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Category Archives: Compaq
First ROM Shadowing
The other day I was asked an interesting question: What was the first BIOS with support for ROM shadowing? In the 1990s, ROM shadowing was common, at first as a pure performance enhancement and later as a functional requirement; newer … Continue reading
Posted in C&T, Compaq, IBM, PC architecture, PC history
55 Comments
Compaq EGA Technical Reference Guide
A rater nice Compaq EGA Tech Ref recently turned up on archive.org, under the title COMPAQ Enhanced Color Graphics Board Technical Reference Guide. It’s from December 1986, relatively late in EGA’s life (given that it was about to be obsoleted … Continue reading
Posted in Compaq, Documentation, PC history
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Whence IDENTIFY DRIVE?
As most everyone knows, the AT Attachment standard (informally known as IDE) started by literally bolting the previously standalone AT disk controller onto a MFM drive with a ST506 interface and connecting the assembly to the host system with a … Continue reading
Posted in Compaq, Documentation, IDE, PC hardware, PC history, Storage
36 Comments
Breaking Into ASOS
The OS/2 Museum recently acquired a Quantum Bigfoot TS hard disk in mint condition. The Bigfoot drives, as some readers may remember, were rather oddball late-1990s 5.25″ IDE drives that were cheap, slow, and relatively big. There was a sticker … Continue reading
Posted in Compaq, PC history, SCO
4 Comments
Well Hello
So after some furious disassembling, assembling, and linking, things got this far: It took longer than it ought to have because although IDA is great, I couldn’t figure out how to make it work with GW-BASIC’s bizarre segment usage. The … Continue reading
Posted in Compaq, Microsoft, PC history, Source code
7 Comments
Deskpro 386 at 30
30 years ago, in September 1986, Compaq announced the Deskpro 386, a PC as revolutionary as it was conservative. Compaq decided to forge its own path and not wait for IBM to introduce a 386-based PC. At the same time, Compaq … Continue reading
Posted in 386, Compaq, IBM, PC history, PC press
19 Comments
Original CEMM Unearthed
An important fragment of PC history was unearthed a few days ago: An image of a Compaq Deskpro 386 supplemental disk from August 1986, containing among other things CEMM.EXE, Compaq’s original expanded memory emulator shipped with the Deskpro 386. The … Continue reading
Posted in 386, Compaq, DOS
28 Comments