LBA 48bit vs 28bit BIOS support and DOS/Windows 98 FAT32 limits

As you know for sure, LBA (logical block addressing) comes in two flavors, the early 28bit LBA implementation and the later LBA 48bit.LBA is not implemented for early PCs (but approx. since Intel 80386 CPU PCs raised), and unfortunately also later sold PCs have often only 28bit BIOS support.This is also mentioned on several web […]

Continue Reading

Comparison of free memory for an old IBM PC/XT compatible system

All big numbers are „Bytes“. Nothing else loaded, no keyboard driver a.s.o. MS-DOS 1.25 : 642784 english MS-DOS 2.00 : 628688 english MS-DOS 2.11 : 630784 english MS-DOS 3.00 : 616720 english MS-DOS 3.10 : 616800 english MS-DOS 3.20 : 609984 english MS-DOS 3.30 : 600368 english MS-DOS 3.31 : 599488 english (Compaq DOS, first […]

Continue Reading

Hard Disk Imaging Utility for (very) old PCs – now in beta status

Because I was still searching for a small hard disk imaging software which can run on a IBM PC/XT also (no need for EMS or XMS, no need for a better processor than 8088), and can be used with a parallel ZIP drive (e.g. with PalmZIP for PC/XTs), but not finding anything useful, I developed […]

Continue Reading

Strange DOSBOX (with latest version 0.74-3) behaviour with a sample benchmark program

To have some new examples for x86 assembler programming, I’ve created also one sample with a small benchmark program, which should work with old PCs like the IBM PC/XT. This program, created with an assembler source for MASM 5.10, will measure basically for a defined period of time (5 seconds, or in 1/18.2 sec ticks […]

Continue Reading

Ghost HDD imaging history … Wikipedia ignores versions below 3

Most of you know „Norton Ghost“, even more often known as „Symantec Ghost“. But it wasn’t published by Symantec first. Binary Research started to sell Version 1.0 (1.1) in 1996, followed by Version 2.0 (2.07) and Version 3.0 (3.1) – latest minor version in brackets. The first 2 versions runs even with an IBM XT […]

Continue Reading

Remarkable site and blog: The 'Computer History Museum'

I just want to point out that there is a site and blog you must visit: The „Computer History Museum“ logo: The blog is still actualized regularly, and points out many historical facts beside of other more ore less computer related facts but also opinions. The site itself does NOT only shows vintage computer technology, […]

Continue Reading

Two interesting pages about the Olivetti M20 – one of the few computer which have a Z8000 and can run CP/M-8000

Full with additional links and infos, more than just a vintage computer museum entry: http://retrocomputing.altervista.org/m20/m20.html http://www.retrocomputing.tk/olivettim20.html To get an impression from what I’m talking – here’s an image from an M20 machine, running CP/M-8000: The machine was selled in 1982 with PCOS (that’s an operating system with cryptic commands, even more cryptic than CP/M was)… […]

Continue Reading

Off topic: Microsoft Safety Scanner … not really recommendable. See why.

Many of you may know that there is an offline malware scanner from Microsoft existing, it’s a portable app, so you don’t need to install it (just extract it from an archive and start it) – the Microsoft Safety Scanner … also known as MSERT. I tested this tool a few times, but I found […]

Continue Reading

FMA 3500, a 486DX Notebook with monochrome LCD VGA display

Not really bad for 1991, this notebook with a monochrome LCD VGA display has a 130MB hard disk drive and 8 MBytes RAM. The build in video graphics adapter is a Cirrus Logic GD610. It has 2 serial interface ports, 1 parallel port and one external keyboard socket/connector – but no PCMCIA or even USB […]

Continue Reading