Help:Introduction to Templates

Templates are used in the Computer History Wiki to prevent the reduplication of work and help provide a uniform layout. For example, we have the template {{stub}} to show a short, very incomplete article. Instead of having to include this text manually on every such article, placing the text {{stub}} in an article produces:

We also have several series of templates which are used to provide information in standardized ways.

Infoboxes

Infoboxes allow the uniform display of information based on a template. Custom data can be fed into the template by entering it into the article, for example:

{{Infobox Machine
| name = Apple I 
| manufacturer = [[Apple Computer]]
| form factor = [[Personal Computer]]
| year introduced = July 1976 
| year discontinued = March 1977
| cpu = [[MOS 6502]]
| clock speed = 1 MHz
| ram = 4 KB standard
| graphics = 40x24 character output
| successor = [[Apple II]]
}}

Apple I
Manufacturer:	Apple Computer
Year Introduced:	July 1976
Year Discontinued:	March 1977
Form Factor:	Personal Computer
Clock Speed:	1 MHz
Memory Size:	4 KB standard
Graphics:	40x24 character output
CPU:	MOS 6502
Successor(s):	Apple II

produces the box on the right of the screen here. The Infobox Machine template is the general template for most computer systems in this wiki. See Template:Infobox Machine for an overview of the values you can use with this template.

To avoid the insanity of a haphazard set of datasheets for a million different devices, we've got some basic templates in place which we really would like you to use:

• Template:Infobox Machine - for a system in general
• Template:Infobox Tape drive - for tape drives
• Template:Infobox Disk drive - for disk drives
• Template:Infobox Software - for software, etc.
• Template:Infobox OS - for operating systems
• Template:Infobox App - for applications (similar to Software above)

If these are not sufficient, or you have any requests or comments, you can discuss it on the talk page of this article -- the people writing the infoboxes are watching these talk pages.

Registers

For showing the contents of registers (in CPUs and devices) we have a series of display templates.

To begin with, for 16-bit registers, there are Template:16bit-header‎ and Template:16bit-bitout‎, which used thusly:

{{16bit-header‎}}
| Unused || colspan=7 | Length || Trapped || Written || colspan=2 | Unused || Direction || colspan=3 | Access Control
{{16bit-bitout‎}}

produces this:

Unused	Length							Trapped	Written	Unused		Direction	Access Control
15	14	13	12	11	10	09	08	07	06	05	04	03	02	01	00

Following that, a number of similar register templates have been created. For each word length, there's one header template (like the one above), shared between all the versions, and then one or more footer ones, which produced differently-formatted output.

They are 36-bit (Template:36bit-bitout‎); 32-bit, in both little-endian and big-endian forms (Template:32bitbig-bitout‎ and Template:32bitlittle-bitout‎) bit-numbering forms (since there are machine of that word size with both). Finally, motivated by how nice the 36-bit ones looked, grouped into 3's by colour, versions of the 16-bit ones for both hex and octal machines (Template:16bitoctal-bitout‎ and Template:16bithex-bitout‎) were added.