Monthly Archives: April 2014

From the Annals of Branding

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Michal Necasek

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

OEM MS OS/2: 1987-1990

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Michal Necasek

When Microsoft started offering OS/2, the arrangement was roughly similar to how DOS 3.3 had been handled: Microsoft and IBM jointly developed the code, IBM maintained its own version, and Microsoft licensed an “adaptation kit” to OEMs. While the IBM … Continue reading →

Posted in Microsoft, OS/2 | 18 Comments

Multitasking MS-DOS 4.0, Goupil OEM

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Michal Necasek

The recently unearthed copy of the near-mythical Multitasking (aka European) MS-DOS 4.0 clearly did not want to be alone. James Lariviere, a kind reader of this blog, provided a disk image of multitasking DOS 4 which was released in 1986 … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, Microsoft, OS/2 | 29 Comments

The ISA OSC Mystery

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Michal Necasek

About twenty years ago I ended up with a spare ISA graphics card from an upgraded computer. It was a SVGA card based on the Cirrus Logic CL-GD5422 chip, equipped with 1 MB video memory. This was a very cheap … Continue reading →

Posted in Cirrus Logic, Graphics, PC hardware | 15 Comments