Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/15
Trouw publiceerde dit prachtige ode aan het HomeComputerMuseum in Helmond wat een belangrijk document is aan de geschiedenis van computers, voornamelijk, maar niet niet alleen die thuis stonden:
[Wayback/Archive] Museum vol vintage computers toont het stenen tijdperk van ons schermleven | Trouw
Iets bijzonders in dit museum is dat:
Je mag overal aanzitten, ‘behalve aan het personeel’.
Maar ook dat de computers, spellen en andere elektronica in hun natuurlijke historische omgeving staan: meubels, behang, accessoires sluiten allemaal aan.
Mijn eigen verzameling aan historische computers wordt na mijn dood aan dit museum ter beschikking gesteld.
Via: [Wayback/Archive] Post by @homecomputermuseum.computermuseum.social.ap.brid.gy — Bluesky
--jeroen
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Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/13
While researching early Intel 8087 documentation distributed via LISTSERV, the below blast from the past also turned up: back in 2002 computer dictionaries were also available as … books!
[Wayback/Archive] Microsoft® Computer Dictionary, Fifth Edition (Cpg-Other): 9780735614956: Computer Science Books @ Amazon.com
- Publisher : Microsoft Press; 5th ed. edition (June 1, 2002)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 637 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0735614954
- ISBN-13 : 978-0735614956
- Item Weight : 2.85 pounds
- Dimensions : 7.33 x 1.76 x 9.25 inches
It is available from various sources including [Wayback/Archive] Microsoft Computer Dictionary – Microsoft Press – Google Books and [Wayback/Archive] microsoft_computer_dictionary__fifth_edition1.pdf.
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Posted in 6502, 68k, 8086, 8087, 8087, 8088, Development, History, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/10
I need to check out which ROM my Apple //e and //c have as per [Wayback/Archive] Single Step in Monitor | Applefritter comment by [Wayback/Archive] jeffmazur | Applefritter:
Depends upon which machine and ROM version you have.
The original Apple II monitor does have an S command to single step code in the Monitor. That was removed however to add other features and was not restored until ROM00 of the //c. There are however various 3rd-party ROM images that also have the Step and Trace commands, for example ROMeX and ROM4X, APPLEII.EDM, etc.
There are also hardware boards available to do this as well
Links
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Posted in //e, 6502, Apple, Apple ][, History, Power User, Retrocomputing | Tagged: 394 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/10
Sometimes Wikipedia entries are way too short, for instance Philip A. Kaufman – Wikipedia, who in 1992 – at the age of around 50 – died way to early, does not do justice to his time at Intel.
His name rang a bell when searching for early Intel 8087 documentation distributed via LISTSERV, so below is a bit more information on Phil.
True, his life after Intel was very important especially on the front of electronic design automation. That in fact sparked the posthumous instantiation of the Phil Kaufman Award which you can read for instance at [Wayback/Archive] The Phil Kaufman Award Dinner Is Later this Month. Who Was Phil Kaufman? – Breakfast Bytes – Cadence Blogs – Cadence Community.
After his floating-point endeavours at Intel and the IEEE, he was also very instrumental at Intel in finding another big market for silicon: network controller chips (and getting the Ethernet standard going: think DIX (Digital/Intel/Xerox) [Wayback/Archive] Ethernet Blue Book (1980) which was named that way earlier than the PostScript Blue Book (1986) and CD Blue Book (1986)).
This period is very well described in the [Wayback/Archive] 1988 Computer History Museum interview of Phil Kaufman by James L. Pelkey (via [Wayback/Archive] Phil Kaufman | History of Computer Communications).
Back to floating point: Phil’s post from 1987 way better describes what early processor technologies at Intel he was involved with than the above links. That period was instrumental in getting IEEE_754-1985 going (it was released way after the 8087!) and still shapes the floating point aspects of almost any CPU from any vendor today so I quote it in full from [Wayback/Archive] Info-IBMPC V6 #59:
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Posted in 8086, 8087, 8087, 8088, Algorithms, Assembly Language, Development, Floating point handling, History, x86 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/02/04
Posted in .NET, Delphi, Development, History, Power User, Software Development, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Development, Windows XP, XML, XML/XSD | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/01/30
Houdoe Pieter: [Archive] Striptekenaar Pieter Geenen: ‘Soms had ik de neiging om Anton Dingeman weer op te laten duiken’ | Trouw
Via: [Wayback/Archive] Post by @sandradehaan.bsky.social — Bluesky
Hoe gaat het met Anton Dingeman? Tekenaar Pieter Geenen vertelt. Een gesprek over het verdwijnende dialect. En twee strips! ❤️ “Af en toe dacht ik nog wel aan hem hoor, als ik de krant las en het nieuws zag. Dan had ik soms de neiging om Anton weer op te laten duiken”.
www.trouw.nl/tijdgeest/st…
--jeroen
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Posted by jpluimers on 2026/01/20
Nice memories of the TBAV/ThunderByte Anti-Virus story.
Together with Jeroen Smulders, I was sort of on the sideline in the early days as we both were at the university had access to FidoNet (I as host, other Jeroen as point), Internet, mailing lists and newsgroups.
I used it because it was the fastest Virus Scanner around and a need when scanning all incoming FidoNet data for viruses (I had seen at university what damage a spread could do).
Some VIRUS-L, comp.virus and book links from that past:
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Posted in 8086, 8088, Antivirus, BBS, Compuserve, FidoNet, History, Internet, Power User, SearchEngines, Security | Tagged: 96 | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2026/01/08
I feel old, because I vividly remember the PCX (1985) graphics file format: it was the defacto standard under DOS.
TIFF (1986) was slightly younger, and came from the scanner background resulting in very large files though unlike PCX (which had lossless compression), TIFF supported both lossless and lossy compression.
On Windows and OS/2, you had BMP (1985, lossless initially only black and white).
All three suffered from the same problems: different implementations causing all sorts of compatibility problems
Those were the reason for the implementation of newer file formats for graphics like JPG (1992, lossy) and PNG (1996, lossless).
[Wayback/Archive] What was before JPEG? #pcx #shorts – YouTube – @Vitaskhr
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Posted in Development, History, Software Development | Tagged: pcx, shorts | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
Depends upon which machine and ROM version you have.
The original Apple II monitor does have an S command to single step code in the Monitor. That was removed however to add other features and was not restored until ROM00 of the //c. There are however various 3rd-party ROM images that also have the Step and Trace commands, for example ROMeX and ROM4X, APPLEII.EDM, etc.
There are also hardware boards available to do this as well