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X86.FR
Personal blog · x86.frhardwaresystems
X86.FR is a personal blog at x86.fr about hardware and systems. Since 2020, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 8 times, most often “Investigating the HCF (Halt and Catch Fire) Instruction on Motorola 6800”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-21, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Posts by a CPU researcher on hardware and processor history, such as the 1970s Intel 8271 disc chip bug, the Motorola 6800 HCF instruction, and CPUID. Comments link to these posts as examples.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Doc TB's R&D blog featuring some interesting useless (and sometimes explosive) experiences. Home of the Universal Chip Analyzer and the ATX2AT Smart Adapter. Electronic stuff from ATMega to FPGA. No Ads but ASM code snippets!
Most-linked posts?
- Investigating the HCF (Halt and Catch Fire) Instruction on Motorola 68003 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-06-24
What Hacker News says?
The 6800's HCF (Halt and Catch Fire) opcode is another famous example. https://x86.fr/investigating-the-halt-and-catch-fire-instruc...
Comment linking /investigating-the-halt-and-catch-fire-instruction-on-motorola-6800/
on “A wild bug: 1970s Intel 8271 disc chip ate my data”Submitted Investigating SSMEC's (State Micro) 486s with the UCA as a story · 57 points
HN discussionMotorola 8-bit 6809 (used in Radio Shack's mid 80s CoCo - Color Computer) HFC - Halt and Catch Fire edit: thought it was branch and....corrected https://x86.fr/investigating-the-halt-and-catch-fire-instruc...
Comment linking /investigating-the-halt-and-catch-fire-instruction-on-motorola-6800/
on “What's your favorite weird CPU instruction? any architecture, any time period”Submitted Investigating the HCF (Halt and Catch Fire) Instruction on Motorola 6800 as a story · 5 points
HN discussionFor what it's worth - I used to write CPU reviews a while back - I can vouch for both Sam and Franck. Franck is the guy behind CPUID and Sam is a close friend of his, who was known for working at Canard PC on top of his work on Memtest : https://x86.fr/about-me/
Comment linking /about-me/
on “CPUid Compromised”Submitted The Odd Story of Factory-Downgraded 486s (2020) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Intel Xpress Resurrection: Reviving a Forgotten EISA Beast as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted X86.fr – Doc TB's R&D Lab as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
