MBRwizard

MBRWizard is a Master Boot Record (MBR) management application for x86 and x86-64 based computers. As the use of disk imaging applications for backup and operating system deployment began to increase, as well as many users beginning to experiment with dual-booting Linux on existing Windows machines, key entries in the MBR were often changed or corrupted, rendering the machine unbootable. MBRWizard was designed to allow the user to reverse or repair these unwanted, destructive changes to the MBR, effectively enabling the computer to once again boot properly.
Summary.
Originally developed in 1999 for internal use, it was continually updated and eventually released as freeware to the public in March 2003. Initial functionality was designed to sort partition table entries caused by effects of disk imaging, but quickly evolved to include the backup and recovery of the entire MBR, repair of a corrupt Windows MBR record, as well as direct modification of the disk signature. Additional functionality was added to allow partitions to be activated, hidden, and deleted. Later options were added to include disk wipe functionality, shutdown/reboot of the machine, mount/dismount of Windows volumes, and a staging byte utilized to maintain status between reboots.
Designed as a cross-platform application from the beginning, MBRWizard is noted as being very flexible as it can be implemented natively on most PC operating systems. In addition to the freeware MBRWizard CLI version, MBRWizard Suite 3.0 was released in 2010 as a commercial product, featuring a new graphical interface, and the ability to create custom WinPE boot environments for offline repair and recovery.


Video Graphics Array

Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can now refer to the computer display standard, the 15-pin D-subminiature VGA connector, or the 640×480 resolution characteristic of the VGA hardware.
VGA was the last IBM graphics standard to which the majority of PC clone manufacturers conformed, making it the lowest common denominator that virtually all post-1990 PC graphics hardware can be expected to implement.
IBM intended to supersede VGA with the Extended Graphics Array (XGA) standard, but failed. Instead, VGA was adapted into many extended forms by third parties, collectively known as Super VGA, then gave way to custom graphics processing units which, in addition to their proprietary interfaces and capabilities, continue to implement common VGA graphics modes and interfaces to the present day.
The VGA analog interface standard has been extended to support resolutions of up to 2048x1536 and even higher in special applications.
Hardware design.
Unlike the graphics adapters that preceded it (MDA, CGA, EGA and many third-party options) there was initially no discrete VGA card released by IBM. The first commercial implementation of VGA was a built-in component of the IBM PS/2, in which it was accompanied by 256KB of video RAM, and a new DE-15 connector replacing the DE-9 used by previous graphics adapters.
IBM later released the standalone "IBM PS/2 Display Adapter", which utilized the VGA but could be added to machines that did not have it built in.
The VGA was a single chip implementing the entirety of a video display controller, rather than the many discrete components and ICs of the graphics adapters that had preceded it. The term "array" rather than "adapter" in the name denoted that it was not a complete independent expansion device, but a single component that could be integrated into a system.
The VGA required only video memory, timing crystals and an external RAMDAC, and its small part count allowed IBM to include it directly on the PS/2 motherboard, in contrast to prior IBM PC modelsPC, PC/XT, and PC ATwhich required a separate display adapter installed in a slot in order to connect a monitor.
Capabilities.
The VGA supports all graphics modes supported by the MDA, CGA and EGA cards, as well as multiple new modes.
Standard graphics modes.
The 640×480 16-color and 320×200 256-color modes had fully redefinable palettes, with each entry selected from an 18-bit (262,144-color) gamut.
The other modes defaulted to standard EGA or CGA compatible palettes and instructions, but still permitted remapping of the palette with VGA-specific commands.
640x480 graphics mode.
As the VGA began to be cloned in great quantities by manufacturers who added ever-increasing capabilities, its 640x480, 16-color mode became the de facto lowest common denominator of graphics cards. By the mid 90s, a 640x480x16 graphics mode using the VGA memory and register specifications was expected by operating systems such as Windows 95 and OS/2 Warp 3.0, which provided no support for lower resolutions or bit depths, or support for other memory or register layouts without additional drivers. Well into the 2000s, even after the VESA standard for graphics cards became commonplace, the "VGA" graphics mode remained a compatibility option for PC operating systems.
Other graphics modes.
Nonstandard display modes can be implemented, with horizontal resolutions of:
And heights of:
For example, high resolution modes with square pixels are available at 768×576 or 704×528 in 16 colors, or medium-low resolution at 320×240 with 256 colors. Alternatively, extended resolution is available with "fat" pixels and 256 colors using, e.g. 400×600 (50 Hz) or 360×480 (60 Hz), and "thin" pixels, 16 colors and the 70 Hz refresh rate with e.g. 736×410 mode.
"Narrow" modes such as 256×224 tend to preserve the same pixel ratio as in e.g. 320×240 mode unless the monitor is adjusted to stretch the image out to fill the screen, as they are derived simply by masking down the wider mode instead of altering pixel or line timings, but can be useful for reducing memory requirements and pixel addressing calculations for arcade game conversions or console emulators.
Standard text modes.
VGA also implements several text modes:
As with the pixel-based graphics modes, additional text modes are possible by programming the VGA correctly, with an overall maximum of about 100×80 cells and an active area spanning about 88×64 cells.
One variant that is sometimes seen is 80×30 or 80×60, using an 8×16 or 8×8 font and an effective 640×480 pixel display, which trades use of the more flickery 60 Hz mode for an additional 5 or 10 lines of text and square character blocks (or, at 80×30, square half-blocks).
Technical details.
Unlike the cards that preceded it, which used binary TTL signals to interface with a monitor (or composite, in the case of the CGA), the VGA introduced a video interface using pure analog RGB signals, 0.7 volts peak-to-peak max. In conjunction with an 18-bit RAMDAC this produced a color gamut of 262,144 colors. This gamut has come to be well known as the SRGB colorspace (but it is most commonly divided into 16,777,216 colors using a 24-bit RAMDAC or 8-bits per primary color).
The original VGA specifications follow:
Signal timings.
The intended standard value for the horizontal frequency of VGA's 640x480 mode is exactly double the value used in the NTSC-M video system, as this made it much easier to offer optional TV-out solutions or external VGA-to-TV converter boxes at the time of VGA's development. It is also at least nominally twice that of CGA, which also supported composite monitors.
All "derived" VGA timings (i.e. those which use the master 25.175 and 28.322 MHz crystals and, to a lesser extent, the nominal 31.469 kHz line rate) can be varied by software that bypasses the VGA firmware interface and communicates directly with the VGA hardware, as many MS-DOS based games did. However, only the standard modes, or modes that at least use almost exactly the same H-sync and V-sync timings as one of the standard modes, can be expected to work with the original late-1980s and early-1990s VGA monitors. The use of other timings may in fact damage such monitors and thus was usually avoided by software publishers.
Third-party "multisync" CRT monitors were more flexible, and in combination with "super EGA", VGA, and later SVGA graphics cards using extended modes, could display a much wider range of resolutions and refresh rates at arbitrary sync frequencies and pixel clock rates.
For the most common VGA mode (640×480, 60 Hz, non-interlaced), the horizontal timings can be found in the HP Super VGA Display Installation Guide and in other places.
Typical uses of selected modes.
640×400 @ 70 Hz is traditionally the video mode used for booting VGA-compatible x86 personal computers that show a graphical boot screen, while text-mode boot uses 720×400 @ 70 Hz.
This convention has been eroded in recent years, however, with POST and BIOS screens moving to higher resolutions, taking advantage of EDID data to match the resolution to a connected monitor.
640×480 @ 60 Hz is the default Windows graphics mode (usually with 16 colors), up to Windows 2000. It remains an option in XP and later versions via the boot menu "low resolution video" option and per-application compatibility mode settings, despite Windows now defaulting to 1024x768 and generally not allowing any resolution below 800x600 to be set.
The need for such a low-quality, universally compatible fallback has diminished since the turn of the millennium, as VGA-signalling-standard screens or adaptors unable to show anything beyond the original resolutions have become increasingly rare.
320×200 at 70 Hz was the most common mode for VGA-era PC games.
Connector.
The standard VGA monitor interface is a 15-pin D-subminiature connector in the "E" shell, variously referred to as "HD-15", "DE-15" and "DB-15."
Because VGA uses low-voltage analog signals, signal degradation becomes a factor with low-quality or overly long cables. Solutions include shielded cables, cables that include a separate internal coaxial cable for each color signal, and "broken out" cables utilizing a separate coaxial cable with a BNC connector for each color signal.
BNC breakout cables typically use five connectors, one each for Red, Green, Blue, Horizontal Sync, and Vertical Sync, and do not include the other signal lines of the VGA interface. With BNC, the coaxial wires are fully shielded end-to-end and through the interconnect so that no crosstalk or external interference is possible.
Color palette.
The VGA color system uses register-based palettes to map colors in various bit depths to its 18-bit output gamut. It is backward compatible with the EGA and CGA adapters, but supports extra bit depth for the palette when in these modes.
For instance, when in EGA 16-color modes, VGA offers 16 palette registers, and in 256-color modes, it offers 256 registers. Each palette register contain a 3×6 bit RGB value, selecting a color from the 18-bit gamut of the DAC.
These color registers are initialized to default values IBM expected to be most useful for each mode. For instance, EGA 16-color modes initialize to the default CGA 16-color palette, and the 256-color mode initializes to a palette consisting of 16 CGA colors, 16 grey shades, and then 216 colors chosen by IBM to fit expected use cases. After initialization they can be redefined at any time without altering the contents of video RAM, permitting palette cycling.
In the 256-color modes, the DAC is set to combine four 2-bit color values, one from each plane, into an 8-bit-value representing an index into the 256-color palette. The CPU interface combines the 4 planes in the same way, a feature called "chain-4," so that each the pixel appears to the CPU as a packed 8-bit value representing the palette index.
Use.
The video memory of the VGA is mapped to the PC's memory via a window in the range between segments 0xA0000 and 0xBFFFF in the PC's real mode address space (A000:0000 and B000:FFFF in segment:offset notation). Typically, these starting segments are:
Due to the use of different address mappings for different modes, it is possible to have a monochrome adapter (i.e. MDA or Hercules) and a color adapter such as the VGA, EGA, or CGA installed in the same machine.
At the beginning of the 1980s, this was typically used to display Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets in high-resolution text on a monochrome display and associated graphics on a low-resolution CGA display simultaneously. Many programmers also used such a setup with the monochrome card displaying debugging information while a program ran in graphics mode on the other card. Several debuggers, like Borland's Turbo Debugger, D86 and Microsoft's CodeView could work in a dual monitor setup. Either Turbo Debugger or CodeView could be used to debug Windows.
There were also DOS device drivers such as codice_1, which implemented a serial interface simulation on the monochrome display and, for example, allowed the user to receive crash messages from debugging versions of Windows without using an actual serial terminal.
It is also possible to use the "MODE MONO" command at the DOS prompt to redirect the output to the monochrome display. When a monochrome adapter was not present, it was possible to use the 0xB000–0xB7FF address space as additional memory for other programs.
Programming.
"Unchaining" the 256 KB VGA memory into four separate "planes" makes VGA's 256 KB of RAM available in 256-color modes. There is a trade-off for extra complexity and performance loss in some types of graphics operations, but this is mitigated by other operations becoming faster in certain situations:
Software such as Fractint, Xlib and ColoRIX also supported tweaked 256-color modes on standard adaptors using freely-combinable widths of 256, 320, and 360 pixels and heights of 200, 240 and 256 (or 400, 480 and 512) lines, extending still further to 384 or 400 pixel columns and 576 or 600 (or 288, 300). However, 320×240 was the best known and most frequently used, as it offered a standard 40-column resolution and 4:3 aspect ratio with square pixels. "320×240×8" resolution was commonly called Mode X, the name used by Michael Abrash when he presented the resolution in Dr. Dobb's Journal.
The highest resolution modes were only used in special, opt-in cases rather than as standard, especially where high line counts were involved. Standard VGA monitors had a fixed line scan (H-scan) rate"multisync" monitors being, at the time, expensive exoticaand so the vertical/frame (V-scan) refresh rate had to be reduced in order to accommodate them, which increased visible flicker and thus eye strain. For example, the highest 800×600 mode, being otherwise based on the matching SVGA resolution (with 628 total lines), reduced the refresh rate from 60 Hz to about 50 Hz (and 832×624, the theoretical maximum resolution achievable with 256kb at 16 colors, would have reduced it to about 48 Hz, barely higher than the rate at which XGA monitors employed a double-frequency interlacing technique to mitigate full-frame flicker).
These modes were also outright incompatible with some monitors, producing display problems such as picture detail disappearing into overscan (especially in the horizontal dimension), vertical roll, poor horizontal sync or even a complete lack of picture depending on the exact mode attempted. Due to these potential issues, most VGA tweaks used in commercial products were limited to more standards-compliant, "monitor-safe" combinations, such as 320×240 (square pixels, three video pages, 60 Hz), 320×400 (double resolution, two video pages, 70 Hz), and 360×480 (highest resolution compatible with both standard VGA monitors and cards, one video page, 60 Hz) in 256 colors, or double the H-rez in 16-color mode.
Hardware manufacturers.
Several companies produced VGA compatible graphic board models.
Successors.
Super VGA (SVGA).
Super VGA (SVGA) is a display standard developed in 1988, when NEC Home Electronics announced its creation of the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). The development of SVGA was led by NEC, along with other VESA members including ATI Technologies and Western Digital. SVGA enabled graphics display resolutions up to 800×600 pixels, 36% more than VGA's maximum resolution of 640×480 pixels.
Extended Graphics Array (XGA).
Extended Graphics Array (XGA) is an IBM display standard introduced in 1990. Later it became the most common appellation of the 1024768 pixels display resolution.


Nokia E66

The Nokia E66 is a slider smartphone in the Nokia Eseries range, a S60 platform third edition device with slide action targeting business users. It is a successor to the Nokia E65 with which it shares many features.
E66 has similar features to the Nokia E71 handset, but lacks sufficient battery capacity for all day use and does not have the full QWERTY, however the E66 is smaller in size and weighs less. The E66 also includes an accelerometer and new animations and transition effects, which are lacking in the E71.
Features.
The 2.5 mm (3/32") audio port is not suitable for traditional 3.5 mm (1/8") headphones plugs.
The microUSB port cannot be used to charge the mobile.
Firmware history.
Dial *#0000# to Check firmware version


Caliber .50

Caliber .50 is a 1989 scrolling shooter arcade game developed by SETA Corporation. A port of the game was released for the Sega Genesis in 1991.
Gameplay.
Players control a United States Air Force pilot who was taken as a prisoner of war in Vietnam in 1972. The pilot must escape the prison compound by battling enemy soldiers with guns and grenades. Various power-ups are available that give the player use of various other weapons including a machine gun and flamethrower. Enemy vehicles such as a plane can also be commandeered.
The Sega Genesis version is single-player only, as the player now controls Captain Addis of the United States Army, who must rescue his fellow soldiers twenty years after he failed to retrieve his men during the Vietnam War. He must now re-navigate through the Ho Chi Minh trail in order to liberate his captured comrades-in-arms. Surviving soldiers are displayed by the dog tags that appear on the screen at the end of each level. An option menu allows players to choose from either an easy, normal, or hard difficulty level in addition to the number of initial lives.
Reception.
In Japan, "Game Machine" listed "Caliber .50" on their December 15, 1989 issue as being the second most-successful table arcade unit of the year.
The game has been compared to SNK's "Ikari Warriors". Crash pointed out that like "Ikari Warriors", a vehicle can be commandeered in "Caliber .50." Computer and Video Games compared the two games as well, calling "Caliber .50" "miles better" than SNK's game. Crash called the game "difficult" but said "there's enough blasting action to stop you from kicking the cabinet in frustration" and that the game was "Well worth a look." Meanwhile, Computer and Video Games wrote "Anyone who enjoys a good shoot'em up should love this..." and gave the game an 87% overall rating.


Beetle Adventure Racing

Beetle Adventure Racing! is a racing game released for the Nintendo 64 in 1999. It was developed by Paradigm Entertainment along with EA Canada and published by Electronic Arts. Each vehicle in the game is a Volkswagen New Beetle, which was released the previous year.
In addition to its original release, the game was released in Australia as HSV Adventure Racing. This version replaced the Beetles with HSV VT models.
Development.
In the late 1990's, EA Canada partnered with Paradigm to work on an entry in the "Need for Speed" series for the Nintendo 64. "Need for Speed 64" was described in edition 46 of the "Next Generation" magazine as having exclusive tracks and vehicles, Rumble Pak support and the series' trademark gameplay mechanics. The game was cancelled after Electronic Arts signed a deal with Volkswagen to make a game around the New Beetle, in addition to the designers looking for something else to distinguish it from other racers, thus altering the project into "Beetle Adventure Racing!".
The design work of "Beetle Adventure Racing!" was carried out by EA Canada, including the creation of 3D track and vehicle models, while the coding was performed by Paradigm Entertainment. The developers said that they chosed the New Beetle as the game's vehicle to give the cars character.
Gameplay.
Gameplay is similar to Electronic Arts's own "Need for Speed" series.
"Beetle Adventure Racing" supports up to four players. Two player races can be held in any of the tracks, provided they have been unlocked in the single player championship. Two to four players can also take part in the "Beetle Battle" mode, a vehicular combat mode in which players compete to collect six differently colored ladybugs (HSV pendants in "HSV Adventure Racing"), attempt to destroy the other competitors, and race for the exit once all the ladybugs are collected.
Single player has two modes, Single Race and Championship. Single Race is single player racing against computer-controlled vehicles on any stage that has been unlocked in the Championship mode. Championship is considered the main game, where players are given three circuits starting with Novice, Advanced, and Professional, with a fourth secret circuit, the Bonus Circuit, which is unlocked after completing all previous circuits.
Upon completing each circuit, new vehicles and tracks will be unlocked. Two special vehicles are unlocked by completing both Professional and Bonus circuits, the Alien Beetle and the Police Beetle respectively. The Alien Beetle's horn consists of the words, "We come in peace," spoken in an alien voice. The Police Beetle uses a siren, in which all other computer racers stop and pull over upon hearing it.
Four different types of crates are scattered along each track in Championship mode. Three of them are Point Crates, which are mostly found off track in shortcuts. The points are used to earn Continues during each race, with between 50 and 70 required to get the Continue (dependent on difficulty). Finding all point crates, which add up to 100 in total, gives players a new Arena In Beetle Battle Mode.
Upon smashing through Nitro crates, the player is given a temporary boost of speed. These crates are usually found on hidden paths and beside the main roads.
The fourth crate is a Cheat Crate, hidden on each stage. Smashing one, the player would hear, "Groovy!". Smashing a Cheat crate the first time unlocks the Cheat Menu, which offers cheat codes in both Two-Player Racing and Beetle Battle. The Cheat menu has an Easter egg in which all the developers of the game have their faces scattered on the background of the menu.
Music.
The soundtrack is groovy breakbeat, featuring drums, organs, and guitars. The music was composed by Phil Western, Scott Blackwood, and Brenden Tennant.
Reception.
"Beetle Adventure Racing" received "universal acclaim" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, where the game was ported and published by Square EA on November 26, 1999, "Famitsu" gave it a score of 28 out of 40.
An unnamed reviewer of "Next Generation" wrote: "While it seems like every other title coming out for N64 is a racer, there are surprisingly few really good ones. "Beetle Adventure Racing" not only emerges as one of the best, but its level design will also serve as a watermark that other franchises like "Top Gear" and even EA's own "Need for Speed" will have to live up to".
Victor Lucas of "The Electric Playground" wrote: "Although the repetitiveness that comes from having only one style of vehicle to race with is a bit of a drag, I have to say that the modelling of the bugs has been well handled. [...] The scenery around the tracks is absolutely stunning. All of the environments in Beetle Adventure Racing feel like they're alive". Lucas noted some graphical errors and felt that the game should have utilized the system's Expansion Pak for higher resolution, but wrote: "Still, all of the tracks are long, intense and littered with discovery. I couldn't bring myself to complain too loudly. The music and sound effects of Beetle Adventure Racing are so perfectly suited to the gameplay it's almost as if the audio was built first and the gameplay was designed around it". Lucas concluded that "Beetle Adventure Racing is the first truly addictive Nintendo 64 game of 1999".
Peer Schneider of "IGN" heavily praised the game's graphics, sound effects, detailed racing tracks, vehicle handling, and multiplayer mode, but wrote that "one of the game's strongest salespoints is also its Achilles' Heel. Make no mistake about it -- the Beetles are cool and deliver all the speed and handling you'd want, but what if EA had gone for a multi-car-license as with Need for Speed? We can only imagine how cool it would have been to compete for a Lotus or a Ferrari instead of another VW Bug. At the very least, EA could have included the classic Beetle model or a few other VW cars. The relatively limited number of tracks and cars is actually our only serious complaint". Schneider also wrote: "Unfortunately, the music is limited to generic 'drum and bass' tracks. It's not that it's bad, it just doesn't fit most of the tracks and there is hardly any bass to be heard..." Schneider concluded: "Aside from Wave Race, this is definitely the best racer on N64 yet. [...] Beetle Adventure Racing arrives as a breath of fresh air in a genre that hasn't moved forward in years".
Shawn Sackenheim of "AllGame" praised the game's lengthy racetracks, its multiplayer mode, its "superb" use of various shortcuts, and wrote: "Visually, the game is exceptional with tons of personality in the car models, tracks, and overall presentation. [...] Soaking in all the graphic detail is something your eyes will thank you for--a breathtaking look at the Nintendo 64's true power! [...] There's just so much to cover in this game that it's hard to condense it to even a lengthy review without leaving so much out! [...] Some of the brightest and most vibrant graphics on the system! Nice bouncy tunes, but they repeat after only a few minutes. Great effects and minimal voice samples round out the package". "GameSpot" claimed the game is a "great deal of fun".
Proposed sequel.
A "Beetle Adventure Racing II" was in development, but has never been released.


X704

The x704 is a microprocessor that implements the 32-bit version of the PowerPC instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Exponential Technology. The microprocessor was notable for its high clock frequency (for the time, circa 1997) in the range of 400 to 533 MHz, its use of bipolar transistors for logic and CMOS circuits for memory, and its failure to see use in an Apple Macintosh, the opposite of what industry observers such as "Microprocessor Report" expected. Exponential Technology eventually failed as a result of the x704's lack of success, but some of its former employees founded Intrinsity, a start-up that developed a high clock frequency MIPS implementation, FastMATH. The company has been acquired by Apple and licensed Fast14 dynamic logic to third parties such as ATI for their GPUs.
The x704 was a superscalar microprocessor that issued up to three instructions per cycle to an arithmetic logic unit (ALU), floating-point unit (FPU) and branch unit. To realize the short cycle times, the caches were kept small, limiting its performance. There are three levels of cache. The first consisted of separate 2 KB instruction and data caches. These were direct-mapped. The L2 cache was on-die and was 32 KB large. It is eight-way set set-associative. The L3 cache was larger, supporting capacities of 512 KB to 2 MB, and was located externally. The x704 contained 2.7 million transistors, of which 0.7 million were bipolar transistors and 2.0 million were metal oxide semiconductor (MOS), and measured 15 mm by 10 mm (150 mm2). It was fabricated in a 0.5 µm BiCMOS process with six levels of interconnect. It used 3.6 and 2.1 V power supplies and dissipated less than 85 W at 533 MHz. The x704 was packaged in a 356-ball ball grid array (BGA).


Write (system call)

The write is one of the most basic routines provided by a Unix-like operating system kernel. It writes data from a buffer declared by the user to a given device, such as a file. This is the primary way to output data from a program by directly using a system call. The destination is identified by a numeric code. The data to be written, for instance a piece of text, is defined by a pointer and a size, given in number of bytes.
codice_1 thus takes three arguments:
POSIX usage.
The write call interface is standardized by the POSIX specification. Data is written to a file by calling the write function. The function prototype is:
 ssize_t write(int fd, const void *buf, size_t nbytes);
In above syntax, codice_2 is a codice_3. It is a signed data type defined in codice_4. Note that codice_5 does not return an unsigned value; it returns -1 if an error occurs so it must return a signed value.<br>
The write function returns the number of bytes successfully written into the array, which may at times be less than the specified nbytes. It returns -1 if an exceptional condition is encountered, see section on errors below.
Usage Example.
int main (int argc, char *argv[])
 int fd1;
 char buf[128];
 fd1 = open(argv[1], O_WRONLY);
 if (fd1 == -1) {
 perror(argv[1]);
 return EXIT_FAILURE;
 /* Enter the data to be written into the file */
 scanf("%127s", buf);
 write(fd1, buf, strlen(buf)); /* fd1 is the file descriptor, buf is the character array used to
 hold the data, strlen(buf) informs the function that the number of bytes equal to the length of the
 string in the buffer need to be copied */
 close(fd1);
 return 0;
Errors encountered during operation.
Listed below are some errors that could be encountered during writing to a file. The errors are macros listed in errno.h.
Higher level I/O functions calling write.
The write system call is not an ordinary function, in spite of the close resemblance. For example, in Linux with the x86 architecture, the system call uses the instruction INT 80H, in order to transfer control over to the kernel. The write system call, and its counterpart read, being low level functions, are only capable of understanding bytes. Write cannot be used to write records, like classes. Thus, higher level input-output functions (like printf) are required. Often, the high-level interface is preferred, as compared to the cluttered low-level interface. These functions call other functions internally, and these in turn can make calls to write, giving rise to a layered assembly of functions.
With the use of this assembly the higher level functions can collect bytes of data and then write the required data into a file.


Program information file

A program information file (PIF) defines how a given DOS program should be run in a multi-tasking environment, especially in order to avoid giving it unnecessary resources which could remain available to other programs. TopView was the originator of PIFs; they were then inherited and extended by DESQview and Microsoft Windows, where they are most often seen. PIFs are seldom used today in software due to the absence of DOS applications.
Basic overview.
The PIF file originally contained only one block of data storing the parameters needed to run under TopView. These included fields like an ASCII string for the window title, the maximum and minimum amount of RAM needed, and bitmaps for switches like whether or not the window should be closed when the program exits.
When the system was adapted for use under Windows, the developers faced the problem that there were additional switches that did not apply to TopView. Instead of simply adding the new switches to the end of the file, they instead re-imagined the file as a database file containing any number of entries. In theory the file consisted of a number of header areas describing what operating system should read the section, and an offset to the next section. Systems would read down the list until they found the most appropriate one.
However, this left a problem with backward compatibility. If the file started with a header, even if it was for the original switches, TopView and DESQview would not be able to read it properly. The file was thus re-arranged with the first header appearing "after" the initial data, which left the first 253 bytes of the file in the same format as before.


Consistent Network Device Naming

Consistent Network Device Naming is a convention for naming Ethernet adapters in Linux.
It was created around 2009 to replace the old naming scheme that caused problems on multihomed machines because the network interface controllers (NICs) would be named based on the order in which they were found by the kernel as it booted. Removing existing or adding new interfaces could cause the previously added ones to change names. An ECR was submitted to the PCI SIG firmware group on how system firmware can provide device naming to operating systems via the ACPI interface.
Adoption.
The convention was implemented for Dell in a module called .
Among the first major Linux distributions to adopt the module were Fedora 15 in May 2011 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 6.1. It was also released in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 2 in February 2012. The newer Dell PowerEdge and Dell Precision models support the new names.
An open-source implementation is available, based on the udev mechanism. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 started using systemd for networking.


Active Directory Federation Services

Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS), a software component developed by Microsoft, can run on Windows Server operating systems to provide users with single sign-on access to systems and applications located across organizational boundaries. It uses a claims-based access-control authorization model to maintain application security and to implement federated identity. Claims-based authentication involves authenticating a user based on a set of claims about that user's identity contained in a trusted token. Such a token is often issued and signed by an entity that is able to authenticate the user by other means, and that is trusted by the entity doing the claims-based authentication. It is part of the Active Directory Services.
Details.
In AD FS, identity federation is established between two organizations by establishing trust between two security realms. A federation server on one side (the accounts side) authenticates the user through the standard means in Active Directory Domain Services and then issues a token containing a series of claims about the user, including their identity. On the other side, the resources side, another federation server validates the token and issues another token for the local servers to accept the claimed identity. This allows a system to provide controlled access to its resources or services to a user that belongs to another security realm without requiring the user to authenticate directly to the system and without the two systems sharing a database of user identities or passwords.
In practice a user might typically perceive this approach as follows:
AD FS integrates with Active Directory Domain Services, using it as an identity provider. AD FS can interact with other WS-* and SAML 2.0-compliant federation services as federation partners.


IBM PALM processor

The PALM (Put All Logic in Microcode) is a 16-bit central processing unit (CPU) developed by IBM. It was used in the IBM 5100 Portable Computer, a predecessor of the IBM PC, and the IBM 5110 and IBM 5120 follow-on machines. It is likely PALM was also used in other IBM products as an embedded controller.
IBM referred to PALM as a "microprocessor", though they used that term to mean a processor that executes microcode to implement a higher-level instruction set, rather than its conventional definition of a CPU on an integrated circuit. The PALM processor was a circuit board containing 13 bipolar gate arrays packaged in square metal cans, 3 conventional transistor–transistor logic (TTL) ICs in dual in-line packages, and 1 round metal can part.
PALM has a 16-bit data bus, with two additional bits used for parity. PALM can directly address 64KB (64KiB) of memory. The IBM 5100 could be configured with up to 64+KB (APL + BASIC ROMs make 64+KB) of "Executable ROS" (ROM) and up to 64KB of RAM. A simple bank switching scheme was used to extend the address space.
In 1973, the IBM Los Gatos Scientific Center developed a portable computer prototype called SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) based on the PALM processor with a Philips compact cassette drive, small CRT display, and full-function keyboard.


IFSFUNC.EXE


Heterogeneous computing

Heterogeneous computing refers to systems that use more than one kind of processor or cores. These systems gain performance or energy efficiency not just by adding the same type of processors, but by adding dissimilar coprocessors, usually incorporating specialized processing capabilities to handle particular tasks.
Heterogeneity.
Usually heterogeneity in the context of computing referred to different instruction-set architectures (ISA), where the main processor has one and other processors have another - usually a very different - architecture (maybe more than one), not just a different microarchitecture (floating point number processing is a special case of this - not usually referred to as heterogeneous).
In the past heterogeneous computing meant different ISAs had to be handled differently, while in a modern example, Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA) systems eliminate the difference (for the user) while using multiple processor types (typically CPUs and GPUs), usually on the same integrated circuit, to provide the best of both worlds: general GPU processing (apart from the GPU's well-known 3D graphics rendering capabilities, it can also perform mathematically intensive computations on very large data-sets), while CPUs can run the operating system and perform traditional serial tasks.
The level of heterogeneity in modern computing systems is gradually increasing as further scaling of fabrication technologies allows for formerly discrete components to become integrated parts of a system-on-chip, or SoC. For example, many new processors now include built-in logic for interfacing with other devices (SATA, PCI, Ethernet, USB, RFID, radios, UARTs, and memory controllers), as well as programmable functional units and hardware accelerators (GPUs, cryptography co-processors, programmable network processors, A/V encoders/decoders, etc.).
Recent findings show that a heterogeneous-ISA chip multiprocessor that exploits diversity offered by multiple ISAs can outperform the best same-ISA homogeneous architecture by as much as 21% with 23% energy savings and a reduction of 32% in Energy Delay Product (EDP). AMD's 2014 announcement on its pin-compatible ARM and x86 SoCs, codename Project Skybridge,
suggested a heterogeneous-ISA (ARM+x86) chip multiprocessor in the making.
Heterogeneous CPU topology.
A system with heterogenous CPU topology is a system where the same ISA is used, but the cores themselves are different in speed. The setup is more similar to a symmetric multiprocessor. (Although such systems are technically asymmetric multiprocessors, the cores do not differ in roles or device access.)
A common use of such topology is to provide better power efficiency in mobile SoCs. ARM big.LITTLE is the prototypical case, where faster high-power cores are combined with slower low-power cores. Apple has produced Apple silicon ARM cores with similar organization. Intel has also produced hybrid x86 cores codenamed Lakefield, although not without major limitations in instruction set support.
Alder Lake uses small and big cores.
Challenges.
Heterogeneous computing systems present new challenges not found in typical homogeneous systems. The presence of multiple processing elements raises all of the issues involved with homogeneous parallel processing systems, while the level of heterogeneity in the system can introduce non-uniformity in system development, programming practices, and overall system capability. Areas of heterogeneity can include:
Example hardware.
Heterogeneous computing hardware can be found in every domain of computing—from high-end servers and high-performance computing machines all the way down to low-power embedded devices including mobile phones and tablets.


Power-on self-test

A power-on self-test (POST) is a process performed by firmware or software routines immediately after a computer or other digital electronic device is powered on.
This article mainly deals with POSTs on personal computers, but many other embedded systems such as those in major appliances, avionics, communications, or medical equipment also have self-test routines which are automatically invoked at power-on.
The results of the POST may be displayed on a panel that is part of the device, output to an external device, or stored for future retrieval by a diagnostic tool. Since a self-test might detect that the system's usual human-readable display is non-functional, an indicator lamp or a speaker may be provided to show error codes as a sequence of flashes or beeps. In addition to running tests, the POST process may also set the initial state of the device from firmware.
In the case of a computer, the POST routines are part of a device's pre-boot sequence; if they complete successfully, the bootstrap loader code is invoked to load an operating system.
IBM-compatible PC POST.
In IBM PC compatible computers, the main duties of POST are handled by the BIOS, which may hand some of these duties to other programs designed to initialize very specific peripheral devices, notably for video and SCSI initialization. These other duty-specific programs are generally known collectively as option ROMs or individually as the video BIOS, SCSI BIOS, etc.
The principal duties of the main BIOS during POST are as follows:
The functions above are served by the POST in all BIOS versions back to the very first. In later BIOS versions, POST will also:
The BIOS begins its POST when the CPU is reset. The first memory location the CPU tries to execute is known as the reset vector. In the case of a hard reboot, the northbridge will direct this code fetch (request) to the BIOS located on the system flash memory. For a warm boot, the BIOS will be located in the proper place in RAM and the northbridge will direct the reset vector call to the RAM. (In earlier PC systems, before chipsets were standard, the BIOS ROM would be located at an address range that included the reset vector, and BIOS ran directly out of ROM. This is why the motherboard BIOS ROM is in segment F000 in the conventional memory map.)
During the POST flow of a contemporary BIOS, one of the first things a BIOS should do is determine the reason it is executing. For a cold boot, for example, it may need to execute all of its functionality. If, however, the system supports power saving or quick boot methods, the BIOS may be able to circumvent the standard POST device discovery, and simply program the devices from a preloaded system device table.
The POST flow for the PC has developed from a very simple, straightforward process to one that is complex and convoluted. During the POST, the BIOS must integrate a plethora of competing, evolving, and even mutually exclusive standards and initiatives for the matrix of hardware and OSes the PC is expected to support, although at most only simple memory tests and the setup screen are displayed.
In earlier BIOSes, up to around the turn of the millennium, the POST would perform a thorough test of all devices, including a complete memory test. This design by IBM was modeled after their larger (e.g. mainframe) systems, which would perform a complete hardware test as part of their cold-start process. As the PC platform evolved into more of a commodity consumer device, the mainframe- and minicomputer-inspired high-reliability features such as parity memory and the thorough memory test in every POST were dropped from most models. The exponential growth of PC memory sizes, driven by the equally exponential drop in memory prices, was also a factor in this, as the duration of a memory test using a given CPU is directly proportional to the memory size.
The original IBM PC could be equipped with as little as 16 KB of RAM and typically had between 64 and 640 KB; depending on the amount of equipped memory, the computer's 4.77 MHz 8088 required between five seconds and 1.5 minutes to complete the POST and there was no way to skip it. Beginning with the IBM XT, a memory count was displayed during POST instead of a blank screen. A modern PC with a bus rate of around 1 GHz and a 32-bit bus might be 2000x or even 5000x faster, but it might have more than 3 GB of memory—5000x more. With people being more concerned with boot times now than in the 1980s, the 30 to 60 second memory test adds undesirable delay for a benefit of confidence that is not perceived to be worth that cost by most users. Most clone PC BIOSes allowed the user to skip the POST RAM check by pressing a key, and more modern machines often performed no RAM test at all unless it was enabled via the BIOS setup. In addition, modern DRAM is significantly more reliable than DRAM was in the 1980s.
As part of the starting sequence the POST routines may display a prompt to the user for a key press to access built-in setup functions of the BIOS. This allows the user to set various options particular to the mother board before the operating system is loaded. If no key is pressed, the POST will proceed on to the boot sequence required to load the installed operating system.
Progress and error reporting.
The original IBM BIOS made POST diagnostic information available by outputting a number to I/O port 0x80 (a screen display was not possible with some failure modes). Both progress indication and error codes were generated; in the case of a failure which did not generate a code, the code of the last successful operation was available to aid in diagnosing the problem. Using a logic analyzer or a dedicated POST cardan interface card that shows port 0x80 output on a small displaya technician could determine the origin of the problem. Once an operating system is running on the computer the code displayed by such a board may become meaningless, since some OSes, e.g. Linux, use port 0x80 for I/O timing operations. The actual numeric codes for the possible stages and error conditions differ from one BIOS supplier to another. Codes for different BIOS versions from a single supplier may also vary, although many codes remain unchanged in different versions.
Later BIOSes used a sequence of beeps from the motherboard-attached PC speaker (if present and working) to signal error codes. Some vendors developed proprietary variants or enhancements, such as MSI's D-Bracket. POST beep codes vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Information on numeric and beep codes is available from manufacturers of BIOSes and motherboards. There are websites which collect codes for many BIOSes.
POST AMI BIOS beep codes.
Reference: AMIBIOS8 Check Point and Beep Code List, version 2.0, last updated 10 June 2008
POST beep codes on CompTIA A+ certification exam.
These POST beep codes are covered specifically on the CompTIA A+ Exam:
Macintosh POST.
Apple's Macintosh computers also perform a POST after a cold boot. In the event of a fatal error, the Mac will not make its startup chime.
Old World Macs (until 1998).
Macs made after 1987 but prior to 1998, upon failing the POST, will immediately halt with a "death chime", which is a sound that varies by model; it can be a beep, a car crash sound, the sound of shattering glass, a short musical tone, or more. On the screen, if working, will be the Sad Mac icon, along with two hexadecimal strings, which can be used to identify the problem. Macs made prior to 1987 crashed silently with the hexadecimal string and a Sad Mac icon.
New World Macs (1998–1999).
When Apple introduced the iMac in 1998, it was a radical departure from other Macs of the time. The iMac began the production of New World Macs, as they are called; New World Macs, such as the iMac, Power Macintosh G3 (Blue & White), Power Mac G4 (PCI Graphics), PowerBook G3 (bronze keyboard), and PowerBook G3 (FireWire), load the Mac OS ROM from the hard drive. In the event of an error, but not a fatal hardware error, they display the same screen as seen when holding at startup but with the error message instead of the "0 >" prompt. In the event of a fatal hardware error, they give these beeps:
New World Macs (1999 onward).
The beep codes were revised in October 1999. In addition, on some models, the power LED would flash in cadence.
Intel-based Macs.
With the introduction of Intel-based Macs with EFI-based firmware, the startup tones were changed again.
Macs with the T2 security chip don't have EFI ROM tones
Amiga POST.
Amiga historical line of computers, from A1000 to 4000 present an interesting POST sequence that prompts the user with a sequence of flashing screens of different colors (rather than audible beeps as in other systems) to show if various hardware POST tests were correct or else if they failed:
POST sequence of Amiga.
The Amiga system performs the following steps at boot:
If the system fails the ROM test, the screen display turns red and the system halts.
Sequence for all main Amiga models.
Almost all Amiga models present the same color sequence when turned on: black screen, dark gray, light gray color screens filling all monitor screen in a rapid sequence (Amigas taken up usually 2, or at least max 3 seconds to turn on and boot).
Sequence for A4000.
Correct tests color sequence scheme.
A4000 presents just a light gray screen during its boot time (it just occurs in 2 or max 3 seconds)
Amiga keyboard LED error signals.
The keyboards of historical Amiga models are not proprietary as it happened in early computer ages, but more pragmatically it was based on international standard ANSI/ISO 8859-1. The keyboard itself was an intelligent device and had its own processor and 4 kilobytes of RAM for keeping a buffer of the sequence of keys that were being pressed, thus can communicate with the user if a fault is found by flashing its main LED in sequence:


Sorcerer (Linux distribution)

Sorcerer was a source-based Linux distribution. The distribution downloads and compiles source code to install and update installed software.
Instead of using abbreviations such as rpm (Red Hat) and dpkg (Debian), Sorcerer's tool terminology is based upon magic words. For example, a recipe for downloading, compiling, and installing software is called a "spell". Software to install is "cast" onto the computer. Installed software can be removed by "dispelling". Consequently, the command line tools for casting and dispelling software are called cast and dispel, respectively.
History.
In 2000, Kyle Sallee created a source-based Linux distribution called "Sorcerer GNU/Linux" and released it under the GNU GPL. During this time Sorcerer was a technology demonstration rather than a stable distribution. Eventually the distribution tools, called sorcery, and the software catalog, called grimoire, were redesigned and rewritten to be stable and usable on production machines. Due to the effort involved in single-handedly creating and maintaining a distribution Sallee ceased "Sorcerer GNU/Linux" during the redesign and rewrite of sorcery and grimoire. A month or two before the rewrite happened, in early 2002, Chuck S. Mead, who had previously created a fork of RedHat, created a fork of Sorcerer GNU/Linux. The first fork of Sorcerer GNU/Linux was called by the same name as Mead's fork of RedHat. It was called either "Lunar Penguin" or Lunar Linux. This fork's timing was fortunate for system administrators, because it granted them an opportunity to continue deployment of the distribution that Sallee was about to discontinue.
The earliest versions of Sorcerer were named "Sorcerer GNU/Linux", with key components licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). However, from around 2002 and forward current versions of Sorcerer release some key components under the "Sorcerer Public License" and not the GPL, and the distribution has dropped the term "GNU/Linux". Sorcerer has two ancient forks: Lunar Linux and Source Mage which are not based on nor compatible with the current sorcery code nor compatible with current grimoire. Their terminology also deviates from Sorcerer terminology.
Technical distinctions.
Sorcerer is based almost exclusively on source code. While many other operating systems generally make use of a package that contains pre-compiled (executable) programs, Sorcerer compiles source code on the machine prior to installation.
A new "grimoire", which is a catalog of software supported for immediate installation, is made available daily. When new sources are available, the spells in the grimoire are updated. A user's desktop is updated by first installing a current grimoire. If necessary, the installed Sorcery is updated. Finally, installed software can be updated according to the user's decision. Users can also add new spells to the grimoire on their local machine and submit the new spell for inclusion in the general distribution.
Sorcery automatically recompiles installed software as necessary to ensure continued compatibility and usability when installed libraries are updated. Unlike a pre-compiled binary-based distribution that must always download new packages, Sorcery most often recompiles installed software from previously downloaded sources. When a new source is required and an older source was previously downloaded, then Sorcerer will download a tiny patch that transforms the old source tarball into a current source tarball. The practice of keeping old source tarballs and downloading patches for updates allows Sorcerer systems to be updated using less bandwidth than distributions that provide pre-compiled packages.
The minimum system requirements are given as 1 GB of RAM and 20 GB of hard disk space. This is suggested because compiling some sources will consume large amounts of resources. Sorcerer has recently started using cgroups to limit the impact of software compilation on the system performance. Therefore, Sorcerer installations are normally updated while still in multi-user mode while causing no interruption to services or downtime.
See also.
Other source-based Linux distributions:


Radeon R400 series

The R420 GPU, developed by ATI Technologies, was the company's basis for its 3rd-generation DirectX 9.0/OpenGL 2.0-capable graphics cards. Used first on the Radeon X800, the R420 was produced on a 0.13 micrometer (130 nm) low-"K" photolithography process and used GDDR-3 memory. The chip was designed for AGP graphics cards.
Driver support of this core was discontinued as of Catalyst 9.4, and as a result there is no official Windows 7 support for any of the X700 - X850 products.
Development.
In terms of supported DirectX features, R420 (codenamed Loki) was very similar to the R300. R420 basically takes a "wider is better" approach to the previous architecture, with some small tweaks thrown in to enhance it in various ways. The chip came equipped with over double the pixel and vertex pushing resources compared to the Radeon 9800 XT's R360 (a minor evolution of the R350), with 16 DirectX 9.0b pixel pipelines and 16 ROPs. One would not be far off seeing the X800 XT basically as a pair of Radeon 9800 cores connected together and also running with a ~30% higher clock speed.
The R420 design was a 4 "quad" arrangement (4 pipelines per quad.) This organization internally allowed ATI to disable defective "quads" and sell chips with 12, 8 or even 4 pixel pipelines, an evolution of the technique used with Radeon 9500/9700 and 9800SE/9800. The separation into "quads" also allowed ATI to design a system to optimize the efficiency of the overall chip. Coined the "quad dispatch system", the screen is tiled and work is spread out evenly among the separate "quads" to optimize their throughput. This is how the R300-series chips performed their tasks as well, but R420 refined this by allowing programmable tile sizes in order to control work flow on a finer level of granularity. Apparently by reducing tile sizes, ATI was able to optimize for different triangle sizes.
When ATI doubled the number of pixel pipelines, they also raised the number of vertex shader engines from 4 to 6. This changed the ratio of pixel/vertex shaders from 2:1 (on R300) to 8:3, showing that ATI believed the workload in games as of 2004 and onward to be more pixel shader and texturing oriented than geometry based. Normal and parallax mapping were replacing sheer geometric complexity for model detail, so undoubtedly that was part of the reasoning. Strangely, the X700 mainstream card (RV410) had 6 vertex shaders while only being equipped with 2 quads. As such, this chip was obviously designed for a heavier geometry load than texturing, perhaps being tailored for a role as a FireGL chip. RV410 also significantly outgunned NVIDIA's GeForce 6600GT (3 vertex shaders) on geometry throughput. With R420's and RV410's 6 vertex shaders combined with higher clock speeds than the previous generation, ATI was able to more than double the geometry processing capability of 9800XT.
Although the R420-based chips are fundamentally similar to R300-based cores, ATI did tweak and enhance the pixel shader units for more flexibility. A new pixel shader version (PS2.b) allowed slightly greater shader program flexibility than plain PS2.0, but was still shy of full PS3.0 capabilities. This new revision to PS2.0 increased the maximum number of instructions and registers available to pixel shader programs.
ATI revealed "Temporal Anti-Aliasing", a new anti-aliasing technology their chips were capable of. By taking advantage of the frame-to-eye effects of a framerate higher than 60 frame/s, the GPU is able to better smooth aliased edges by rotating the anti-aliasing sampling pattern between frames. A 2X software setting became perceptively equivalent to 4X. Unfortunately, it required the system to be able to maintain at least 60 frame/s or temporal anti-aliasing would cause a noticeable flickering, because the user would be able to see the alternating AA patterns. If the framerate could not be maintained, the driver will disable Temporal AA. However, in games which this performance level could be maintained, Temporal AA was a nice addition to ATI's excellent anti-aliasing options. Note, ATI's "Temporal AA" was actually a temporal dithering filter for spatial AA, not de facto temporal anti-aliasing (which must involve a controlled blending of the temporal subsamples from consecutive screens).
Another notable addition to the core was a new kind of normal map compression, dubbed "3Dc". Similar to how texture compression had been part of the Direct3D specification for years and was used for compressing regular textures, normal map compression compacted this new type of surface detail layer. Because DirectX Texture Compression (DXTC) was block-based and not designed for a normal map's different data properties, a new compression method was needed to prevent loss of detail and other artifacting. 3Dc was based on a modified DXT5 mode, which in fact was a fallback option for hardware not supporting 3Dc. Software making heavy use of normal mapping could gain a significant speed boost from the savings in fillrate and bandwidth by using 3Dc. ATI showcased many of their chip's new features in the promotional real-time demo called, "Ruby: The Doublecross".
Most of the rest of the GPU was extremely similar to R300. The memory controller and memory bandwidth optimization techniques (HyperZ) were identical.
R420 was actually a secondary 4th generation project for ATI, with the original R400 plan being scrapped. R400 would have been more feature-complete, likely with full PS3.0 support among other enhancements, but it is believed that ATI deemed R400 unnecessarily complex for the applications that would be available, and potentially risky to develop on the available semiconductor manufacturing processes of the time. R400 technology was thus moved to the subsequent generation, renamed to "R500" (became "R520"), while the 4th generation was served with the R300-derived R420.
Releases of the R420 and the next ATI GPU without major architecture modification.
The earliest Radeon X800 series cards were based on the R420 core. The line included the Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition and the Radeon X800 Pro. The X800 XT PE came clocked at 520 MHz core and 560 MHz RAM, with 16 pipelines enabled. The X800 Pro came clocked at 475/450 MHz with one quad disabled, leaving 12 pixel pipelines functional. Essentially, the X800 Pro is built on semi-defective R420 cores. An X800 Pro VIVO (Video-in-Video-out) was also released and was popular with overclockers because the disabled quad could usually be enabled, resulting in a fully functional X800 XT PE at a lower cost.
The Radeon X700 (RV410) series replaced the X600 in September 2004. X700 Pro is clocked at 425 MHz core, and produced on a 0.11 micrometre process. RV410 used a layout consisting of 8 pixel pipelines connected to 4 ROPs (similar to GeForce 6600) while maintaining the 6 vertex shaders of X800. The 110 nm process was a cost-cutting process, designed not for high clock speeds but for reducing die size while maintaining high yields. An X700 XT was planned for production, and reviewed by various hardware web sites, but was never released. It was believed that X700 XT set too high of a clock ceiling for ATI to profitably produce. X700 XT was also not adequately competitive with nVidia's impressive GeForce 6600GT. ATI would go on produce a card in the X800 series to compete instead.
The Radeon X800 "R430"-based 110 nanometer series was introduced at the end of 2004 along with ATI's new X850 cards. The X800 was designed to replace the position X700 XT failed to secure, with 12 pipelines and a 256-bit RAM bus. The card more than surpassed the 6600GT with performance similar to that of the GeForce 6800. A close relative, the new X800 XL, was positioned to dethrone NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 GT with higher memory speeds and a full 16 pipelines to boost performance. R430 was unable to reach high clock speeds, being mainly designed to reduce the cost per GPU, and so a new top-of-the-line core was still needed. The new high-end R4x0-generation arrived with the X850 series, equipped with various core tweaks for slightly higher performance than the "R420"-based X800 series. The "R480"-based X850 line was available in 3 forms: the X850 Pro, the X850 XT, and the X850 XT Platinum Edition, and was built on the reliable high-performance 130 nm Low-K process.
In 2005, ATI had a large number of dies that "worked" but not well enough to be used on the X800 or X850 series cards. So a new SKU was created, the X800 GT. It used any "R480" X850 die or "R430" X800 XL die that had 2 functional quads and could run at 475 MHz. They were meant to compete with the GeForce 6600GT beside the previous "R430"-based X800. ATI also released the X800 GTO, which was a 12 pipeline card (3 quads) using either "R480" or "R430" dies clocked at 400 MHz. This card performed between the X800 GT and the X800 XL. It was faster than the plain GeForce 6800, but slower than GeForce 6800 GT. High sales for this card were due to its relatively high performance coupled with a cost only slightly higher than the X800 GT. The overclocking community discovered that the R480-based GTO could frequently reach clock speeds near the X850 XT.
Finally, another SKU was the X800 GTO², again based on R480. It was again manufactured by Sapphire Technology, like the X800 GTO. This card usually came with a 3 quad configuration, like X800 GTO. The GTO² was unique in the GTx series because, with a BIOS change, they could almost always be turned into a full 4 quad card. Some X800 GTO² cards shipped with the full 4 quads already enabled, but of these some were R430 instead of R480 and weren't able to reach X850-like clock speeds. The final variations of the GTO series were the special GTO boards with 16 pipelines officially enabled, such as Powercolor's "R430"-based X800 GTO-16.


FAT record size


Mark Zbikowski

Mark "Zibo" Joseph Zbikowski (born March 21, 1956) is a former Microsoft Architect and an early computer hacker. He started working at the company only a few years after its inception, leading efforts in MS-DOS, OS/2, Cairo and Windows NT. In 2006 he was honored for 25 years of service with the company, the third employee to reach this milestone, after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.
He was the designer of the MS-DOS executable file format, and the headers of that file format start with his initials: the ASCII characters 'MZ' (0x4D, 0x5A).
Early years.
Zbikowski was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1956. While attending The Roeper School (then known as Roeper City And Country School) from 1961 to 1974, he developed an interest in mathematics and computers. His 8th-grade performance in the Michigan Mathematics Prize Competition led to an invitation in an NSF-funded summer program at Oakland University where he became friends with Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Jeff Sachs. He later finished second in the MMPC twice in 1972-73 and 1973-74.
Zbikowski pursued Computer Science at Harvard (A.B. 1978) and at Yale (S.M. 1979). He was active in both universities' Gilbert and Sullivan performing groups.
Microsoft.
Ballmer recruited Zbikowski, who joined Microsoft in 1981. In March 1982 he replaced Tim Paterson as development lead and manager for Microsoft's MS-DOS 2.0, a position he held through DOS 4.0. His first major contributions were the addition of hierarchical directory structure to DOS 2.0 and installable device drivers which later led to Plug and Play. From March 1985 until 1991, he was on the architecture team for OS/2, development manager for file systems and device drivers, and technical advisor to Paul Maritz. The breakthrough concept of Installable File System in OS/2 is attributed to him.
Following the demise of the Microsoft/IBM joint development agreement, he was an architect, development manager and key contributor to Cairo, working for Jim Allchin and, later, Anthony Short. This led to Cairo's Object File System and content index efforts. In 1996, as Cairo migrated from being a standalone product to a technology source, Zbikowski worked under Lou Perazzoli on the Windows NT kernel, focusing on performance and size, before becoming architect and development manager for NT file systems in 1998.
In 2001, Zbikowski was a candidate for director of the Harvard Alumni Association.
Zbikowski retired from Microsoft in June 2006.
Due to his interest in education, he became affiliated, in 2007, with the University of Washington as a lecturer in the Computer Science and Engineering department in the College of Engineering.
Zbikowski returned to work at Ivy Softworks and Atlas Informatics (2014-2017) as CTO and then at Valve Corporation (2017-2019), retiring again in December 2019. He presently is Technology Advisor to Polyverse.
Mark Zbikowski is or has been affiliated with the following companies:


GeckoLinux

GeckoLinux is a Linux distribution based on openSUSE. It is available in two editions: "Static", which is based on openSUSE Leap, and "Rolling", which is based on openSUSE Tumbleweed.
Features.
GeckoLinux's ISOs are based on openSUSE's images (around 1 GB). Different editions include different desktop environments, installed open-source programs, and ready-to-work proprietary programs and/or drivers. GeckoLinux also comes with font rendering through open-source software and pre-installed TLP for power management. It is open-source, available in public repositories.
Differences from openSUSE.
GeckoLinux has an offline Live-USB/DVD installer for both "Static" and "Rolling" editions. It comes with pre-installed programs and downloaded applications packages from the Packman repository. Since it is a pre-configured distribution, desktop programs can be deleted with data and dependencies, and it does not offer installation of some additional packages after its OS installs.
Reception.
Dedoimedo wrote a non-positive review of GeckoLinux 150.180616, saying that it had "issues with multimedia playback, visual glitches and the graphics driver". A subsequent review of GeckoLinux Static 152 in February 2021 was more positive.
Jack M. Germain explains how & why "GeckoLinux doing for the OpenSuse/Suse world much of what Linux Mint did for the Ubuntu universe".


Sun Fire T2000

The Sun Fire T2000 server (code named Ontario) is a system engineered by Sun Microsystems for applications including Web 2.0 and databasing. Part of the Sun Fire line, the T2000 was among the first servers to leverage Sun's CoolThreads processing technology, which improves the energy-efficiency of systems.
Introduced in December 2005, the Sun T2000 reached its end of life (EOL) in November 2009.
Hardware.
The T2000 is powered by a four-core, six-core or eight-core UltraSPARC T1 processor, supports up to 64 GiB of ECC DDR2 SDRAM system memory using 16 DIMM slots, and up to 584 gigabytes of internal storage with Serial attached SCSI drives. InfoWorld noted that the system is light for its class. It is 3.5 inches tall, 16.7 inches wide, 24.4 inches deep and weighs 40 pounds.
Operating Systems.
The T2000 was offered by Sun preloaded with the Solaris 10 operating system.


XOS (operating system)

XOS is an Android-based operating system developed by Hong Kong mobile phone manufacturer Infinix Mobile exclusively for their smartphones.
XOS allows for a wide range of user customization without requiring rooting the mobile device. It was first introduced as XUI in 2015 and later as XOS in 2016. The operating system comes with utility applications that allow users to protect their privacy, improve speed, enhance experience among others. XOS comes with features like; XTheme, Scan to Recharge, Split Screen and XManager.
History.
In 2015, Infinix Mobile released XUI 1.0, based on Android 5.0 "Lollipop", featuring XContacts, XTheme, XSloud and XShare. In July 2016, XOS 2.0 Chameleon was released based on Android 6.0 "Marshmallow", launching on HOT S and featuring XLauncher and fingerprint manager. An upgraded version XOS 2.2 Chameleon based on Android 7.0 "Nougat" was later launched in 2017 on Note 3 and Smart X5010. It features Scrollshot, Split Screen and Magazine Lockscreen.
In August 2017, XOS 3.0 Hummingbird was released based on Android 7.0 as also seen in XOS 2.2, launching on Zero 5, it later launched in 2018 on Hot S3 based on Android 8.0 "Oreo". An upgraded version XOS 3.2 Hummingbird based on Android 8.1 was later launched on Hot 6. It features Eye Care, Multi-Accounts and Device Tracking.
In May 2018, XOS 4.0 Honeybee was released based on Android 8.0, launching on Hot 7 and Zero 6, featuring Smart Screen Split, Notch Hiding, Scan To Recharge, Fingerprint Call Recording and Smart Text Classifier. An upgraded version XOS 4.1 Honeybee based on Android 8.1 was later launched on Hot 7 Pro.
In 2019, XOS 5.0 Cheetah was released based on Android 9.0 "Pie", launching on Hot S4 and Hot 8, featuring Privacy Protection, AI Intelligence, Smart Panel, Data Switcher and Fingerprint Reset Password. In December 2019, an upgraded version XOS 5.5 Cheetah based on Android 9.0 was released to Hot 8, featuring Game Assistant, Social Turbo, Smart Screen Lifting and Game Anti-Interference.
In February 2020, XOS 6.0 Dolphin was released based on Android 10, launching on S5 Pro, Note 7. It features Dark Mode, Digital Wellbeing, Wi-Fi Share and Smart Gesture.


Control-Y

Control-Y is a common computer command. It is generated by holding and pressing the key on most Computer Keyboards.
In most Windows applications this keyboard shortcut functions as Redo, reversing a previous Undo. In some programs such as Microsoft Office it repeats the previous action if it was something other than Undo.
Apple Macintosh systems use for Redo. In general a shortcut on Macintosh using matches up with a shortcut on Windows using , this is one of the most noticeable conflicts.
Many programs (on all systems including Linux) support both and for Redo, due to this conflict. But quite a few remain where only one or the other shortcut works.
Older applications.
 deleted the current line in the "WordStar" word processor for CP/M and MS-DOS. In the 1980s, many text editors and word processors mimicked the "WordStar" command set, making a common synonym for "delete line."
In Borland IDEs it also deletes the current line.
In emacs it does a paste action (known as "yank"). Emacs uses for Undo and Redo.
In vi and vim it scrolls the display up one line.
In the pico and nano text editors this shortcut scrolls one page up.
In SAP GUI it enters block-select mode.


Atari Jaguar

The Atari Jaguar is a home video game console developed by Atari Corporation and released in North America in November 1993. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it competed with the 16-bit Sega Genesis and Super NES and the 32-bit 3DO Interactive Multiplayer which launched the same year. Despite its two custom 32-bit processors – Tom and Jerry – in addition to a Motorola 68000, Atari marketed it as the world's first 64-bit game system, emphasizing its 64-bit bus. The Jaguar launched with "Cybermorph" as the pack-in game.
Development on the Atari Jaguar started in the early 1990s by Flare Technology which also designed the canceled Atari Panther console. The multi-chip architecture, hardware bugs, and lacking developer support tools made game development difficult. Underwhelming sales further contributed to the console's lack of third-party support. The game library comprised only 50 licensed games, plus another 13 games on the Jaguar CD.
Atari attempted to extend the lifespan of the system with the Atari Jaguar CD add-on and marketing the Jaguar as the low-cost next generation console, with a price tag over $100 less than any of its competitors. With the release of the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation in 1995, sales of the Jaguar continued to fall. It sold no more than 250,000 units before it was discontinued in 1996. The commercial failure of the Jaguar prompted Atari to leave the console market.
After Hasbro Interactive acquired all Atari properties, the patents of the Jaguar were released into the public domain, with the console declared an open platform. Since its discontinuation, hobbyists have produced games for the system.
History.
Development.
The Jaguar was developed by the members of Flare Technology, a company formed by Martin Brennan and John Mathieson. The team had claimed that they could not only make a console superior to the Genesis or the Super NES, but they could also be cost-effective. Impressed by their work on the Konix Multisystem, Atari persuaded them to close Flare and form a new company called Flare II, with Atari providing the funding. Flare II initially set to work designing two consoles for Atari. One was a 32-bit architecture (codenamed Panther), and the other was a 64-bit system (codenamed Jaguar). Work on the Jaguar design progressed faster than expected, so Atari canceled the Panther project to focus on the more promising Jaguar.
The Jaguar was unveiled in August 1993 at the Chicago Consumer Entertainment Show. To prepare for its launch, the Atari ST computer line was discontinued, and support for earlier systems such as the Atari 2600 and Atari 8-bit family, had already been dropped on January 1, 1992. All 20,000 Jaguar units shipped during its test launch in 1993 were sold.
Launch.
The Jaguar was launched on November 23, 1993, at a price of $249.99, under a $500 million manufacturing deal with IBM. The system was initially available only in the test markets of New York City and San Francisco, with the slogan "Do the Math", claiming superiority over competing 16-bit and 32-bit systems. During this test launch Atari sold all 20,000 units hoping it would rally support for the system. A nationwide release followed six months later, in early 1994. "Computer Gaming World" wrote in January 1994 that the Jaguar was "a great machine in search of a developer/customer base", as Atari had to "overcome the stigma of its name (lack of marketing and customer support, as well as poor developer relations in the past)". The company "ventured late into third party software support" while competing console 3DO's "18 month public relations blitz" would result in "an avalanche of software support", the magazine reported.
The Jaguar struggled to attain a substantial user base. Atari reported that it had shipped 17,000 units as part of the system's initial test market in 1993. By the end of 1994, it reported that it had sold approximately 100,000 units.
Bit count controversy.
Atari tried to downplay competing consoles by proclaiming the Jaguar was the only "64-bit" system. This claim is questioned by some, because the Motorola 68000 CPU and the Tom and Jerry coprocessors execute 32-bit instruction sets. Atari's reasoning that the 32-bit Tom and Jerry chips work in tandem to add up to a 64-bit system was ridiculed in a mini-editorial by "Electronic Gaming Monthly", which commented that "If Sega did the math for the Sega Saturn the way Atari did the math for their 64-bit Jaguar system, the Sega Saturn would be a 112-bit monster of a machine." "Next Generation", while giving a mostly negative review of the Jaguar, maintained that it is a true 64-bit system, since the data path from the DRAM to the CPU and Tom and Jerry chips is 64 bits wide.
Arrival of Saturn and PlayStation.
In early 1995, Atari announced that they had dropped the price of the Jaguar to $149.99 be more competitive. Atari ran infomercials with enthusiastic salesmen touting the game system. These aired for most of 1995, but did not sell the remaining stock of Jaguar systems.
In a 1995 interview with "Next Generation", then-CEO Sam Tramiel declared that the Jaguar was as powerful, if not more powerful, than the newly launched Sega Saturn, and slightly weaker than the upcoming PlayStation. "Next Generation" received a deluge of letters in response to Tramiel's comments, particularly his threat to bring Sony to court for price dumping if the PlayStation entered the U.S. market at a retail price below $300. Many readers found this threat hollow and hypocritical, since Tramiel noted in the same interview that Atari was selling the Jaguar at a loss. The editor responded that price dumping does not have to do with a product being priced below cost, but its being priced much lower in one country than anotherwhich, as Tramiel said, is illegal. Tramiel and "Next Generation" agreed that the PlayStation's Japanese price converts to approximately $500. His remark that the small number of third party Jaguar games was good for Atari's profitability, angered Jaguar owners who were already frustrated at how few games were coming out for the system.
In Atari's 1995 annual report, it noted: In addition, Atari had severely limited financial resources, and so could not create the level of marketing which has historically backed successful gaming consoles.
Decline.
By November 1995, mass layoffs and insider statements were fueling journalistic speculation that Atari had ceased both development and manufacturing for the Jaguar and was simply trying to sell off existing stock before exiting the video game industry. Although Atari continued to deny these theories going into 1996, core Jaguar developers such as High Voltage Software and Beyond Games stated that they were no longer receiving communications from Atari regarding future Jaguar projects.
In its 10-K405 SEC Filing, filed April 12, 1996, Atari informed stockholders that its revenues had declined by more than half, from $38.7 million in 1994 to $14.6 million in 1995, then gave them the news on the truly dire nature of the Jaguar:
The filing confirmed that Atari had abandoned the Jaguar in November 1995 and in the subsequent months were concerned chiefly with liquidating its inventory of Jaguar products. On April 8, 1996, Atari Corporation agreed to merge with JTS, Inc. in a reverse takeover, thus forming JTS Corporation. The merger was finalized on July 30.
After the merger, the bulk of Jaguar inventory remained unsold and would be finally moved out to Tiger Software, a private liquidator, on December 23, 1996. On March 13, 1998, JTS sold the Atari name and all of the Atari properties to Hasbro Interactive.
Technical specifications.
From the Jaguar Software Reference manual, page 1:
Design specs for the console allude to the GPU or DSP being capable of acting as a CPU, leaving the Motorola 68000 to read controller inputs. Atari's Leonard Tramiel also specifically suggested that the 68000 not be used by developers. In practice, however, many developers use the Motorola 68000 to drive gameplay logic due to the greater developer familiarity of the 68000 and the adequacy of the 68000 for certain types of games. Most critically, a flaw in the memory controller means that certain obscure conventions must be followed for the RISC chips to be able to execute code from RAM.
COJAG arcade games.
Atari Games licensed the Atari Jaguar's chipset for use in its arcade games. The system, named COJAG (for "Coin-Op Jaguar"), replaced the 68000 with a 68020 or MIPS R3000-based CPU (depending on the board version), added more RAM, a full 64-bit wide ROM bus (Jaguar ROM bus being 32-bit), and optionally a hard drive (some games such as "Freeze" are ROM only). It runs the lightgun games "Area 51" and "Maximum Force", which were released by Atari as dedicated cabinets or as the "Area 51" and "Maximum Force" combo machine. Other games were developed but never released: "3 On 3 Basketball", "Fishin' Frenzy", "Freeze", and "Vicious Circle".
Peripherals.
Prior to the launch of the console in November 1993, Atari had announced a variety of peripherals to be released over the console's lifespan. This includes a CD-ROM-based console, a dial-up Internet link with support for online gaming, a virtual reality headset, and an MPEG-2 video card. However, due to the poor sales and eventual commercial failure of the Jaguar, most of the peripherals in development were canceled. The only peripherals and add-ons released by Atari for the Jaguar are a redesigned controller, an adapter for four players, a CD console add-on, and a link cable for local area network (LAN) gaming.
The redesigned second controller, the ProController by Atari, added three more face buttons and two triggers. It was created in response to the criticism of the original controller, said to lack enough buttons for fighting games in particular. Sold independently, however, it was never bundled with the system. The Team Tap multitap adds 4-controller support, compatible only with the optionally bundled "White Men Can't Jump" and "NBA Jam Tournament Edition". Eight player gameplay with two Team Taps is possible but unsupported by those games. For LAN multiplayer support, the Jaglink Interface links two Jaguar consoles through a modular extension and a UTP phone cable. It is compatible with three games: "AirCars", "BattleSphere", and "Doom".
In 1994 at the CES, Atari announced that it had partnered with Phylon, Inc. to create the Jaguar Voice/Data Communicator. The unit was delayed and an estimated 100 units were produced, but eventually in 1995 mass production was canceled. The Jaguar Voice Modem or JVM utilizes a 19.9kbit/s dial up modem to answer incoming phone calls and store up to 18 phone numbers. Players directly dial each other for online play, only compatible with "Ultra Vortek" which initializes the modem by entering 911 on the key pad at startup.
Jaguar CD.
The Jaguar CD is a CD-ROM peripheral for games. It was released in September 1995, two years after the Jaguar's launch. Twelve CD games were released during its manufacturing lifetime, with more being made later by homebrew developers. Each Jaguar CD unit has a Virtual Light Machine, which displays light patterns corresponding to music, if the user inserts an audio CD into the console. It was developed by Jeff Minter, after experimenting with graphics during the development of "Tempest 2000". The program was deemed a spiritual successor to the Atari Video Music, a visualizer released in 1976.
The Memory Track is a cartridge accessory for the Jaguar CD, providing Jaguar CD games with 128 K EEPROM for persistent storage of data such as preferences and saved games. Atari planned a second Jaguar model that combined both the Jaguar and the Jaguar CD into one unit, a la the TurboDuo. The Atari Jaguar Duo (codenamed Jaguar III) was a proposal to integrate the Jaguar CD to make a new console, a concept similar to the TurboDuo and Genesis CDX. A prototype, described by journalists as resembling a bathroom scale, was unveiled at the 1995 Winter Consumer Electronics Show, but the console was canceled before production.
Jaguar VR.
A virtual reality headset compatible with the console, tentatively titled the Jaguar VR, was unveiled by Atari at the 1995 Winter Consumer Electronics Show. The development of the peripheral was a response to Nintendo's virtual reality console, the Virtual Boy, which had been announced the previous year. The headset was developed in cooperation with Virtuality, which had previously created many virtual reality arcade systems, and was already developing a similar headset for practical purposes, named Project Elysium, for IBM. The peripheral was targeted for a commercial release before Christmas 1995. However, the deal with Virtuality was abandoned in October 1995. After Atari's merger with JTS in 1996, all prototypes of the headset were allegedly destroyed. However, two working units, one low-resolution prototype with red and grey-colored graphics and one high-resolution prototype with blue and grey-colored graphics, have since been recovered, and are regularly showcased at retrogaming-themed conventions and festivals. Only one game was developed for the Jaguar VR prototype: a 3D-rendered version of the 1980 arcade game "Missile Command", titled "Missile Command 3D", and a demo of Virtuality's "Zone Hunter" was created.
Unlicensed peripherals.
An unofficial expansion peripheral for the Atari Jaguar dubbed the "Catbox" was released by the Rockford, Illinois company ICD. It was originally slated to be released early in the Jaguar's life, in the second quarter of 1994, but was not actually released until mid-1995. The ICD CatBox plugs directly into the AV/DSP connectors located in the rear of the Jaguar console and provides three main functions. These are audio, video, and communications. It features six output formats, three for audio (line level stereo, RGB monitor, headphone jack with volume control) and three for video (composite, S-Video, and RGB analog component video) making the Jaguar compatible with multiple high quality monitor systems and multiple monitors at the same time. It is capable of communications methods known as CatNet and RS-232 as well as DSP pass through, allowing the user to connect two or more Jaguars together for multiplayer games either directly or with modems. The ICD CatBox features a polished stainless steel casing and red LEDs in the jaguar's eyes on the logo that indicate communications activity. An IBM AT-type null modem cable may be used to connect two Jaguars together. The CatBox is also compatible with Atari's Jaglink Interface peripheral.
An adaptor for the Jaguar that allows for WebTV access was revealed in 1998; one prototype is known to exist.
Reception.
Reviewing the Jaguar just a few weeks prior to its launch, "GamePro" gave it a "thumbs sideways". They praised the power of the hardware but criticized the controller, and were dubious of how the software lineup would turn out, commenting that Atari's failure to secure support from key third party publishers such as Capcom was a bad sign. They concluded that "Like the 3DO, the Jaguar is a risky investment – just not quite as expensive."
The Jaguar won "GameFan"'s "Best New System" award for 1993.
The small size and poor quality of the Jaguar's game library became the most commonly cited reason for its failure in the marketplace. The pack-in game "Cybermorph" was one of the first polygon-based games for consoles, but was criticized for design flaws and a weak color palette, and compared unfavorably with the SNES's "Star Fox". Other early releases like "Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy", "Raiden", and "" also received poor reviews, the latter two for failing to take full advantage of the Jaguar's hardware. Jaguar did eventually earn praise with games such as "Tempest 2000", "Doom", and "Wolfenstein 3D". The most successful title during the Jaguar's first year was "Alien vs. Predator". Both "Alien vs. Predator" and "Tempest 2000" were named among the system's defining games by "GamePro" in 2007. However, these occasional successes were seen as insufficient while the Jaguar's competitors were receiving a continual stream of critically acclaimed software; "GamePro" concluded their rave review of "Alien vs. Predator" by remarking "If Atari can turn out a dozen more games like AvP, Jaguar owners could truly rest easy and enjoy their purchase." In late 1995 reviews of the Jaguar, "Game Players" remarked, "The Jaguar suffers from several problems, most importantly the lack of good software." and "Next Generation" likewise commented that "thus far, Atari has spectacularly failed to deliver on the software side, leaving many to question the actual quality and capability of the hardware. With only one or two exceptions – "Tempest 2000" is cited most frequently – there have just been no truly great games for the Jaguar up to now." They further noted that while Atari is well known by older gamers, the company had much less overall brand recognition than Sega, Sony, Nintendo, or even The 3DO Company. However, they argued that with its low price point, the Jaguar might still compete if Atari could improve the software situation. They gave the system two out of five stars. "Game Players" also stated the despite being 64-bit, the Jaguar is much less powerful than the 3DO, Saturn, and PlayStation, even when supplemented with the Jaguar CD. With such a small library of games to challenge the incumbent 16-bit game consoles, Jaguar's appeal never grew beyond a small gaming audience. Digital Spy commented: "Like many failed hardware ventures, it still maintains something of a cult following but can only be considered a misstep for Atari."
In 2006 IGN editor Craig Harris rated the standard Jaguar controller as the worst game controller ever, criticizing the unwarranted recycling of the 1980s "phone keypad" format and the small number of action buttons, which he found particularly unwise given that Atari was actively trying to court fighting game fans to the system. Ed Semrad of "Electronic Gaming Monthly" commented that many Jaguar games gratuitously used all of the controller's phone keypad buttons, making the controls much more difficult than they needed to be. "GamePro"s The Watch Dog remarked, "The controller usually doesn't use the keypad, and for games that use the keypad extensively ("Alien vs. Predator", "Doom"), a keypad overlay is used to minimize confusion. But yes, it is a lot of buttons for nuttin'." Atari added more action buttons for its Pro Controller, to improve performance in fighting games in particular.
Legacy.
Telegames continued to publish games for the Jaguar after it was discontinued, and for a time was the only company to do so. On May 14, 1999, Hasbro Interactive announced that it had released all patents to the Jaguar, declaring it an open platform; this opened the doors for extensive homebrew development. Following the announcement, Songbird Productions joined Telegames in releasing unfinished Jaguar games alongside new games to satisfy the cult following. Hasbro Interactive, along with all the Atari properties, was sold to Infogrames on January 29, 2001.
In the United Kingdom in 2001, Telegames and retailer Game made a deal to bring the Jaguar to Game's retail outlets. It was initially sold for £29.99 new and software ranged between £9.99 for more common games such as "Doom" and "Ruiner Pinball" and £39.99 for rarer releases such as "Defender 2000" and "Checkered Flag". The machine had a presence in the stores until 2007, when remaining consoles were sold off for £9.99 and games were sold for as low as 97p.
In 1997, Imagin Systems, a manufacturer of dental imaging equipment, purchased the Jaguar cartridge and console molds from JTS. The console molds could, with minor modification, fit their HotRod camera, and the cartridge molds were reused to create an optional memory expansion card. In December 2014, the molds were purchased from Imagin Systems by Mike Kennedy, owner of the Kickstarter funded "Retro Videogame Magazine", to propose a new crowdfunded video game console, the Retro VGS, later rebranded the Coleco Chameleon after entering a licensing agreement with Coleco. The purchase of the molds was far cheaper than designing and manufacturing entirely new molds, and Kennedy described their acquisition as "the entire reason [the Retro VGS] is possible". However, the project was terminated in March 2016 following criticism of Kennedy and doubts regarding demand for the proposed console. Two "prototypes" were discovered to be fakes and Coleco withdrew from the project. After the project's termination, the molds were sold to Albert Yarusso, the founder of the AtariAge website.


SPARC M8