INSIDE.EXE

Build ID

LB-INSIDE-EXE

Status

playable

Genre

Educational / Computer Hardware

Target

Late-1980s PC

Runtime

Web / Canvas / Web Audio

Year

2026

Version

1.3.0

Project type

Local build

Source

Not released

Description

A visual guide to the personal computer for the school computer room. Seven chapters and 34 demonstrations take the machine apart one byte, one track, one instruction at a time: the processor, memory, the 360 KB diskette, the CRT, keyboard, mouse and joystick, the system buses, and a floppy boot from power-on to the prompt. Each demonstration runs step by step or in AUTO on a 320×200 EGA screen with PC speaker cues; seven optional knowledge checks hold 21 questions, and the course ends at a practice DOS prompt that answers DIR, VER, CLS and ECHO.

Archive notes

One disk, two editions. The English Classroom Edition 1.20 carries a 1987 copyright; according to the bundled README it was written for a small school in rural Iowa. The Ukrainian edition, labeled UKR-90, was prepared in Kyiv in 1990 by the educational methodology group "Vektor", which redrew the character set, translated the course and added a loader that asks which edition to run. Its credit screen reads "Dlia navchalnykh zakladiv. Ne dlia prodazhu" (for educational institutions, not for sale). The program is in English and Ukrainian; the README is in English. The README says the copy came off the hard disk of a retired school computer found at a computer recycling workshop, together with ASTRA '90, Disk 02 of the same Personal Computer Series. Asked about the Intel 80386, the course still replies that the subject has not yet been approved for standard classroom instruction.