dumbass

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General discussion for retrocomputing.stackexchange.com

dumbass

May 2 17:52

Any takers? On one hand, UEFI is too new for this site, but on the other, perhaps “PEED” did come from some obscure version of DOS, which would make it topical for this site…

dumbass

May 2 17:52

Q: What (executable?) file format uses an “EDOS” magic number of “PEED”?

The original EDK contains the following macro definition (e.g. in Edk/Foundation/Efi/Include/EfiImage.h line 57): #define EFI_IMAGE_EDOS_SIGNATURE 0x44454550 // PEED A similar definition appears in the EFI Toolkit (include/efi/ia32/pe.h) and the GNU EFI library (e.g. inc/ia32/pe....

dumbass

Apr 7 11:32

quuxplusone.github.io/blog/2025/04/04/etymology-of-call

dumbass

Jan 5 16:44

Yesterday I found out that unlike the MS-DOS kernel, NTLDR does not place any layout requirements on its host file systems (the supported ones, anyway) in order to be loaded correctly by the boot sector. But I am not sure if this is interesting enough to write up.

dumbass

Dec 12, 2024 09:33

Yup, I found an infinite geometry cycle: a single partition ending at sector 30218 (start 63, length 30156) takes 12 cycles of wrong guesses and geometry fix-ups to loop back to the default geometry guess of 16 heads, 63 sectors per track.

dumbass

Dec 11, 2024 22:35

Here’s a fun QEMU trick:

0. Create an empty raw disk image, size 128 MiB.
1. Mount it in QEMU and boot the emulator from a floppy containing the Ranish Partition Manager and formatting tools.
2. Use RPM to write standard MBR code to the image, create a FAT16 partition starting on sector 63 with the size of 261972 sectors, format it and make it bootable.
3. Reboot QEMU from the floppy and transfer the DOS kernel to the partition.
4. Reboot QEMU again from the hard disk image (`boot_set c`). Yay, it boots!

dumbass

Dec 11, 2024 17:30

I wonder if it would make sense to ask a question about how QEMU detects the geometry of a hard disk image and what pitfalls this creates. On one hand, this is probably of interest; on the other, it might run afoul of scope rules for emulator questions.

dumbass

Nov 12, 2024 18:24

@AnnoyingRobot I bet this is meant to be a cheesy marriage proposal.

user3840170

Oct 5, 2024 20:12

Related to retrocomputing.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1165/15334 , I now wonder about posting a question about archives of old Microsoft Knowledge Base articles…

user3840170

Sep 29, 2024 06:56

But that’s not all. If you enable interactive boot (Shift+F8), choose “Command prompt only”, and then decline the question whether to load AUTOEXEC.BAT, you get an error message – because then the kernel launches the shell with /Y /D C:\WINDOWS /D /K AUTOEXEC.

user3840170

Sep 29, 2024 06:55

Discovered yet another quirk of MS-DOS 7.x, but I am not sure it would make for a good Q&A pair: the “Command prompt only” option in the F8 boot menu works by passing /D /K AUTOEXEC to COMMAND.COM. First /D to disable AUTOEXEC.BAT processing, and then /K to enable it back. Pretty silly, isn’t it? That’s because /D disables both AUTOEXEC.BAT processing and launching WIN.COM.

user3840170

Apr 26, 2024 18:40

MS-DOS 4.0 source code was released: cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2024/04/25/…

user3840170

Sep 19, 2023 14:17

Origin of the U+ notation for code points: unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2005-m11/0060.html (via Arthur O'Dwyer)

user3840170

Aug 18, 2023 15:41

Q: What does the 'Reset' button on an N64 actually do?

The question struck me this morning when I saw my old N64; there's a reset button on it. What does it actually do? Can't remember a moment where I did have to push it. Is it simply a button that does exactly the same as if you were to turn off the console and back on, just in a fraction of a seco...

nintendo-64

user3840170

Jan 15, 2023 22:14

Well, I thought I had been exaggerating about Windows 9x, and was about to walk it back, but then I saw retrocomputing.meta.stackexchange.com/a/964/15334 (from a 35k-reputation user, so a pretty well-established regular), so it seems I was exaggerating much less than I thought. Granted, it has just as many upvotes as downvotes (+3 / −3), but it’s not like nobody has expressed this view either.

Discussion on question by Arbel Grosh…

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...

dumbass

Apr 18 12:50

I don't think this question should be closed as opinion-based. It should be closed as unfocused.

Discussion on question by uhoh: Chekh…

Imported from a comment discussion on literature.stackexchange...

dumbass

Mar 23 06:35

This is not removed from the question – on the contrary, this context is added back where it belongs. With the current title, someone familiar with say, academic literary analysis, but not immersed in the TV Tropes wiki might think “Wait, what? No they aren’t. This question makes no sense. Downvote!”

dumbass

Mar 23 06:35

But those terms are virtually unheard of outside of that website. You are asking about a site-specific term without realizing it.

Discussion on question by Vikki: How …

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...

user3840170

Sep 30, 2024 10:20

But back to the real issue – I discovered that after renaming the files there’s one other thing to do: in SYSTEM.INI, there is a [Password Lists] section that maps user names to PWL files. I assume it will have to be edited as well.

user3840170

Sep 30, 2024 10:20

Why bother with such obscure metaphors? What’s wrong with “undergoing a gender transition”? Or in fact just not mentioning the reason at all – SE questions are about specific problems, not specific askers.

user3840170

Sep 30, 2024 10:20

I think this can be folded into Managing and deleting users in Windows 95 prior to Internet Explorer 4 – even though the other question does not mention renaming explicitly.

user3840170

Sep 30, 2024 10:20

If an egg cracks next to the computer, just turn off the computer and wipe it off. No need to mess with logins.

Discussion on question by Adam Willia…

Imported from a comment discussion on skeptics.stackexchange.c...

user3840170

Sep 20, 2024 02:02

@Oddthinking Marketroids don’t own words either. And demanding that I accept the marketing definition is a linguistic prescription. The so-called “descriptivists” are hypocrites.

$Mathematics$ Discussion on answer by Z. A. K.: Ext…

Imported from a comment discussion on math.stackexchange.com/q...

user3840170

Aug 2, 2024 16:45

@Z.A.K. Sure, but then one might as well work in the free theory of {∈} (i.e. one without any axioms) and prove things like “if ZFC holds true and has a model…” (or perhaps NBG if you worry about finite axiomatizability). And what’s the point if such sentences might as well be true merely vacuously?

user3840170

Aug 2, 2024 16:45

Can the metatheory really be just ZFC if the existence of the model implies Con(ZFC)?

Discussion on question by supercat: P…

Imported from a comment discussion on langdev.stackexchange.co...

user3840170

Jul 19, 2023 15:21

‘If a program has received input which--for some combination of unspecified behaviors--could result in a function being invoked with certain argument values without any additional input being received’ – what does this condition even mean? Can’t you just skip it?

Discussion on answer by Peter Cordes:…

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...

user3840170

May 27, 2023 18:07

Another thing: as I remember, x86-64 also starts up at address 0xFFFFFFF0, which is not the top 16 bytes of the 64-bit physical address space, as the unnecessarily large text seems to imply.

user3840170

May 27, 2023 18:07

I think the original 8088 had no descriptor caches, so it's meaningless to speak of its CS.base…

Discussion on question by javanerd: W…

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...

user3840170

May 23, 2023 14:49

WebAssembly is pretty new, though the idea of running arbitrary (sandboxed, more or less) code within the browser is much older: JS, ActiveX, Java applets, Flash, NaCl… I think those approaches (and why most of them didn’t take off and/or were much more limited) would actually be on-topic here.

user3840170

May 23, 2023 14:49

Why is this being close-voted as off-topic? The question may seem silly if one knows how the Web came to be, but that doesn’t make it off-topic.

Discussion on question by N.F.: What …

Imported from a comment discussion on philosophy.stackexchange...

user3840170

Apr 13, 2023 07:56

The clickbait title fallacy.

Discussion on question by Arunabh Bha…

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...

user3840170

Mar 21, 2023 18:34

I’d say it’s rather OK now (the answers may need to be tweaked, but they haven’t been substantially invalidated). I can’t speak for other voters, however.

user3840170

Mar 21, 2023 18:34

After the edits, the question has become even more incoherent, with the title asking about a claim that the body first denies, then sort-of acknowledges (‘the "real" Windows actual descendants’ implies MS-DOS is somehow a ‘fake descendant’)… it’s a mess.

Discussion on answer by Davislor: Cod…

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...

user3840170

Feb 10, 2023 08:01

Also, to be consistent… with what? No form of XML is even mentioned in this answer. (Although it could, XML has its own encoding declaration syntax that’s perhaps worth remarking on.)

user3840170

Feb 10, 2023 08:01

Actually, I can’t. There’s only one edit that adds the hypertext syntax.

user3840170

Feb 10, 2023 08:01

/> is unnecessary in HTML. It was needed when serving XHTML as HTML, but now that XHTML is no longer the future, it’s entirely superfluous.

Discussion on question by zomega: Whi…

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...

user3840170

Feb 4, 2023 13:49

Was there one in a period that would count as within scope here? Is there one even now? I am not sure even the examples given count. A threat model in which programs are not trusted to do the user’s bidding is a relative novelty.

Discussion on question by Adam Hyland…

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...

user3840170

Feb 1, 2023 09:35

@supercat Someone can still invoke test1((void *)&x, (void *)&x) from another translation unit. Linked dynamically. So really, LTO has nothing to do with it. TBAA relies on no strict aliasing violations anywhere ever. ‘TBAA with exceptions’ is wishful thinking.

user3840170

Feb 1, 2023 09:35

@supercat The compiler either is allowed to assume there are no strict aliasing violations anywhere, or not. If not, you give up TBAA (which you may be fine with; not saying you have to like it). If it is, you shouldn’t be surprised at the consequences of the principle of explosion that follow when that assumption is wrong. Absence of evidence of violations is not evidence of absence, so either strict aliasing is guaranteed everywhere (even where the compiler can’t see) or it might as well be ignored. There is no third possibility. Your rants are just wishful thinking.

user3840170

Feb 1, 2023 09:35

@JeremyP Try GCC with -O2 -Wall.

user3840170

Feb 1, 2023 09:35

As for (3), I’m not sure you could actually convince a typical programmer of the time that strict aliasing violations are wrong, even if you pointed at standards documents. I think they’d just shrug and say ‘well, it works on my compiler’. The DeathStation 9000 was considered a silly thought experiment without any practical implications; it is only when compilers with sophisticated optimisations became widely adopted that the language lawyers started being taken seriously. Pervasive ‘it-works-on-my-machine-ism’ is something that is yet to be rooted out of the common programmer’s mindset.

Discussion on question by pts: Tiny l…

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...

user3840170

Jan 23, 2023 10:33

@WillHartung A C library also contains header files, and those tends to be full of compiler-specific magic. Especially standard libraries.

user3840170

Jan 23, 2023 10:33

I’m not sure any libc usable with multiple DOS compilers exists, never mind one so tightly optimised for low overhead.

Discussion on question by Neil Meyer:…

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...

user3840170

Jan 21, 2023 12:29

@JonathanReez But that distorts the meaning of the question. Better just close it.

user3840170

Jan 21, 2023 09:01

Plus, the title is not coherent with the question body.

user3840170

Jan 21, 2023 09:01

The actual quote is ‘Efficient memory allocation and garbage collection has been the subject of decades of computer science research. […] If you are using a language like Java, Python, or PHP, every time you create a new string through concatenation without thinking about memory allocation, remember to appreciate the decades of work by computer scientists that made it easy for you. Kernighan and Ritchie knew "garbage collection" was difficult. So they left it out of the C language and put it into a run-time library.’ It doesn’t really say what the asker is claiming.

Discussion on question by Humancoder1…

Imported from a comment discussion on retrocomputing.stackexch...

user3840170

Jan 16, 2023 10:02

If you got through copying and rebooted into the installer you just finished copying to the hard drive, I think you got through the biggest hurdle. You can put away the USB drive for now.

user3840170

Jan 15, 2023 20:04

Passed the /T option… After you reboot, there’s going to be a second round, assuming it picked the correct destination drive.

user3840170

Jan 15, 2023 19:42

@Humancoder1123 The first time or the second time around? Have you made sure it’s copying to the hard disk and not to the USB drive?

user3840170

Jan 15, 2023 17:47

There’s an [upload…] button