Tag: retro

  • Real mode to protected mode inside the timer ISR

    Real mode to protected mode inside the timer ISR

    This rocks: metalkit/lib/bios.c It’s the insane little trampoline I wrote last year in order to make real-mode BIOS calls from my toy protected mode OS, Metalkit. It’s full of all kinds of awesome and scary things. So today, I just had occasion to try making a BIOS call from inside the timer interrupt, and it…

  • The future of computer education

    I just stumbled upon a web site which still sells the Elenco Micro-Master MM-8000 Computer Training Kit, a state-of-the-art piece of educational hardware which includes an 8085 processor, 256 bytes of RAM, and a convenient set of keyswitches and LEDs for entering programs and inspecting memory. I remember seeing these in magazines like Electronics Now…