Windows 95 engineers walked away from a simple CPU instruction — the x86 HLT (halt) — not because the idea was exotic or useless, but because using it risked turning customers’ laptops into permanent bricks. What looks, in hindsight, like a small compatibility choice was in fact a high-stakes...
apm
bios
compatibility engineering
cpu idle
firmware
hardware brick
hardware testing
hlt
hlt instruction
linux nohltnohlt
oem ecosystem
power management
raymond chen
risk management
software history
windows 95
x86
x86 idle