Category Archives: PC history

Lies, Damn Lies, and Wikipedia

Posted on December 26, 2015 by Michal Necasek

While researching the history of 486s for a previous article, I came across a fascinating Wikipedia entry and its associated talk page. It’s a nice showcase of inmates running the asylum, and a reminder that Wikipedia can’t be considered an authoritative … Continue reading →

Posted in 486, Intel, PC history | 37 Comments

Intel OverDrive Part I: 486 OverDrive

Posted on December 13, 2015 by Michal Necasek

Intel had a long history of offering retail processor upgrades for PCs. The last and by far the best known of those were the Intel OverDrive processors. But let’s start with the earlier history. In 1987, Intel released the Inboard 386/AT, … Continue reading →

Posted in 486, Intel, PC history | 6 Comments

Intel 486 Errata?

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Michal Necasek

There don’t seem to be any specification updates or errata lists for any Intel 486 CPU anywhere. It’s odd because there are specification updates for 386s (and of course Pentiums) from Intel, and because the embedded 486s continued to be … Continue reading →

Posted in 486, Intel, PC history | 22 Comments

The Forgotten 386

Posted on November 13, 2015 by Michal Necasek

The CPUs that fit into a 386 socket are well known: Intel’s original, AMD’s exact copy, and Cyrix/TI upgrades. There is also IBM’s 386SLC which is close to a 386 but can’t be plugged into a standard 386 socket. The photo below … Continue reading →

Posted in 386, C&T, PC history | 25 Comments

OPL3 Copies

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Michal Necasek

A while ago, a reader commented that in certain circles, it’s well known that there were “fake” OPL3 chips. This does not appear to be widespread knowledge. After a bit of digging, an interesting chapter in the history of PC … Continue reading →

Posted in PC hardware, PC history, Sound, Yamaha | 15 Comments

Broken Spigot

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Michal Necasek

While searching for an unrelated piece of hardware, I came across an old video capture board. Alarm bells started going off when I heard something rattling in the anti-static wrap. Sure enough, one of the large capacitors fell off… because … Continue reading →

Posted in Graphics, PC hardware, PC history | 3 Comments

Sound Blaster 1.0 or 1.5?

Posted on May 16, 2015 by Michal Necasek

According to some sources, a Sound Blaster model CT-1320C is a Sound Blaster 1.5. But according to Creative’s own reference materials (which do contain many inaccuracies and cannot be taken as gospel), the only difference between a Sound Blaster 1.0 … Continue reading →

Posted in Creative Labs, PC hardware, PC history, Sound Blaster | 19 Comments

The DOS 4.0 Shell Mouse Mystery

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Michal Necasek

Several years ago, I noticed that in some virtual and physical environments, the DOS Shell in both IBM’s and Microsoft’s DOS 4.0x has a very odd glitch: the mouse pointer moves, but does not register any clicks… except on scroll … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, IBM, PC hardware, PC history | 28 Comments

Windows 3.0 DR 1.14, February 1989

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Michal Necasek

Another rather interesting software artifact surfaced just recently, after more than 25 years since its release: Windows 3.0 Debug Release 1.14 (further referred to as DR 1.14) from February 1989. This was an alpha version only provided to select ISVs … Continue reading →

Posted in 386, Microsoft, PC history, Windows | 90 Comments

mtswslnk

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Michal Necasek

Certain older Microsoft software (including Windows font files) contains mysterious strings starting with “mtswslnk”, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter. This led some people to wild speculation about the meaning and purpose of the string. Let’s start with the full string: … Continue reading →

Posted in Development, Microsoft, PC history | 2 Comments