Tag Archives: IBM

Cartridges for the IBM PC

Posted on May 29, 2023 by Scali

Cartridges? For the IBM PC? There’s no such thing! Well, there kinda is… The IBM PCjr has two cartridge slots. Now, one may argue about whether the PCjr is actually an IBM PC compatible or not, but let’s look at … Continue reading →

Posted in Hardware news, Oldskool/retro programming | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

A great upgrade for the PCjr: the jr-IDE

Posted on January 14, 2023 by Scali

Adding a hard drive to a PC was a reasonably standard upgrade even in the 80s. And in today’s world of retro-computing, we have the XT-IDE card, which adds proper IDE support to old PCs. Which also allows you to … Continue reading →

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When is a PC not a PC? The PC-98

Posted on January 7, 2023 by Scali

I’ve covered PC compatibility in the past, and tried to explain how just having an x86 CPU and running DOS does not necessarily make your machine compatible with an IBM PC. At the time, this was mainly about the IBM … Continue reading →

Posted in Oldskool/retro programming, Software development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

The myth of the vertical retrace interrupt

Posted on December 6, 2022 by Scali

This is a draft from March 18th, 2019. We’re slowly cleaning out the backlog. The few remaining drafts are going to take more time to work into an article though, as actual code or configuration is required to work out … Continue reading →

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VGA and MCGA, what’s the difference?

Posted on September 29, 2022 by Scali

When running old DOS games, you often have to manually select which type of graphics adapter you use. Some games allow you to select VGA for 256 colour mode. Others use the term MCGA for 256 colour mode, and some … Continue reading →

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Area 5150, a reflection

Posted on September 16, 2022 by Scali

As I said in my previous coverage of Area 5150, I was not sure whether I should comment on the demo. But I have given it some thought, and have decided to give some background info on the development process. … Continue reading →

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Area 5150: 8088 MPH gets a successor

Posted on August 8, 2022 by Scali

In case you have missed it, over the weekend, a new demo for IBM PC with CGA was released at Evoke, under the name Area 5150. It placed first in the competition, which should not surprise anyone: I was wondering … Continue reading →

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Retro programming, what is it?

Posted on May 20, 2022 by Scali

As you may have seen, in the comment section of my previous two articles, a somewhat confused individual has left a number of rather lengthy comments. I had already encountered this individual in the comments section of some YouTube videos … Continue reading →

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Some thoughts on emulators

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Scali

Recently I watched Trixter’s latest Q&A video on YouTube, and at 26:15 there was a question regarding PC emulators: That got me thinking, I have some things I’d like to share on that subject as well. First of all, I … Continue reading →

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The IBM Music Feature Card and Yamaha FB-01

Posted on March 26, 2019 by Scali

This has got to be one of the most obscure pieces of hardware I have covered so far. A sound card for the IBM PC, released in 1987. And by none other than Big Blue themselves! I am talking about … Continue reading →

Posted in Oldskool/retro programming, Software development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments