Tag Archives: MS-DOS

MartyPC: PC emulation done right

Posted on May 30, 2023 by Scali

I would like to give a heads-up about the new PC emulator on the block. It is called “MartyPC”, which indeed is a reference to Marty McFly from the Back To The Future movies. And indeed, that is a tribute … Continue reading →

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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 →

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The DOS SDK

Posted on February 1, 2023 by Scali

A thing I have been working on, on and off, for many years now, is a set of headers and helper routines for programming DOS machines directly on the hardware in assembly and C. As you may recall, my earliest … 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 →

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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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Just keeping it real at Revision 2019

Posted on May 1, 2019 by Scali

I visited Revision again this year. And I took my IBM PC/XT 5160 with me. And I made a quick release. That release was a plan that I’ve had for a while, and which I mentioned in my previous blogpost: … Continue reading →

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Putting the things together, part 2: MIDI and other problems

Posted on February 9, 2018 by Scali

Remember a few months ago, when I explained my approach to playing VGM files? Well, VGM files are remarkably similar to Standard MIDI files. In a way, MIDI files are also just time-stamped captures of data sent to a sound … Continue reading →

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Putting the things together

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Scali

So, over time I have discussed various isolated things related to 8088-based PCs. Specifically: Using the latched property of the 8253 programmable interval timer to be able to adjust the interval without any jitter/skew, so you can use it as … Continue reading →

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8088 MPH: Sprites? Where we’re going, we don’t need… sprites!

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Scali

I would like to give some technical background information on the sprite part in 8088 MPH, but before I do that, I want to discuss the music and the musicians, as they did not seem to have gotten very much … Continue reading →

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Triton’s Crystal Dream – the final chapter

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Scali

A few years ago, I patched some of the code in Triton’s Crystal Dream demo from 1992: Although my code made it work on my real 486DX2-80 machine with Sound Blaster Pro (the ‘ideal’ setup for this demo), it did … Continue reading →

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