- Epsilon Virginis (ε Virginis, abbreviated Epsilon Vir, ε Vir), formally named Vindemiatrix /vɪndiːmiˈeɪtrɪks/, is a star in the zodiac constellation of Virgo. The apparent visual magnitude of this star is +2.8, making it the third-brightest member of Virgo. Based upon parallax measurements made by the Gaia spapecraft, Vindemiatrix lies at a distance of about 108 light-years (33 parsecs) from the Sun, give or take 0.7 light-years.
- Reverse-engineering the 8086 processor’s address and data pin circuits (righto.com)
The Intel 8086 microprocessor (1978) started the x86 architecture that continues to this day. In this blog post, I’m focusing on a small part of the chip: the address and data pins that connect the chip to external memory and I/O devices. In many processors, this circuitry is straightforward, but it is complicated in the 8086 for two reasons. First, Intel decided to package the 8086 as a 40-pin DIP, which didn’t provide enough pins for all the functionality. Instead, the 8086 multiplexes address, data, and status. In other words, a pin can have multiple roles, providing an address bit at one time and a data bit at another time.