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
linux nohltnohlt
oem ecosystem
power management
raymond chen
risk management
software history
windows 95
x86