[HN Gopher] The 286's internal registers (2022)
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       The 286's internal registers (2022)
        
       Author : userbinator
       Score  : 50 points
       Date   : 2024-06-16 09:28 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (rep-lodsb.mataroa.blog)
 (TXT) w3m dump (rep-lodsb.mataroa.blog)
        
       | jmclnx wrote:
       | I miss the Wang 286 I had, I was dumb and tossed it out when I
       | had to move :(
        
         | doubloon wrote:
         | I go back and forth with it. Once I got some money i bought
         | some old dream machines back. it was great for a while. but At
         | one point i had like 15 retro computers that i almost never
         | used, eventually i went Marie Kondo and gave a bunch away and
         | it feels good to have actual closet space. kept a few that were
         | special. now... about this pile of 30 old hard disks i have...
         | oh and my collection of usb type-b and usb-mini cables...
        
           | johnklos wrote:
           | I did something in between - I kept the physically small
           | systems (Landisk, VAXstation VLC, Mac LC III+, Mac Quadra
           | 610, Cobalt Raq, EdgeRouter, various Pis, et cetera) and some
           | of the more useful larger ones (Amiga 4000, VAXstation
           | 4000/60 and 4000/90, AlphaServer DS25), and I put them to use
           | building NetBSD pkgsrc packages so they're useful.
           | 
           | Considering the fact that I paid less than $100 for the
           | VAXstation 4000/60, for instance, and they go for > $1000 on
           | eBay these days, I'm glad I kept all my VAX hardware. While
           | 286 systems don't cost quite as much, the prices are only
           | going to go up.
        
             | YZF wrote:
             | Sounds like you live in a computer museum ;) How did you
             | end up owning these?
             | 
             | I kept a handful of older computers, my ZX-81 still sitting
             | somewhere, ZX-Spectrum, Apple Newton. My HP-48GX is used by
             | my daughter. I have a dual CPU 486 machine... I doubt any
             | of these is worth any $'s ...
        
               | qingcharles wrote:
               | I think Linux dropped support for 486, right? That was
               | the only thing I remember that supported dual 486.
        
       | chrsw wrote:
       | I was wondering why the 286 protected mode wasn't more popular.
       | This sums it up pretty nicely
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_mode#The_286
        
         | qingcharles wrote:
         | This might answer my question here, but it's unclear if the
         | same performance hit happens if the CPU is in Real Mode:
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40700257
        
       | qingcharles wrote:
       | Were the segment registers (fs, gs) slower than the general
       | registers (ax, dx)? I used to use them all the time as temp
       | variables :/
        
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       (page generated 2024-06-16 23:01 UTC)