31–40 of 85 posts
A HN poster questioned the existence of 80286 computers with VGA displays. And then there were a bunch of Amstrad PCs with 8086 and VGA: https://www.seasip.info/AmstradXT/models.html#pc2086 https://www.seasip.info/AmstradXT/models.html#pc3086 https://www.seasip.info/AmstradXT/models.html#pc5086
Young uns... I personally had a 286 with VGA back then...
I recognize the HN comment! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33007995
Yeah, I probably should have linked it, but then again, I'm not out to name-and-shame anyone or anything.
The wording of the need for the '286 isn't quite right. Windows 3.0 supported the 286 too, but also had support for the 386's protected mode. Related fact, Windows/386 2.0 supported protected mode[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_2.0x
A HN poster questioned the existence of 80286 computers with VGA displays. And then there were a bunch of Amstrad PCs with 8086 and VGA: https://www.seasip.info/AmstradXT/models.html#pc2086 https://www.seasip.info/AmstradXT/models.html#pc3086 https://www.seasip.info/AmstradXT/models.html#pc5086
> A HN poster questioned the existence of 80286 computers with VGA displays. Young uns... I personally had a 286 with VGA back then...
A HN poster questioned the existence of 80286 computers with VGA displays. And then there were a bunch of Amstrad PCs with 8086 and VGA: https://www.seasip.info/AmstradXT/models.html#pc2086 https://www.seasip.info/AmstradXT/models.html#pc3086 https://www.seasip.info/AmstradXT/models.html#pc5086
> A HN poster questioned the existence of 80286 computers with VGA displays. Young uns... I personally had a 286 with VGA back then...
No doubt the pivotal importance of IBM's PS/2 range and I was instrumental in my organization acquiring many but that wasn't without problems as we already had many ISA machines so PS/2s weren't compatible at a board level. That increased the cost of maintenance amongst other things. However, when I think back the two most disruptive problems for us were the development of the 80286 and the failure of OS/2. The 80286…
Can you expand on the explanation as to why Intel said they designed the 286 as they did?
"The designers of the 80286 based it on the Multics segmentation model, but in reality segmentation makes it really hard to implement, because of internal memory fragmentation. A while back I wrote blog post about how an alternative 80286 with segment registers pointing to 256 byte paragraphs giving a true 24-bit virtual address which was then paged into a 24-bit physical address space. 8068 compatibility could then be managed by having the segment registers map to 16 byte paragraphs as before."
But: The screwed up on the switch back to real mode, and on the reservation of the 4th byte of the descriptor tables, which made it so that Xenix-286 cannot run on a 386. ( long discussion... I think that MS purposefully made it incompatible. )
OS/2 Warp was out as I purchased my 386, and I picked up a copy, and I really wanted that to work, but it was already clear that IBM was playing catch-up with Windows because Warp was marketed based on how well it could run Windows stuff.
I thought OS/2 Warp was really neat. I worked IT at Bloomingdale's and at the time they were a strictly IBM house. They used IBM computers running OS/2 Warp in their Bridal Registry kiosks. Since this was a kiosk they had touchscreens and they worked very well and had a "sparkle" in the screen, as the early touchscreen CRT's did. If you lost power, or shut them down incorrectly you would get a bunch of DLL errors and…
Mirror for those that get blocked by the dreamwidth ddos "protection" like me: https://archive.ph/mLhYa On the subject, I am typing this response with a PS/2 keyboard from 2003. I use an old computer with old software. Which is why dreamwidth blocked me.
I'm typing through a dual ps/2 mouse and keyboard to USB adaptor. Mouse side is empty and keyboard side has a gc56mf to ps/2 adaptor on it. Because my keyboard is from the 80s.
I remap Caps Lock to Super, and I'm good to go. I really don't need media-control keys or anything, or a right Super key.
I am trialling an early model of Das Keyboard on my Mac. The volume-control dial is quite nice, because I listen to music and watch films on that. I never use the media keys, and happily, it's old enough that it doesn't have nonsense like light-up keys, multicoloured lighting or any of that ugly frippery.
Most computer lighting and decorations are visible designed to appeal to teenaged boys, with all the taste and discrimination that implies.
Also the PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors. Before that mice were speaking to serial ports or required an add in card with a nonstandard port. the people buying PS/2's were often very concerned with mice, they'd seen them on TV and they wanted one.
Most mice used an rs232 serial port.
The bus mice were semi-popular with Amiga owners because they were easily converted to Amigas. RS232 mice could be used with Amigas too, but only worked in Workbench programs which used the operating system drivers. Most Amiga games etc used the mouse hardware registers and the RS232 mouse would be ignored then.