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How I fixed the infamous Basilisk II Windows “Black Screen” bug in 2013

https://www.downtowndougbrown.com/2025/05/how-i-fixed-the-infamous-basilisk-ii-windows-black-screen-bug-in-2013/
79•zdw•9mo ago

Comments

cardanome•9mo ago
I remember running Basilisk 2 on a PlayStation Portable.

Not sure what the point was but I was happy I could.

MBCook•9mo ago
Allocations moving around sounds a lot like the Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) that was added to Vista as part of the large increase in security hardening MS went through during development.

Great article. I’d love to know why the memory was allocated that way initially.

fredoralive•9mo ago
The two memory allocations makes sense, ROM and RAM are separate chunks of memory, and in the Mac memory map(s) they're non-contiguous, so why not two allocations?

It's only once the C classic of optimising through FUN™ with pointers, and then weird issues with bits of the Mac ROM not liking being mapped into random high memory addresses that we end up with lockups.

rcarmo•9mo ago
This reminds me that I cannot run BasiliskII at a decent resolution under GNOME at 125% - the thing apparently tries to set the window size several times, then goes into a black-bordered resolution mode that is _not_ what I asked for (and I'm used to setting the prefs directly, so I have mag_rate, scale_nearest, etc. all set "correctly"
rcarmo•9mo ago
If anyone lands here from Google, I got it to work by setting scale_nearest and scale_integer to false since GNOME at 125% scaling seems to throw it off.
RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u•9mo ago
Very interesting article, but this stood out to me:

> To re-familiarize myself with this bug [...] I downloaded the broken version [...] and tried it out in some virtual machines. Windows 2000 and XP ran it without any trouble on the first try, but Vista and 7 didn’t [...]

Amazing. Emulating an older system in order to debug emulating an even older system. The amount of compute / memory / storage readily available at our fingertips today is astounding. My first computer was a 68k Mac, and back then, I would never imagine such scenarios would be possible!

electroly•9mo ago
The Windows virtual machines aren't emulated; there's still only the one expensive emulation layer going on here.
bluedino•9mo ago
First web job I had, there were a pair of barely working Dell computers in a dark corner. They were there to test Windows XP and IE6

I virtualized that crap a couple weeks later.

canucker2016•9mo ago
Windows Vista Heap changes:

https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-usa-06/BH-US-06-Ma...

https://moflow.org/Presentations/200703%20EuSecWest%20-%20Wi...

canucker2016•9mo ago
Analysis of 32-bit Windows Vista ASLR - https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-dc-07/Whitehouse/P...

  After  the  stack  address  has  been  selected,  the  process 
  heaps are selected.  Each heap is allocated from a range of 
  32  different  locations,  each  separated  by  64kB.    The 
  location  of  the  first  heap  must  be  chosen  to  avoid  the 
  previously placed stack, and each of the following heaps 
  must be allocated to avoid those allocated before it.

  An important result of Vista’s ASLR design is that some 
  address  space  layout  parameters  such  as  PEB,  stack  and 
  heap  locations  are  selected  once  per  program  execution. 
  Other parameters, such as the location of the program code, 
  data  segment,  BSS  segment  and  libraries,  change  only 
  between reboots.

  This paper shows that the stack, heap, image and PEB 
  protected  by  ASLR  on  Microsoft  Windows  Vista  32bit 
  RTM have different frequency distributions. While the stack 
  has near uniform distribution over a very wide range, the 
  heap and PEB, and to a lesser degree the image base have 
  much  smaller  ranges  and  because  of  biases  in  their 
  distributions do not efficiently use this range.  As a result, 
  the protection offered by ASLR under Windows Vista may 
  not be as robust as expected.

Refactoring Is for Humans

https://refactoringin.net/blog/refactoring-is-for-humans
1•darsen•1m ago•0 comments

Federal Government to restrict use of Anthropic

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/27/tech/anthropic-pentagon-deadline
1•twism•1m ago•0 comments

GLP-1 and Prior Major Adverse Limb Events in Patients with Diabetes

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2844425
1•hnburnsy•2m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Agoragentic – Agent-to-Agent Marketplace for LangChain, CrewAI and MCP

https://github.com/rhein1/agoragentic-integrations
1•bourbeau•2m ago•0 comments

Show HN: WhenItHappens–family resource after traumatic death

https://whenithappenshelp.com/
1•Fratua•2m ago•0 comments

Trump directs federal agencies to cease use of Anthropic

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-he-is-directing-federal-agencies-cease-use-anthropic-...
1•patrickmay•2m ago•1 comments

Trump Will End Government Use of Anthropic's AI Models

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/trump-will-end-government-use-of-anthropics-ai-models-ff3550d9
2•moloch•3m ago•0 comments

The Death of Spotify: Why Streaming Is Minutes Away from Being Obsolete

https://joelgouveia.substack.com/p/the-death-of-spotify-why-streaming
1•baal80spam•4m ago•0 comments

The Death of the Subconscious and the Birth of the Subconsciousness

https://3amto5amclub-wuaqr.wordpress.com/2026/02/25/the-death-of-the-subconscious-and-the-birth-o...
1•STANKAYE•4m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Gace AI – A zero-config platform to build and host AI plugins for free

https://gace.dev/?mode=developer
2•bstrama•5m ago•0 comments

USA to cut Anthropic from government contracts in six months

https://www.ft.com/content/1aeff07f-6221-4577-b19c-887bb654c585
2•intunderflow•6m ago•1 comments

Heart attack deaths rose between 2011 and 2022 among adults younger than age 55

https://newsroom.heart.org/news/releases-20260219
2•brandonb•9m ago•0 comments

Ask HN: What's the best engineering interview process?

1•ylhert•9m ago•0 comments

Relaxation trend: customers can meditate or snooze in open or closed casket

https://www.thetimes.com/world/asia/article/japan-coffin-meditation-relaxation-tokyo-wfsd0n2vz
1•woldemariam•9m ago•0 comments

Massachusetts State Police are on a drone surveillance shopping spree

https://binj.news/2026/02/26/massachusetts-state-police-are-on-a-drone-surveillance-shopping-spree/
1•ilamont•12m ago•0 comments

Trump Responds to Anthropic

https://twitter.com/PeteHegseth/status/2027487514395832410
5•Finbarr•12m ago•0 comments

LLM-Based Evolution as a Universal Optimizer

https://imbue.com/research/2026-02-27-darwinian-evolver/
3•miohtama•15m ago•0 comments

Trump Orders US Agencies to Drop Anthropic After Pentagon Feud

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-27/trump-orders-us-government-to-drop-anthropic-a...
15•ZeroCool2u•17m ago•2 comments

Netflix Declines to Raise Offer for Warner Bros

https://ir.netflix.net/investor-news-and-events/financial-releases/press-release-details/2026/Net...
1•7777777phil•21m ago•0 comments

Show HN: I Built a $1 Escalating Internet Billboard – Called Space

https://www.spacefilled.com/
2•clarkage•22m ago•1 comments

Show HN: I vibe coded a DAW for the terminal. how'd I do?

https://github.com/mohsenil85/imbolc
3•lmohseni•23m ago•0 comments

How to Run a One Trillion-Parameter LLM Locally: AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Cluster Guide

https://www.amd.com/en/developer/resources/technical-articles/2026/how-to-run-a-one-trillion-para...
1•guerby•23m ago•0 comments

It's Time for LLM Connection Strings

https://danlevy.net/llm-connection-strings/
1•iamwil•24m ago•0 comments

A War Foretold

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2026/feb/20/a-war-foretold-cia-mi6-putin-ukraine...
4•fabatka•27m ago•0 comments

Recontextualizing Famous Quotes for Brand Slogan Generation

https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.06049
1•PaulHoule•28m ago•0 comments

Poland Plans Social Media Ban for Kids in Challenge to US Tech

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-27/poland-plans-social-media-ban-for-kids-in-chal...
2•1vuio0pswjnm7•28m ago•0 comments

Show HN: A pure Python HTTP Library built on free-threaded Python

https://github.com/grandimam/barq
1•grandimam•28m ago•0 comments

I Was Tired of Juggling My Agents, So I Hired a Middle Manager

https://www.sawyerhood.com/blog/hired-a-middle-manager
1•sawyerjhood•28m ago•0 comments

The Problem with P(doom)

https://blog.cosmos-institute.org/p/not-even-wrong
1•alexicon_•28m ago•0 comments

Commit on Firefox repo: When an agent commits, don't add itself as author

https://github.com/mozilla-firefox/firefox/commit/71cc24b6a400dbd434e4df37087960d94b764791
1•thesdev•29m ago•0 comments