The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘Assembly Language’ Category

Z80: the “User Manual” was already 300+ pages (:

Posted by jpluimers on 2014/08/14

Today yet another post in the series of BitSavers and History articles.

I already wrote a bit on the Z80 processor in XOR swap/exchange: nowadays an almost extinct means to exchange two distinct variables of the same size.

Popular Z80 powered computers were Amstrad CPCMSXExidy Sorcerer,  TRS-80P2000, Sinclair ZX80ZX81 and ZX SpectrumKayproOsborne 1 and the Z-80 SoftCard for Apple II.

The Z80 was widely popular in the 1980s as it could do more than the MOS 6502 of that time:

Still the XOR swap algorithm was used a lot back then because of register pressure in the Z80.

Compared to current processors you’d think the Z80 was so small that a few pages of documentation would suffice.

Not so: back then they had a truckload of documentation and it would all be on paper (PDF ame in 1993 and it took quite a while to become popular).

Some of the Z80 documentation has found its way to BitSavers.org:

–jeroen

Posted in Assembly Language, BitSavers.org, Development, History, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

On my buying list: The WOZPAK Special Edition (1978 Apple I/II materials digitally enhanced)

Posted by jpluimers on 2014/04/27

At USD 50, this seems like a bargain for Apple I / Apple II lovers.

From the The WOZPAK Special Edition – Overview page:

In 1978, The WOZPAK was a 300 page technical manual produced by Apple Pugetsound Program Library Exchange.  The poor resolution of copy machines and fax machines of the era made The WOZPAK an illegible and challenging to use collection of handwritten and typed notes.  This collection as a whole was provided to the A.P.P.L.E. by Apple Computer, Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak and then company president Mike Scott.  

Thanks to the encouragement of a number of computer industry legends, and the efforts of Apple historians, Brian Wiser and Bill Martens, we now have a completely refurbished and dramatically enhanced version of The WOZPAK.  The WOZPAK Special Edition comes complete with the original materials from The WOZPAK and The WOZPAK II as well as some new materials provided by Apple legends from their personal libraries.

–jeroen

via: The WOZPAK Special Edition – Overview.

Posted in //e, 6502, Apple, Apple Pascal, Apple ][, Assembly Language, Development, History, Pascal, Power User, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Understanding ARM Assembly Part 1 – Ntdebugging Blog – Site Home – MSDN Blogs

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/12/23

Another interesting series that just started: Understanding ARM Assembly Part 1 – Ntdebugging Blog – Site Home – MSDN Blogs.

–jeroen

Posted in ARM, Assembly Language, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

2 More Old Micro Cornucopia issues on BitSavers from 1986

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/07/17

2 more issues got on-line both close to a 100 pages each:

So the only issues missing are #28, #30 and #31.

–jeroen

via: More Old Micro Cornucopia issues on BitSavers from 1987 and 1988 « The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff.

Posted in Assembly Language, BitSavers.org, C, C++, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, Turbo Prolog, x86 | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

More Old Micro Cornucopia issues on BitSavers from 1987 and 1988

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/04/08

Last quarter, 11 issues of Micro Cornucopia appeared on BitSavers including the final May 1990 issue.

This month, another 7 issues appeared, most of which cover a form of Pascal in one or more of the articles and advertisements:

A fun thing to notice are the advertisements for Modula-2. Logitech Modula-2. Yes though the Logitech Wikipedia page does not mention it at all, Logitech didn’t only sell mice, keyboards and web-cams. They had more products. Being Swiss, they were big in Modula-2. And Bitsavers has a PDF of that too: Logitech_Modula-2_86_1.0_Feb84.pdf

The only issues still to be scanned are #28 till .

–jeroen

via: New Micro Cornucopia issues on BitSavers including the Final May 1990 issue « The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff.

Posted in Assembly Language, BitSavers.org, C, C++, Delphi, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Assembler, Turbo Pascal, x86 | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

New Micro Cornucopia issues on BitSavers (including the Final May 1990 issue)

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/26

Back in the days I started programming, Micro Cornucopia was a wonderful magazine, so I’m glad that BitSavers scanned a few more issues and put them online today, a week after some great PDF scans: Turbo Assembler/Debugger (1993/1994), Borland C++/Object Windows Library (1993):

They covered a lot of languages (x86 and 68k assembly, C, C++, Turbo Pascal and many more), and very interesting hardware designs.

–jeroen

via: Index of /pdf/microCornucopia.

Posted in Assembly Language, BitSavers.org, C, C++, Delphi, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Assembler, Turbo Pascal, x86 | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

New BitSavers.org PDF scans: Turbo Assembler/Debugger (1993/1994), Borland C++/Object Windows Library (1993)

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/01/17

The PDF Archive at bitsavers.org has recently put online these raster image PDF scans from Turbo Assembler/Debugger (1993/1994) and Borland C++/Object Windows Library (1993)

Remnants of the past, usefull for RAD Studio, Delphi and C++ Builder developers wanting to know a bit of history (: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Assembly Language, BitSavers.org, Borland C++, C, C++, Delphi, Development, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Assembler, Turbo Pascal, x86 | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

remanence of the PC computing past: Intel MCS-86 Assembly Language Reference Guide

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/09/24

Remanence of the PC computing past: Intel MCS-86 Assembly Language Reference Guide on bitsavers.org in http://bitsavers.org/pdf/intel/8086.

Intel MCS-86 is/was the 16-bit range of x86 processors.

I used it in BASM (not only in Delphi 1 and up, it started in Turbo Pascal 6), and before that in MASM, NASM, and TASM.

–jeroen

Posted in Assembly Language, BitSavers.org, Delphi, Delphi 1, Development, History, Software Development, x86 | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »