Top all-time · #6074
XtoF’s Lair
Personal blog · xtof.infohardwareprogramminghistory
XtoF’s Lair is a personal blog at xtof.info about hardware, programming and history. Since 2018, 13 different Hacker News readers have linked it 13 times, most often “Windows 3”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link XtoF's Lair for retro-computing deep dives: DOS and PC timers, planar graphics bit patterns, Windows 3 internals, the Intel 386 and 6502 as a C target.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Posts from a modern and retro developer, and also amateur photographer.
Most-linked posts?
- Windows 33 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-02-15
- HIRES Graphics on Apple II – Coder's Thoughts2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-01-14
- Intel 80386, a Revolutionary CPU2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-11-05
What Hacker News says?
At the time of Doom's release many or most DOS/Windows PCs still didn't have hardware FPUs https://www.xtof.info/blog/?p=931 I think that using hardware floating-point would have prevented some of the early console releases too (particularly the SNES?)
Comment linking /blog/?p=931
on “Western Digital SweRV RISC-V Core”Submitted Mac Mini G4 – The best « classic » Macintosh for retro-gaming? as a story · 244 points
HN discussionand this goes into detail about how the bit patterns worked: https://www.xtof.info/blog/?p=768
Comment linking /blog/?p=768
on “Oldschool planar graphics and why they were a good idea”Submitted The 640K memory limit of MS-DOS as a story · 91 points
HN discussionSome context related to what you're saying: - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20071224-00/?p=24... - https://www.xtof.info/inside-windows3.html
Comment linking /inside-windows3.html
on “Q2DOS – Quake 2 backported to MS-DOS”Submitted Intel 80386, a Revolutionary CPU as a story · 24 points
HN discussion.. or the MSDOS/PC timer interrupt at something like 15Hz? https://www.xtof.info/Timing-on-PC-familly-under-DOS.html (wow, this is more complicated than I remember)
Comment linking /Timing-on-PC-familly-under-DOS.html
on “The missing cross-platform OS API for timers”Submitted Windows 3 as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThank you, Ken! This is especially cool to me after reading a recent article [0] posted here on hn [1], titled "Intel 80386, a revolutionary CPU". It gave me a new appreciation for how advanced the 386 was and how it formed the foundation of modern x86 architecture. [0] https://www.xtof.info/intel80386.html [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38156486
Comment linking /intel80386.html
on “Reverse engineering the Intel 386 processor's register cell”Submitted Inside Windows 3 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionMade me recall this article on why the 6502 isn't great as a C target, including a follow up with some pointers on avoiding some issues with it. https://www.xtof.info/coding-c-8-bit-6502-cpu.html
Comment linking /coding-c-8-bit-6502-cpu.html
on “I learned to program a C64 in basic and compiled C (2020) [video]”Submitted Sometimes, emulation is not enough as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted HIRES Graphics on Apple II – Coder's Thoughts as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
