Questions tagged [bugs]
Defects in historical software and hardware, their causes, questions about well-known bugs. Use [debugging] for bug diagnosis and discovery.
31 questions
4
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1
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How can 1/4 connected Sega Rally machines display the demo with unique glitches?
At this point in this video: https://youtu.be/36sx1j4j7RM?t=16
You'll see four Sega Rally arcade machines hooked up to each other (or perhaps two double ones), running the "attract mode" ...
- 51
9
votes
1
answer
613
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Is there a mistake in the code sample in “Programming the Z80” performing 16-bit by 8-bit division?
Programming the Z80 (3rd edition) has the following code sample (section 3 p.135) for division of a 16-bit dividend by an 8-bit divisor returning an 8-bit quotient in L and an 8 bit remainder in H:
...
- 193
13
votes
2
answers
1k
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Were there mistakes in converting Dijkstra's Algol-60 compiler to Pascal?
In his paper The Dijkstra–Zonneveld ALGOL 60 compiler for the Electrologica X1 F.E.J. Kruseman Aretz presents his attempt at reproducing the functionality of the original compiler, written in the ...
- 22.3k
4
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2
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285
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How were strings printed in the Dijkstra-Zonneveld ALGOL 60 compiler for the Electrologica X1?
Reading the report on the first Algol 60 compiler in the world, namely the Dijkstra-Zonneveld ALGOL 60 compiler for the Electrologica X1, which contains the Pascal source faithfully reproducing its ...
- 22.3k
3
votes
0
answers
243
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How to work around spurious “Forward reference needs override” errors in TASM 1.0?
For this assembly source code:
.386p
c segment byte use32
mov word ptr ds:foo, ax
foo:
c ends
end
TASM 1.0, when run as tasm prog.asm, gives the following error:
Turbo Assembler Version 1.0 ...
- 5,499
14
votes
4
answers
1k
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Why does the FRE() function in CBM BASIC v2 return negative values?
On Commodore machines featuring CBM BASIC v2, the FRE() function to query the amount of memory available to BASIC returns a negative number when the result exceeds 32767 bytes:
This quirk does not ...
- 8,502
15
votes
1
answer
972
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Why would an implementation of getwd call mktemp?
As mentioned here the book Expert C Programming contains the claim that there was a bug in SunOS 4.0.3's version of lpr, (a printing program) caused by a custom mktemp function overriding the library ...
- 535
14
votes
1
answer
541
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Was there a hard disk type that had a SMART overflow crash/bug?
A data center employee told me a story about 25 years ago, explaining why that data center took some time to assemble a RAID array. Recently, I wasn't able to verify the facts by googling, and I may ...
- 283
41
votes
1
answer
8k
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In the classic "Windows 98 crashes live on CNN" video, why does the BSOD appear so oddly?
I've been seeing this since the late 1990s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKy9fV_zX_o
Was this a hoax or joke of some kind? The only reason I ask is that, when the blue screen appears, it does so in ...
- 411
29
votes
1
answer
5k
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How did anti-Y2K-bug boards work?
During the Y2K bug hype, I remember seeing a store announcing some kind of board that one would connect to the motherboard of a PC and the problem would be fixed. Were these devices legit and, if so, ...
- 299
78
votes
2
answers
17k
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Why does the infamous "ENGAGERIDLEYMOTHERFUCKER" Metroid password break NES emulators?
For those who are unfamiliar, the original NES Metroid was one of many NES games to use passwords as a means to save progress.
Later, this password system was leveraged to create unusual effects in ...
- 4,161
37
votes
2
answers
9k
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Why does Windows 1.01 crash at the splash screen?
When Windows 1.01 is started under DOSBox, FreeDOS or one of the later versions of MS-DOS, garbage characters are printed on the screen right after displaying the Microsoft logo. Here’s an example in ...
- 27.5k
27
votes
2
answers
7k
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Windows 98 fails to install with 'Windows Setup requires 7340032 by' error in console
If you install Windows 98 from CD-ROM by first booting from a start-up floppy (such as a Windows 98 Startup Disk) and run setup.exe, it will inform the user that it is going to check the hard disks, ...
- 12.9k
26
votes
1
answer
2k
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How did the C64 lockup bug and its workarounds work?
The Commodore 64 suffered from a strange bug that caused it to lock up when typing in the full-screen BASIC editor. To trigger the bug, position the cursor on the last line of the screen, type enough ...
- 8,502
21
votes
1
answer
2k
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Why is MS-DOS not able to read partitions starting at logical sector 0?
When creating a FAT file system, mtools and newer versions of mkfs.fat write a stub MBR partition table to the boot sector. This makes the file system accessible when written directly to media that ...
- 27.5k