These pages opened the first time in September, 1996. Since then, 2 official revisions have taken place. This is the 3 official and the fourth unofficial revision. Now I use the DF server in Lund as main server and geocities as a mirror, the first page was however totally placed on geocities. The DF server is much easier to maintain and allows homemade CGI-scripts which geocities does not. The next revision will probably use CGI scripts much like the Hornet demoarchive.
Below is a list sorted by dates, newest entry at the top, describing various updates for this revision.

2004-05-05: So after almost five years there is a small update. I have had almost no time to work on this page. Hopefully I will have time to perform some kind of updates. However I very rarely program assembly any more. Most of the time it is either C or Python.
A few people sent mail with corrections and new items which was kind. Some of these mails got lost though.
At the moment I have only updated this page and cleaned up some HTML.

1999-09-02: Norbert Juffa sent an improved description of Fast BSF replacement and that is now placed online. Thanks!

1999-08-29: Removed the Mnemonic page and hopefully all links to it.
Also started to replace the GIF images with PNG and JPEG images. PNG is a much better format that GIF but the sad part is that not all browsers handle them correctly and that is why most pictures have been removed and replaced with text.
There is a deep reason for all this but I do not intend to bring it up here.

1999-08-22: Norbert Juffa pointed out a rather large error in Absoulte Value of. I don't have a nice solution so it is just noted.
There are also some more mails in my inbox about new/improved gems which I will deal with in a while.

1999-08-10: Bertram Felgenhauer sent a correction to Absoulte Value of. Thanks!

1999-08-09: Updated Stefan Ohrhallinger mail-address (sent me a nice mail about it).
Agner Fog's pages is also back online and link is available (rather has remained) in the links section, just click "How to optimize...".

1999-06-02: Fixed A BIOS delay, thanks to Robert Durnal for pointing out my mistake (I had swapped CX and DX).
Agner Fog's page seems to have gone missing (the server reports error 404) so I've removed the link for now.
And the standing "promise" - there will be an update in some time.

1999-03-16: Fixed a link. Update probably some time around Easter.

1999-01-25: I know the page hasn't been updated in a while. I just ran out of time. School takes too much time at the moment. I will try to add some gems from my "soon to add" list. Can not really say when it will be done though. New gems are allways welcome though.

1998-08-29: Norbert Juffa sent in another new gem and an update. I will include that in awhile too, but I have very little time right now. School starts in two days and there is a few things to do.

1998-08-04: Norbert Juffa sent another gem. I will include it shortly.

1998-07-27: Summer means few updates. Sorry for that. Also, I am a bit out of good Gems at the moment. Any help would be nice.

1998-06-30: Updated the link page abit (only removing and renaming links).

1998-06-15: Corrected a link in Snippets From Ramblings in Realtime. This update is not included in the Gems archive.

1998-06-07: Added the following gems:

78-byte Fade screen by Tylisha C. Andersen.
79-byte Copper bar x 3 by Tylisha C. Andersen, Tenie Remmel and Jim Neil.
84-byte Sample player by Dodger and Protected Christmas
Fast strlen() by Paul Hsieh.
Small bubble sort by Andrew Howe and Paul Hsieh.

I have skipped the mandelbrot inner loop for now. It's just an example (written by Terje Mathisen) of how to optimize for your Intel FPU. Since no entry/exit code was provided I will have to work out exactly how it works (almost done by the way) before I put it online.
All Gems are now available in a single ZIP file: allgems.zip. They have some cryptic names instead of what the Gems are really called. Next revision will use a script to automate this process and then all files will have correct names.

1998-06-07: Some of the new material is now online. The rest will follow shortly. Right now the connections are terrible slow so I will have to wait until tomorrow to include all new things.

1998-06-06: Replaced Emulate BSF instruction with a new version (also made by Norbert Juffa), updated Replace MOVSX/MOVZX.
Added the following gems:

Hadamard Transform in MMX by Terje Mathisen

1998-06-06: Started the update (it's 01.32 local time here). Just fixed a tiny thing in Performance Monitoring.
The rest will come later today.

1998-05-22: Terje Mathisen sent a correction to: Add with 255 saturation. Thanks! The gem is now corrected. He also sent some more updates that will be online around 1998-06-06 (the next update - read below).
The next update will come at 1998-06-06 (latest - this is not a promise this is a fact. The gems are almost ready just some more touches), school finishes soon and we have 4 exams which I must study for.

1998-05-03: Planned to update the page today but ran out of time. When the update comes (very soon, I promise...) I will include some mandelbrot innerloops, sorting algorithms, more BSF/BSR replacements, a bit on ASCIIZ string lengths and some more small programs.
Then all gems will also be downloadable (single ZIP file). This is just all pages saved as text - nothing fancy at all.

1998-04-26: Some more link updates (links removed again). Some more gems will come online soon (where soon is everything within 2 days and 2 weeks - I can't really tell since school might be stealing some time from me).

1998-04-25: Some changes in the links page (mainly search engines and some other links removed). If any link should open in a subframe, please contact me.

1998-04-22: Started experimenting with WIDTH and HEIGHT tags to see if loading speeds up. Seems like it but it is not certain. Also started to add some gems (not online though) - had a system crash last week which will delay a planned update.
Note: If a sub-page is not loaded, an image missing or requested file not found please reload the page a few times. I know for a fact that all subpages exists - external links may be incorrect however.

1998-04-18: Added the following gems:

Inverse squareroot by Norbert Juffa

Changed some graphics and added some HTML tags.

1998-04-07: Updated the following gems:

ulong2ascii (arrived from Norbert Juffa, thanks!)

The place were I live finally got Internet (100 MBps). This has been promised for more than a year now.

1998-03-29: Updated the following gems:

Performance monitoring

Some general touch up.

1998-03-28: Many general invisible HTML tags added. Fixed HTML errors (thanks Chrisitan), there were a lot of them (mostly frame errors).
Removed/replaced Testing Speed with a new version called Performance monitoring (written by John Eckerdal). This version is more flexible and describes the function differently. This version is also written using Intel guidelines.

1998-03-16: Due to a systemfailure this weekend the page was not updated when I said it would be. Not all of the below presented new features are implemented yet. A few of the gems are restructed (too many to mention here). There are however a few new gems:

63 bit CRC by Paul Hsieh
Fast Float to Int by Agner Fog and Vesa Karvonen
Find common divisor by Paul Hsieh (new and improved)
Pseudo Random number generator by Max McGuire (another version, old availabe too)

1998-03-05: Started to restruct the gems a bit (more and better explenations, hopefully). Started adding some new gems. A new exam period is however coming up so the update will have to wait until next weekend (around the very scary Friday).
Added the following features:

Every page will have a last updated notice at the bottom (even this page).
All gems will be available in a text archive. (This is effectively the same thing as saving all gems as textfiles).
1998-02-15: A new, smaller, version of 122-byte Quality fire arrived from Mark Andreas. It will be up soon.
Added a link to Valacar's Programming Page (many nice links, including this page).
1998-02-14: Added the following gems:
- Jump tables (motorola) by John Eckerdal
1998-02-13: Added the following gems:
- 4x4 by 4x1 matrix multiply by Norbert Juffa
A new, smaller, version of 122-byte Quality fire arrived from Mark Andreas some time ago. Now updated.
Various touch ups. Seems like the frames in Netscape 3.01 and Netscape Communicator have a slightly different behavior.
1998-02-09: Some time since last update. Made some restruction to various gems.
1998-01-29: Added the following gems:
- ulong2ascii by Norbert Juffa
Some small corrections at various places.
1998-01-28: Added the following gems:
Also made some restructions to some of the gems.
1998-01-26: Added the following gems:
- 20-byte Starfield by Niklas Beisert
- Convert hex to ASCII by Norbert Juffa
Restructed and corrected:
- 65-byte Life simulator, some small aestithical corrections.
- Absoulte Value of (intel version)
- Absoulte Value of (motorola version)
Norbert Juffa commented the Copying data using the FPU gem when using FLD/FST. Therefor the text have been slightly rewritten and his remarks are inserted.

1998-01-25: Restructed and corrected:
- Flat Real Mode
Restructed the gems page a bit. The PC BIOS/PC Hardware specific gems have been placed in a special group available on the page. Also the mnemonics replacement gems have been reorderd into a separate group.
I decided to place the Flat Real Mode gem in the PC Platform gem group. Although this may be used on any x86 platform it was developed to run in DOS. I doubt that it will have any real use outside the PC world anyhow.
1998-01-20: Added the following Gems:
- Fast BSF replacement by Norbert Juffa
This is the fourth BSF replacement.
Sorry to say the PMODE/W official homepage is gone and therefor the link. PMODE/W is a very good package so I am very sad to announce the fact that the official page is gone.
Decided to update the geocities server in a short time. My current living location will soon have an internet connection and then our internal server goes online which means that I can have another mirror here in Lund. Hopefully we will be connected to SnabbLUNET at once (read about SnabbLUNET below).
1998-01-15: Norbert Juffa has contributed with another BSF replacement - now there are 4 ways. It will be up soon, along with some other gems, corrections and general fixes.
Corrected a small error in:
- Optimize for MC68k CPUs
Some esthetical modifications in certain parts of the page. The connection at DF seems a bit slow (and then I am not more than 250 meters from the server location) if I get time I might update the geocities page (I dislike that option though, that thingy that shows up is very irritating). Some more gems arrived however since school has not yet started and the examination period is not yet over they will have to wait.
Motrola gems news: Since that course will start 1998-01-19 more gems will come for that section in some weeks, and have some new lying around here.
There have also been some complaint about the Flat Real Mode which I can understand. It is written by three people and is very messy. The only thing I can say to defend myself (except bad english knowledge) is that I put it together around 1.00 am a long time ago. It will be updated when I have time. Please keep sending these remarks!
1998-01-05: Added the following Gems:
- Quad-precision shift by Terje Mathisen
- 128-byte Quality fire by Gaffer/prometheus
New version of 65-byte Life simulator (formerly 76-bytes) arrived from Mark Andreas along with some new gems (which will be added soon) and is now included in the collection. The fire, linked above, was on the previous revision. Just had forgotten about it. Added some more new gems, restructed a few. Gem count is now up in 56 (not counting the small programs).
1998-01-04: Added the following Gems:
- Emulate BSF instruction by Norbert Juffa
- Negate multiple-word numbers by Norbert Juffa
A new letter arrived from Norbert Juffa with some new gems, thanks again. The new gems from him are linked above, along with the rest. The Gem count is now up in 54, and these two arrived today so I've not had any time to add the rest.
Strange. I now have 3 ways of replacing bit scan instructions:
- Replace Bit scan instructions (uses a FPU approach) by Agner Fog
- Emulate Bit scan instructions by Norbert Juffa
- Emulate BSF instruction by Norbert Juffa
Have done some major rewriting and cleaning up among the gems. This was quite needed in some cases. Although I have not done all yet, the rest will be done.
1998-01-02: Added the following Gems:
Did some rewriting and cleaing up in some gems. Gem count is now up in 52 gems. And I still have a bunch not finished yet.
1998-01-01: Discovered a small bug in the HTML code on the links page. Now pressing any link should open the new page in the entire window, not just in a small part of it.
1997-12-31: New Years Eve, and I am hacking (contrary to popular belif, some of us do have a life, just not right now). Added a few more gems and found some more on my harddrive. This is not a good situation. While adding gems, I find more and more.
The Motorola sections is a bit empty. It was a while since I programmed on Motorola CPU, but I do have some more Gems lying here. I just need to sort them out a bit better.
1997-12-30: Netscape Communicator won't handle GIF images that are 1x1 in size. That is strange. I flipped my computer (and I mean flipped, needed to do a hardware reset) three times before I could figure out the problem. 1x1 pictures are really usefull. They let you place text and pictures almost wherever you like. Just use the HSPACE and VSPACE tags with the 1x1 image.
Page is almost finished now. Can upload it today if I finnish the Gems I have lying around here. And I need a link to the Guestbook too. Some touchup might be required when adding the Guestbook.
Checked size of the pictures and found out that all pictures have a total size of about 110 kB. I think that is quite good. I have tried to make all pictures 16 colours. There is only one picture with more colours and that is the chip on the index page.
The page will not be up today. Still have a lot of Gems lying around and its only some few minutes left of the day. If I add all, I think there will be around 60 Gems here.
1997-12-29: Added and cleand up a few new gems and cleand up the page some more. The new page will probably be online tomorrow. When the page finally is online, all new gems will be have a link here.
Just managed to kill Netscape twice while loading a page from Geocities. The new commercial thingy that shows up is just so irritating and if you press close in a wrong moment it will kill Netscape (if your computer is a bit short on memory).
And I found out that the DF server was down. Strange. The DF server is very rarely down. This however might be because of a connection to SnabbLUNET in Lund, Sweden (SnabbLUNET = fast Lund University Network, I think. If anyones is interrested I can mention that SnabbLUNET is directly connected to SUNET (Swedish Univercity Network), which is the Internet backbone in Sweden).
1997-12-28: Redesigned all graphics. The last index picture (stars in the background, Motorola MC68060 in the foreground) is gone and replaced with a new one. Also found some old guestbook entries lying around on my harddrive. Thinking about it - the guestbook has a strange interface. I will most likely change that.
Frames is not as usefull as they may seem. The graphics is not as nice as I would have liked it to be mostly because of the frames. I would have used tables if they would have worked, but they do not. All browsers tend to take control over your page. If the browser thinks something needs to be resized even if you stated that it should be constant, it will change. This is very annoying! And there are allways those tiny pixel gaps that you can not seem to get rid of. Well, enough complaining.
1997-12-27: Cleaned up the homepage a bit. Geocities is a strange server. I would very much like to have some of my own CGI-scripts there, but no. The DF server (where the mainpage resides) allows me if they may test the scripts before. This means that I can have my own counter and my own guestbook and ALL of them are Cookie free (cookies are nothing but annoying) ! What I would really like to have is a search engine. It may become a reality in the future.
1997-12-26: E-mail arrived from Norbert Juffa at AMD. He has submitted some very nice Gems which I will include in the collection.
1997-12-23: Creation of this new history page. It will not be online for a while though.

John Eckerdal
last updated: 1999-09-02