Re: [9fans] punched cards live
The print routines in the BIOS I knew of took a length parameter in the CX register (also IIRC) These were string routines. Service 0x0E of interrupt 0x0A (now that I think better perhaps it wasn't 10 = 0x0A, rather 0x10 = 16) provided character output. Running protected mode servers really wasn't all THAT bad. :-) Did you ever use a DOS extender like DOS/4GW? I didn't but whenever I saw its startup message I knew the program I had run was cool... and prone to crashes. --On Tuesday, November 04, 2008 8:25 AM -0800 David Leimbach [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 7:25 AM, Eris Discordia [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i think it's a tradition at this point to use 0x20 and not 0x00 to fill a fixed-with signature. ata identify device uses 0x20 to fill out fixed-width fields like the serial number. i'd be interested where this tradition popped up. 0 would make more sense. I risk being wrong--as always--and say it must have popped up in a normal ASCII environment. 0x20 = 32, the ASCII code point for a simple whitespace. BIOS routines know how to display a whitespace, or any ASCII character, in text mode. I remember somewhere back in time I could load AL with an ASCII character, call interrupt 0x0A service 0x0E, and have the character printed on the screen and the cursor moved one character to the right. This was (is?) fairly standard and time-proven. And it worked (works?) everywhere, at least in the PC world. DOS string routines used $ character termination. (AX = 09, DX=(address of $ terminated string) INT 21h, if IIRC). The print routines in the BIOS I knew of took a length parameter in the CX register (also IIRC) Why do I sometimes still yearn for the simplicity of DOS? Maybe it's Vista that makes me feel so. Maybe it was the amount of stuff we could do with so very little RAM back then. Running protected mode servers really wasn't all THAT bad. :-) Perhaps I'm just getting old. --On Monday, November 03, 2008 7:06 AM -0500 erik quanstrom [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This courtesy of the ACPI spec: RSD PTR (Notice that this signature must contain a trailing blank character.) So where do we get the guys who design this stuff? Can we send them back? Or put them in an infinite loop in a time machine (oh wait see the subject). i think it's a tradition at this point to use 0x20 and not 0x00 to fill a fixed-with signature. ata identify device uses 0x20 to fill out fixed-width fields like the serial number. i'd be interested where this tradition popped up. 0 would make more sense. - erik
Re: [9fans] punched cards live
i think it's a tradition at this point to use 0x20 and not 0x00 to fill a fixed-with signature. ata identify device uses 0x20 to fill out fixed-width fields like the serial number. i'd be interested where this tradition popped up. 0 would make more sense. I risk being wrong--as always--and say it must have popped up in a normal ASCII environment. 0x20 = 32, the ASCII code point for a simple whitespace. BIOS routines know how to display a whitespace, or any ASCII character, in text mode. I remember somewhere back in time I could load AL with an ASCII character, call interrupt 0x0A service 0x0E, and have the character printed on the screen and the cursor moved one character to the right. This was (is?) fairly standard and time-proven. And it worked (works?) everywhere, at least in the PC world. --On Monday, November 03, 2008 7:06 AM -0500 erik quanstrom [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This courtesy of the ACPI spec: RSD PTR (Notice that this signature must contain a trailing blank character.) So where do we get the guys who design this stuff? Can we send them back? Or put them in an infinite loop in a time machine (oh wait see the subject). i think it's a tradition at this point to use 0x20 and not 0x00 to fill a fixed-with signature. ata identify device uses 0x20 to fill out fixed-width fields like the serial number. i'd be interested where this tradition popped up. 0 would make more sense. - erik
Re: [9fans] punched cards live
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 7:25 AM, Eris Discordia [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: i think it's a tradition at this point to use 0x20 and not 0x00 to fill a fixed-with signature. ata identify device uses 0x20 to fill out fixed-width fields like the serial number. i'd be interested where this tradition popped up. 0 would make more sense. I risk being wrong--as always--and say it must have popped up in a normal ASCII environment. 0x20 = 32, the ASCII code point for a simple whitespace. BIOS routines know how to display a whitespace, or any ASCII character, in text mode. I remember somewhere back in time I could load AL with an ASCII character, call interrupt 0x0A service 0x0E, and have the character printed on the screen and the cursor moved one character to the right. This was (is?) fairly standard and time-proven. And it worked (works?) everywhere, at least in the PC world. DOS string routines used $ character termination. (AX = 09, DX=(address of $ terminated string) INT 21h, if IIRC). The print routines in the BIOS I knew of took a length parameter in the CX register (also IIRC) Why do I sometimes still yearn for the simplicity of DOS? Maybe it's Vista that makes me feel so. Maybe it was the amount of stuff we could do with so very little RAM back then. Running protected mode servers really wasn't all THAT bad. :-) Perhaps I'm just getting old. --On Monday, November 03, 2008 7:06 AM -0500 erik quanstrom [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This courtesy of the ACPI spec: RSD PTR (Notice that this signature must contain a trailing blank character.) So where do we get the guys who design this stuff? Can we send them back? Or put them in an infinite loop in a time machine (oh wait see the subject). i think it's a tradition at this point to use 0x20 and not 0x00 to fill a fixed-with signature. ata identify device uses 0x20 to fill out fixed-width fields like the serial number. i'd be interested where this tradition popped up. 0 would make more sense. - erik
Re: [9fans] punched cards live
As the subject says, punched cards. Except it was a '40'X on the 360. On Nov 3, 2008, at 7:06 AM, erik quanstrom wrote: This courtesy of the ACPI spec: RSD PTR (Notice that this signature must contain a trailing blank character.) So where do we get the guys who design this stuff? Can we send them back? Or put them in an infinite loop in a time machine (oh wait see the subject). i think it's a tradition at this point to use 0x20 and not 0x00 to fill a fixed-with signature. ata identify device uses 0x20 to fill out fixed-width fields like the serial number. i'd be interested where this tradition popped up. 0 would make more sense. - erik
Re: [9fans] punched cards live
It's the ACPI Secure Computing Initiative: fixed input format == no buffer overflow vulnerabilities. Long live Herman Hollerith! ron minnich wrote: This courtesy of the ACPI spec: RSD PTR (Notice that this signature must contain a trailing blank character.) So where do we get the guys who design this stuff? Can we send them back? Or put them in an infinite loop in a time machine (oh wait see the subject). ron
Re: [9fans] punched cards live
This courtesy of the ACPI spec: RSD PTR (Notice that this signature must contain a trailing blank character.) So where do we get the guys who design this stuff? Can we send them back? Or put them in an infinite loop in a time machine (oh wait see the subject). i think it's a tradition at this point to use 0x20 and not 0x00 to fill a fixed-with signature. ata identify device uses 0x20 to fill out fixed-width fields like the serial number. i'd be interested where this tradition popped up. 0 would make more sense. - erik
