2. Thanks to pcjs.org, the October 1987 issue of PCTJ can now be read … Continue reading →

Posted in Documentation, Microsoft, OS/2, Windows | 3 Comments

Undocumented 8086 Opcodes

Posted on December 21, 2013 by Michal Necasek

A minor mystery recently surfaced while analyzing DOS boot sectors. DOS uses several criteria when deciding whether a boot sector contains a valid BPB, and one of the criteria is (oddly enough) checking whether the first two bytes of the … Continue reading →

Posted in 8086/8088, Documentation, Intel, x86 | 62 Comments

ATI mach8/mach32/early mach64 Documentation?

Posted on June 26, 2013 by Michal Necasek

It’s a long shot, but I’m looking for programming documentation for ATI’s mach8/mach32 and early mach64 chips (prior to 1996 or so). The earlier documents may have only existed in paper form. These used to be available from ATI but … Continue reading →

Posted in ATi, Documentation | 37 Comments