Most popular questions

411 Why did moving the mouse cursor cause Windows 95 to run more quickly? 2019-07-01T06:45:31.650

170 What algorithm did Microsoft use to dither colour in early versions of Windows? 2016-12-08T00:34:45.623

127 It's now safe to turn off your computer 2018-06-20T07:19:12.160

126 Why is the keyboard and cellphone / telephone numbers in a different order? 2020-07-13T11:22:36.660

116 How did Commodore's anti-Microsoft Easter Egg work? 2017-08-02T16:45:40.330

106 Was there ever any reason to wait 30 seconds to restart a c.1995 PC? 2018-02-05T08:56:50.713

104 How can tilting a N64 cartridge cause such subtle glitches? 2016-11-01T15:41:45.140

99 Does "Disk Operating System" imply that there was a "non-disk" Operating System? 2017-03-05T01:50:56.133

95 Why did MS-DOS applications built using Turbo Pascal fail to start with a division by zero error on faster systems? 2019-08-21T11:22:16.083

94 How was early randomness generated? 2017-02-05T10:22:30.750

92 Were there 8086 coprocessors other than the 8087? 2017-03-06T13:36:23.223

91 How did people use ed? 2018-01-03T22:11:55.383

89 Why would a NES game use an undocumented 1-byte or 2-byte NOP in production? 2016-12-04T04:21:22.730

87 Have programming languages driven hardware development? 2019-01-21T22:53:07.017

86 What key factor led to the sudden commercial success of MS Windows with v3.0? 2017-03-02T21:26:51.780

84 Why do C to Z80 compilers produce poor code? 2018-03-28T11:42:00.260

83 Why was BASIC built into so many operating systems? 2016-05-11T20:20:20.267

82 Why did modems have speakers? 2019-07-22T16:30:21.903

81 Why does part of the Windows 98 Setup program look older than the rest? 2020-05-24T13:13:23.477

80 How did Windows 3.1 implement multitasking? 2016-06-07T23:25:40.107

80 Is there any code in Firefox (as of 2020) that comes from Netscape Navigator? 2020-03-27T11:45:04.367

79 Why does the Minus World exist? 2016-11-06T19:31:09.187

79 Exactly what color was the text on monochrome terminals with green-on-black and amber-on-black screens? 2019-11-21T04:26:46.270

78 Why were CLIs typically light text on dark background, whereas GUIs typically use(d) dark text on light background? 2018-09-14T20:23:16.437

75 Back in the late 1980s, how was commercial software for 8-bit home computers developed? 2019-01-30T07:20:47.560

73 How were the first ZX Spectrum games written? 2017-07-16T14:01:31.373

73 Did any 8-bit computer system / OS have concepts for concurrency and multitasking like we know from today? 2017-08-22T17:27:58.983

72 What made Windows Me so crash-prone? 2019-07-14T08:21:28.693

70 What technological factors drove the rise of "high-speed" modems in the early 1990s? 2017-11-22T15:25:40.757

69 Why wasn't ASCII designed with a contiguous alphanumeric character order? 2019-06-26T01:18:16.677

69 Why did IBM make the PC BIOS source code public? 2019-08-13T13:27:39.190

69 Why is the processor instruction called "move", not "copy"? 2019-12-05T23:34:06.217

69 How much better was DEC Alpha than contemporary x86? 2020-02-06T13:44:22.230

68 Why did Unix use slash as the directory separator? 2018-07-12T17:07:43.983

66 Did Apple not originally allow anyone to develop software for the Macintosh? 2017-03-21T00:13:55.943

66 How was C ported to architectures that had no hardware stack? 2018-08-06T12:24:39.133

65 What character is the MS-DOS cursor? 2018-01-31T19:15:23.403

64 Where did the popularity of the `i` variable come from? 2016-11-30T23:54:12.170

64 Why did C use the -> operator instead of reusing the . operator? 2019-04-24T15:44:54.880

63 Back in 1984 I wrote some games for Spectrum - Will they still be playable? 2020-08-16T18:51:06.343

62 How exactly does Sonic & Knuckles' 'Lock-On Technology' work? 2016-09-26T13:38:28.773

62 What's the story behind the name "X11"? 2017-06-07T08:25:19.567

62 Is it safe to turn on a 40-year old TRS-80? 2018-01-17T12:53:10.207

62 Why did some early CPUs use external math chips? 2018-04-04T08:15:41.130

62 Why is Windows using CR+LF and Unix just LF when Unix is the older system? 2018-05-03T15:21:26.360

62 What are the software logos in MORICONS.DLL? 2018-06-10T19:15:59.997

62 How was copying prevented when the first CD-ROM games were introduced? 2018-11-30T15:25:16.283

61 Why are a lot of monochrome computer monitors green? 2016-06-01T23:40:22.113

61 Why did DOS use dollar-terminated strings? 2018-09-19T17:19:27.563

61 Were later MS-DOS versions still implemented in x86 assembly? 2018-10-07T09:16:19.353