Past Web Sites of the Month and Related Links

April 1998	Tweak-IT -- The Hardware Reference Site	Tweak-IT is another great hardware review web site. Think of Tweak-IT as a competitor to "the other guy." At Tweak-IT, you will find reviews of CPUs, hard drives, motherboards, and video components. Good technical discussion is encouraged on one of Tweak-IT's chat rooms. Best of all, Tweak-IT is presented without any of the usual "I went to Comdex, and nobody knew me" attitude.
March1998	Clive Turvey's Home Page	Clive Turvey deserves my web site of the month for providing the first glimpse of the secret opcodes of the new Pentium II (Deschutes) microprocessor. Clive's article shows the opcodes of FXSAVE and FXRSTOR and gives a little information about their use in Windows 98 and Windows NT 5.0.
February 1998	The Hardware Group	The Hardware Group features a one-stop-shopping repository of information. If you're looking for information on motherboards, benchmarks, or just general information, the Hardware Group might be the answer to your needs.
January 1998	Hardware.pairnet.com	This hardware related site features articles collected around the web on hardware issues. The site also features benchmarks results from a wide variety of sources.
December 1997	CPU Central	CPU Central features information on all current x86 microprocessors. Separate sections exist for AMD,Centaur, Cyrix, and Intel microprocessors. From this site, you may find technical information such as pin counts, and benchmark performance.
November 1997	The PC Guide	The PC Guide. The name says it all. This web site is much more than a PC Guide, however. This web site features many very extensive articles about technical computer subjects. For examples, at "The PC Guide," you'll find: Systems and Components Reference Guide The Processor System Memory Video Cards Monitors Hard disks, Floppy disks, and CD-ROMs System Care Guide Troubleshooting and Repair Guide System Optimization and Enhancement Guide ...and much much more. The first time I browsed around The PC Guide, I said "Holy Cow!" There are many excellent and extensive articles at this web site. The PC Guide is certainly worth Web Site of the Month. (Not to mention, The PC Guide has a killer URL.)
September 1997	The Anti-Intel Association	What's wrong with Intel? First of all, I would like to say that I have huge appreciation and admiration for the Intel of 1972, the company that created the world's first microprocessor, the 8008. Without that Intel, the computer indsustry would not have progressed as far as it did. Whether another firm would have developed a microprocessor had Intel not done so is a matter of opinion, but the computer industry would undoubtedly be different, and most likely less advanced.
August 1997	Sandpile.org	Did you ever wonder what happened to Christian Ludloff's 4P Package? Not surprisingly, Christian started a web page of his own. Christian's site has greatly expanded and is a worthy addition for my Web Site of the Month.
July 1997	The Expert's Exchange	Do you have any idea how many questions people ask me about computers? Nearly all questions I receive are about subjects which I'm not qualified to answer. "Why won't my sound card work?" "What kind of computer should I buy." Thankfully, there is a web site dedicated to answering these questions. They certainly deserve my Web Site of the Month.
June 1997	Anand's Hardware Tech Page	This is another excellent computer hardware page. The page is rather reminiscent of Tom's Hardware Guide, though it is an independent effort. The page features benchmarks and reviews from many different computer components; from motherboards to hard drives.
May 1997	AMD	The AMD K6 Microprocessor has just been released, and AMD claims that it's the fastest x86 processor on the planet. I thought it would befit the occasion to celebrate the liberation of the K6 by making AMD my Web Site Of The Month.
April 1997	Tom's Hardware Guide	It seems that I'm not the only person experiencing trouble with Intel. Whent he author of this web site tested the new Klamath Processor, he found that it was an underachiever. Intel wasn't too thrilled, and started threatening everybody assosiated with this web site.
March 1997	FACE Intel	This web site is lead by a group of current and ex-Intel employees who allege that Intel Corporation is a haven for discriminatory labor practices, and a hot-bed for illegal trade practices. They have banded together to force Intel to change their discriminatory labor and predatory business practices.
February 1997	Yahoo	Imagine: being able to dial up the Intel Secrets web site without a keyboard. That's nothing you say? It is, if you're inside of the Intel Museum.
January 1997	Intel	Every once in a while, Intel does something right. Just look at the 80386 microprocessor and the Pentium Pro documentation! While I was searching for a great web site to feature for the inaugural issue of the x86 Monthly Digest, I realized that the Intel Corporate Web site was the ideal candidate.

Overclocking FAQ

Quite often, I get asked about overclocking. What is it? How do you do it? Will it hurt my CPU? Generally, I politely tell these people that I don't have any articles on the subject. The reasons are simple:

I'm not exactly in favor of the idea, and
Why write an article, when there are extensive resources on the web which already cover this subject?

So instead, I provide this link to the best overclocking FAQ I could find. The author of this page provides the most comprehensive overclocking article I've seen, but also provies links to other sources of information on the subject. This is one-stop shopping at its best.

UnReal Mode (Big Real Mode) -- I haven't found a suitable article yet

Like I said above, why re-invent the wheel. That's why I don't have an article on "unreal mode." What is unreal mode you ask? How do you do it? What benefits does it provide? The answers are simple:

Unreal mode is the standard real mode, with all of the segment limits set to 4 giga-bytes.
This is done by enterring protected mode, setting all of the segment limits to 4 GB, and returning to real mode
Once in real mode, segment register limits are "honored" and aren't changed by segment register loads.
The benefit to this "programming trick" is to have access to the entire 4 GB address space while having the convenience of real mode programming.

So, if you're an assembly language/protected mode guru, you will have no problem following these instructions to create your own "UnReal Mode."

System Optimizations

This site is an excellent site featuring ways to tweak the most performance out of your computer. You will find everything from benchmark results, suggestions on increasing performance, and overclocking information. This site also enjoys the privilege of being voted "Top 5% of the web" by Point. The author describes his page as follows:

The System Optimization Web Page is dedicated to optimizing system performance. You can find tons of scores obtained using the benchmarking programs, as well as get hard to find information on your bios, chipset, and motherboard. Information (including surveys) is available on the popular overclocking subject.

Assembly Language FAQ

The next most frequently asked questions are concerning assembly language programming. These excellent web sites provide information on x86 assembly language, and specific assemblers. There are a few sites to choose from, so you might want to visit to see which site best suits your needs. Some of the topics discussed are:

Ralf Brown's Interrupt list

Ralf Brown maintains an interrupt list with lots of useful information. This list includes documented, and undocument DOS and BIOS interrupts. This list is a must for everybody who wants to know what software interrupts are available, and their inputs and outputs.

Ralf's home page also has information about the author, in addition to other useful links.

Aad Offerman's ChipList

The chiplist contains useful information on many x86 processor from Intel and their competitors. You will find stepping information and information on processor differences, bugs, etc. for CPUs and math coprocessors alike. If you have a question about voltages or many other processor details, check this site first!

Aad Offerman's home page also has some very useful information and links to other sites.

Data Depot's WhatCPU Program

This program is designed to give you information about the processor and cache in your computer. On processors that support the CPUID instruction, this program gives you the stepping information, and features list. On processors that don't support CPUID, this program will identify the processor manufacturer and family. In addition, this program can tell you whether or not your processor supports the various undocumented instructions (some clone CPUs don't). The manufacturer makes the following claims:

Software Detects Latest CPUs	Shows Type and Manufacturer
Calculates and displays clock speed	Shows bugs and features
Detects L1 and L2 Cache	Shows memory performance
Uses CPU database YOU edit	Built-in help

Embedded Systems Programming is the leading monthly technical publication for programmers, engineers, and project managers who design and build microcontroller- and embedded microprocessor-based systems. Embedded.com features the latest embedded systems news and downloadable code, in addition to informative articles from the magazine.

Embedded.com is the on-line union of three terrific embedded information sources, Embedded Systems Programming Magazine, Miller Freeman Directories, and the Embedded Systems Conferences. Embedded.com enjoys over 40,000 unique users a month.

There is no charge to users of their site, and with its useful hands-on articles, impartial editorial, and code downloads, I think it is one of the best of its kind.