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Inside the amazingly mechanical Bendix Central Air Data Computer
.hilite {cursor:zoom-in} MathJax.Hub.Config({ "HTML-CSS": { scale: 175} }); .MathJax {font-size: 1em !important} Determining the airspeed and altitude of a fighter plane is harder than you'd expect....
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Reverse-engineering the interrupt circuitry in the Intel 8086 processor
.hilite {cursor:zoom-in} a:link img.hilite, a:visited img.hilite {color: #fff;} a:hover img.hilite {color: #f66;} Interrupts have been an important part of computers since the mid-1950s,1 providing a...
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Reverse-engineering the ModR/M addressing microcode in the Intel 8086 processor
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How the 8086 processor determines the length of an instruction
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Reverse-engineering the electronics in the Globus analog navigational computer
.hilite {cursor:zoom-in} In the Soyuz space missions, cosmonauts tracked their position above the Earth with a remarkable electromechanical device with a rotating globe. This navigation instrument was...
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Reverse-engineering the register codes for the 8086 processor's microcode
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Reverse-engineering the multiplication algorithm in the Intel 8086 processor
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Reverse-engineering the Globus INK, a Soviet spaceflight navigation computer
.hilite {cursor:zoom-in} One of the most interesting navigation instruments onboard Soyuz spacecraft was the Globus INK,1 which used a rotating globe to indicate the spacecraft's position above the...
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The microcode and hardware in the 8086 processor that perform string operations
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Reverse-engineering the division microcode in the Intel 8086 processor
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The Group Decode ROM: The 8086 processor's first step of instruction decoding
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The complex history of the Intel i960 RISC processor
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Reverse-engineering the 8086 processor's address and data pin circuits
.hilite {cursor:zoom-in} a:link img.hilite, a:visited img.hilite {color: #fff;} a:hover img.hilite {color: #f66;} The Intel 8086 microprocessor (1978) started the x86 architecture that continues to...
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Undocumented 8086 instructions, explained by the microcode
>Undocumented 8086 instructions, explained by the microcode .hilite {cursor:zoom-in} a:link img.hilite, a:visited img.hilite {color: #fff;} a:hover img.hilite {color: #f66;} pre.microcode {font-family:...
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A close look at the 8086 processor's bus hold circuitry
.hilite {cursor:zoom-in} a:link img.hilite, a:visited img.hilite {color: #fff;} a:hover img.hilite {color: #f66;} The Intel 8086 microprocessor (1978) revolutionized computing by founding the x86...
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Tracing the roots of the 8086 instruction set to the Datapoint 2200 minicomputer
.hilite {cursor:zoom-in} a:link img.hilite, a:visited img.hilite {color: #fff;} a:hover img.hilite {color: #f66;} The Intel 8086 processor started the x86 architecture that is still extensively used...
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How flip-flops are implemented in the Intel 8086 processor
A key concept for a processor is the management of "state", information that persists over time. Much of a computer is built from logic gates, such as NAND or NOR gates, but logic gates have no notion...
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Reverse-engineering the mechanical Bendix Central Air Data Computer
MathJax.Hub.Config({ "HTML-CSS": { scale: 175} }); .MathJax {font-size: 1em !important} How did fighter planes in the 1950s perform calculations before compact digital computers were available? The...
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Examining the silicon dies of the Intel 386 processor
You might think of the Intel 386 processor (1985) as just an early processor in the x86 line, but the 386 was a critical turning point for modern computing in several ways.1 First, the 386 moved the...
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Reverse-engineering Ethernet backoff on the Intel 82586 network chip's die
Introduced in 1973, Ethernet is the predominant way of wiring computers together. Chips were soon introduced to handle the low-level aspects of Ethernet: converting data packets into bits, implementing...
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