Questions tagged [history]
History of computers, digital electronics, hardware manufacturers, and software developers.
1,010 questions
4 votes
0 answers
195 views
Were disc files with independent positioners common?
The KDF9 disc file ('file' in the old sense) in the 1960s had 16 storage platters with a head positioner between each pair of surfaces -- unlike the more common later arrangement with a single 'comb' ...
- 41.5k
15 votes
1 answer
604 views
Did CRAY's computers have a guard bit?
The paper What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating-Point Arithmetic uses the Cray's systems as an example of computers without a guard bit: Although most modern computers have a guard ...
- 153
10 votes
5 answers
2k views
Did any processor ISA have a "reversed accumulator" architecture?
Simple processors (microprocessors or otherwise, especially older ones) often have an accumulator register that serves as the implicit source/destination register for instructions. In a microprocessor ...
- 1,069
1 vote
1 answer
183 views
ROM chip width to match 18-bit CPU [closed]
Early microprocessors typically had data bus width of 8 bits. Dynamic RAM chips were typically 1 bit wide, used in rows of 8, but mask ROM chips were typically 8 bits wide. As I understand it, this ...
- 65.4k
12 votes
2 answers
3k views
Were warning messages at the beginning of 90's - 00's Capcom and Konami games mandated by anybody?
If you grew up playing Playstation or Playstation 2 games, you probably saw one of these screens or something similar: Silent Hill, 1999 Resident Evil 2, 1998 Silent Hill 3, 2003 Devil May Cry, ...
- 231
23 votes
1 answer
1k views
Where does the Unix pack compressor come from?
I'm interested in the history of the Unix pack compression algorithms and their implementation. My questions are: Who wrote the first, older one? How was it originally distributed, and when and how ...
- 5,539
10 votes
2 answers
612 views
Did any computer systems allow using Teletext as a secondary display?
This question made me ponder: Many computer systems in the 1980s had an RF Modulator to connect to regular television sets, and teletext was part of the vertical blanking interval of that TV signal. ...
- 2,212
5 votes
2 answers
1k views
What is the best way to run NextStep?
I want to see what NextStep was all about. I have this idea that NextStep was Steve Jobs' Magnum Opus, and I want to see if it is as good as I think it is. This is how I would approach playing with it,...
- 7,255
9 votes
0 answers
329 views
Did the Data-Rite NIC-Astro computers ever exist?
The 1982-10 issue of BYTE has an advertisement from Data-Rite on page 293 for an "Astro" series of computers, the NIC-ASTRO I, II and III: I've done a bit of searching, and found nothing ...
- 29.5k
9 votes
0 answers
471 views
Why is there an ANSI sequence specific to select the Fraktur font?
As I was looking for a way to properly render console output in my websites, I looked into a library that would transform ANSI codes to HTML (or plain text, markdown... but in my case, I want to use ...
- 1,075
12 votes
2 answers
2k views
What was the first computer-based video editing software ever developed?
I was browsing the Wikipedia article on video editing software, but I noticed it doesn't include a History section. I'm specifically interested in early digital or computer-assisted video editing ...
- 307
34 votes
4 answers
15k views
What UI first distinguished radio buttons from checkboxes with circles and squares?
Nowadays most UIs use circles for radio buttons (where the user must select only one of the presented options) and squares for checkboxes (where each option can be independently selected or unselected)...
- 8,502
11 votes
4 answers
2k views
Sequential Analog Computers?
I was wondering whether there have been any documented uses of computer systems which work with fully analog values in a discrete time space. Classical analog computers usually operate with fully ...
- 213
1 vote
0 answers
281 views
What made Atari arcade games developers noticeably stronger than others in 1984? [closed]
There's a thing that makes me thinking a lot, aside the fact that arcade games in years 1980 to 1990 were astoundingly exempt of bugs (for the developer I'm now and knowing all the challenges all ...
- 361
16 votes
1 answer
892 views
Was sterling support a part of official (ANSI/ISO) COBOL standards?
Prior to 1971, the British used a mixed-base currency system -- 12 pence in a shilling, 20 shillings in a pound, written as £sd (for librae, solidi, and denarii, where £ is a stylized L). In written ...
- 41.5k