Category: Retro Computing
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High-end server
Back in 1999, when we started the company, we bought some really high-end servers for performance testing – and I still have a few for ‘old times sake’. Here, for…
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Livin’ in the future
The floppy emulator I ordered a few days ago arrived yesterday afternoon, so I spent the latter half of the day puttering about with antique computers… The emulator came as…
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Modulate Demodulate
The first thing one should do with any old computer hardware is work out how to get it to connect to the local BBS. The Mac Plus needed some OS…
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Mac+
Today we set the wayback machine to 1987… In early 1987 my duty station had changed from a TDU at the Groton Subbase to the USS Pennsylvania (SSBN 735), which…
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And a few years later…
I don’t normally keep my old Windows machines because, well, they’re just old Windows machines. There’s nothing really special about most old Windows machines as they tend to be either…
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Y2K Laptops
Not all of my interesting antique computers are Apples; I have a few other things that I used back in the day, usually for work, that are pretty interesting… For…
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Work
It’s a cold, grey, and somewhat snowy day outside and things are a bit slow here at the office, so I figured I’d show off my work setup while waiting…
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Old Code
I was rummaging around in a box of old stuff, and came across a typed-out bit of BASIC I wrote for my ZX-81. I know it was the ZX-81 because…
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Digital Art
My first ‘art’ on a computer was a code-based graphic of a pegasus, done on my ZX-81 – which was 64×46 pixels. It was basically digital needlepoint, where I’d made…
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MiniDisc
Today we set the wayback machine for February of 1998… In late ’97 I had moved to a forty acre farm in the backwoods of Rhoadesville Virginia and was working…
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Photoshop
I bought my first copy of Photoshop about thirty years ago this month… Which seems like an insanely long time ago. I ran Photoshop 2.5 on my Powerbook 165C back…
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More old iPhones
It has been a while since my last Old Apple Crap post, so here’s a new one. After my original iPhone, I migrated to a 3GS. Unfortunately the 3GS, being…
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BBSing
For the sheer Back-To-The-Future-Ness of it, I’ve spent some time over the last few days working out how to get 20th century analog to work with 21st century digital. See,…
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The Apple “G-Machine” trifecta
Earlier today I posted some photos of my G5 iMac, so I figured I should show off the rest of my “G” collection… Before the G5 there was the aptly…
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Capacitors
My G5 iMac started getting a little flakey the other day, which usually means one thing; the dreaded aging capacitor issue… See, back in the old days capacitors were basically…
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3D
Today we set the wayback machine to 1998; the very early days of 3D video games powered by dedicated 3D hardware… The era of “3dfx” and a whole lot of…
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165c
A long time ago, in the before-times of early 1994, I bought myself a laptop that would change everything… The Apple Macintosh PowerBook 165c had come out in February 1993…
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G5
In my ongoing expose of all of the old Apple stuff I’ve acquired over the years, here’s my “PowerMac8,1” iMac G5. Back in 2001/2002 I was teaching CompSci at Marianapolis…
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Airport
Another interesting old bit of Apple tech I have laying about here at home; the Gen1 Airport Express. Before the Apple TV, if you wanted to pipe iTunes to your…
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Case
The new case for the iPhone came in today… I figured making the iPhone SE look like the Macintosh SE was oddly apropos. Listening to “Blue Morning, Blue Day” by…