Intel 80386 Reference Programmer's Manual | Hacker News Reader

Intel 80386 Reference Programmer's Manual

pdos.csail.mit.edu

42 pointsArun20099 comments

Ugh this brings back memories. After spending 1988-92 on ARM stuff (Acorn) I ended up doing something on DOS with assembly, well MASM. x86 was horrible in the 16-bit segmented mode. I finished the job off in Turbo Pascal in the end. To this day it scares me and I hadn't delved lower than C since.

Edit: I've still got a copy of MS DOS encyclopaedia sitting on my bookshelf actually. Signed by Gates. Ebay time!

The Intel manuals have become ever increasing in size

I remember around 2000 it was 3 manuals, last time I checked it was 5 or 6

New instructions, new functionality (virtualization) etc

But the old manuals still have a lot of relevant stuff, especially if you want to work at the low-level (like switching to protected mode, page tables, etc)

Intel has a "literature fulfillment" program where you could order hard copy manuals by SKU. It seems they've phased this out in favour of PDFs on a CD.

http://i.imgur.com/odqvETR.jpg

I believe I got all 3 volumes/5 books around 2008, each being hundreds of pages thick, thousands in total. The one I'm missing is the optimization reference, but that's what they look like (not my photo).

And it was free for me, including shipping to Canada. It might be worth a shot to see if they've started it up again.

http://www.intel.com/design/literature.htm

I got a free copy of the lot back around 2003, but when I looked recently they've officially switched to printing on demand (priced at ~cost) via Lulu. I first got them for hobbyist operating system development - their residual utility there should remain high for a while. Plus, bookshelf cred!

http://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/processors/architec...

I think it's technically seven now, though I know of no one with a paper copy. My not-quite-current PDF copy of the SDM splits its 3289 pages into three volumes, with volumes 2 and 3 being split into A, B and C subvolumes.

And yes, virtually everything remains compatible. So if you want to write a 32 bit code generator and don't need access to newer features (synchronization primitives are the most important bits that were added later, also stuff like vector instructions, etc...) that 30-year-old document is all you need.

If you limit yourself to the 16-bit subset, you can use manuals that are even older.

And if you give up binary portability and restrict yourself to the source portability which helped sell people on the 8086 and the 8088 to begin with, you can use a manual for an 8080 processor and convert the code to the earliest 16-bit subset, prior to the expansions the 80286 brought.

And if that's too recent for you, you can move to the IBM mainframe series derived from the System/360 architecture, and use layer upon layer of emulation to run software written in the Johnson administration.

Screw diamonds: Legacy systems are forever.

Yes, you can stick to 16-bit and keep using 640k of RAM, segments and offsets

No, thank you

I have paper copies going back to the mid 80s.

I used to know that manual inside and out. Very nostalgic. I still have the original 8086 manual. Entire instruction set, plus pin layout, thermal specs, ... everything in one small manual.

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