It used some heuristics. The post How did Windows 95 decide that a setup program ran? appeared first on The Old New Thing.
#history
30 posts
7 Jul
30 Jun
Finding an illicit place to hide data. The post A compatibility note on the abuse of Windows window class extra bytes appeared first on The Old New Thing.
22 Jun
Starting in Word and expanding to nearly every other word processor, and even things that aren't word processors. The post In memory of the man who put red and green squiggles under words appeared first on The Old New Thing.
17 Jun
Choosing the register to use to pass the desired stack allocation size. The post Windows stack limit checking retrospective, follow-up appeared first on The Old New Thing.
15 Jun
Offensive content in the eyes of a software engineer. The post The time the x86 emulator team found code so bad that they fixed it during emulation appeared first on The Old New Thing.
9 Jun
Even the boss got into the festivities. The post The Microsoft Company Party where everybody played name tag swap appeared first on The Old New Thing.
1 Jun
Modern this and that. The post The placeholder name for the Windows 8 experience was “modern” appeared first on The Old New Thing.
19 May
The storage control blocks were destroyed. The post What is the history of the <CODE>ERROR_<WBR>ARENA_<WBR>TRASHED</CODE> error code? appeared first on The Old New Thing.
18 May
Reported incorrectly since the day it was written. The post Just shows that nobody cares about debugging the parity flag any more appeared first on The Old New Thing.
5 May
A dispute over the TAB key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures
Raymond ChenI want to speak to your manager. The post A dispute over the <KBD>TAB</KBD> key highlights a mismatch between Microsoft and IBM organizational structures appeared first on The Old New Thing.
21 Apr
Somehow xor became the most popular version. The post Sure, xor’ing a register with itself is the idiom for zeroing it out, but why not sub? appeared first on The Old New Thing.
17 Apr
Preallocating memory to avoid quadratic behavior. The post Forgotten message from the past: <CODE>LB_<WBR>INITSTORAGE</CODE> appeared first on The Old New Thing.
14 Apr
Not a direct line to Bill Gates's office. The post Why was there a red telephone at every receptionist desk? appeared first on The Old New Thing.
7 Apr
Were there any Windows 3.1 programs that were so incompatible with Windows 95 that there was no point trying to patch them?
Raymond ChenThe permanently ineligible list. The post Were there any Windows 3.1 programs that were so incompatible with Windows 95 that there was no point trying to patch them? appeared first on The Old New Thing.
24 Mar
A very primitive version of recovery. The post Windows 95 defenses against installers that overwrite a file with an older version appeared first on The Old New Thing.
10 Mar
Oh, this old thing? The post A snappy answer when asked about dressing casually at IBM appeared first on The Old New Thing.
3 Mar
Just some useless trivia. The post Just for fun: A survey of write protect notches on floppy disks and other media appeared first on The Old New Thing.
10 Feb
Asking nicely, and asking a lot of people. The post How did Windows 95 get permission to put the Weezer video <I>Buddy Holly</I> on the CD? appeared first on The Old New Thing.
3 Feb
Some small stories about the giant satellite dish antenna that was behind Microsoft Building 11
Raymond ChenA little trivia. The post Some small stories about the giant satellite dish antenna that was behind Microsoft Building 11 appeared first on The Old New Thing.
19 Jan
What was the secret sauce that allows for a faster restart of Windows 95 if you hold the shift key?
Raymond ChenAn old flag from 16-bit Windows. The post What was the secret sauce that allows for a faster restart of Windows 95 if you hold the shift key? appeared first on The Old New Thing.
7 Jul 2024
Before I read The Man from the Future by Ananyo Bhattacharya, I only knew about John von Neumann in two contexts: that computers use the von Neumann architecture, and that he appeared in a story about a mathematical problem I … Continue reading →
20 Aug 2021
jOOQ has been around for a while – since around 2009 as a publicly available library, and since 2013 as a commercially licensed product. A lot of things have happened in 12 years. Here are 10 things that you maybe didn’t know about jOOQ. 1. eq, ne, gt, ge, lt, le are inspired by XSLT … Continue reading 10 Things…
17 Nov 2019
Read more over at the Living Computer Museum’s restoration page.
11 Aug 2018
I use a shell every day. Almost always, I want to repeat a previous command, or repeat it after a slight modification. A very convenient way is to use arrow-up to get the most recent command back. Another common trick … Continue reading →
4 Dec 2017
This post is a slightly edited version of my November presentation to the San Francisco chapter of Papers We Love. The paper I have chosen tonight is a retrospective on a computer design. It is one of a series of papers by Gordon Bell, and various co-authors, spanning the design, growth, and eventual replacement of the companies iconic […]
21 Aug 2017
The Lear Siegler ADM-3A terminal is a very important artefact in computing history. If you want to know why your shell abbreviates $HOME to ~, it’s because of the label on the ~ key on the ADM-3A. If you want to know why hjkl are the de facto cursor keys in vi, look at the symbols above the […]
30 Jun 2016
Long time readers of this blog will know that when I’m not shilling for the Go language, my hobbies include electronics and retro computing. For me, projects like James Newman’s Megaprocessor, a computer built entirely from discrete components, is about as good as it gets. James has recently finished construction of the Megaprocessor and has started […]
14 Nov 2015
In October this year I had the privilege of speaking at the GothamGo conference in New York City. As I talk quite softly, and there were a few problems with the recording, I decided to write up my slide notes and present them here. If you want to see the video of this presentation, you […]
29 Dec 2013
I enjoyed Caro’s last book, Master of the Senate, but his latest book is something really special. Over the last couple of chapters Caro has gently raised the tension by laying out the Bobby Baker scandal and the imminent deposition of Don Reynolds who’s testimony will likely fatally bind LBJ to his protégé. Meanwhile, the […]
4 Sept 2013
A few days ago a post entitled Autoworkers of Our Generation floated across my radar. In his post, Greg Baugues argues that as developers, we have a short term advantage, and would do well to view our lot as a temporary anomaly. In this article I’d like to engage with his post, and respond. The key […]