176164287
submission
Shayde writes:
A friend of mine gave me a Powerbook G3 to play around with. Turns out this was one of the first machines able to run OSX, and was built during the transition period for Apple after Steve Jobs came back in to rescue the company from bankruptcy.
175781213
submission
Shayde writes:
I really wanted to get this HP95LX talking to the internet at large, but network stacks for DOS in 1991 were pretty limited, and this machine didn't even have the hardware for a network connection. It did have a serial port though — a flat 4 pin custom interface.
I did a bunch of research and learned how to custom built an RS232 hookup for this port, and using an external Wifi module, got it online and talking to the retrocomputing BBS.
175408257
submission
Shayde writes:
I went to do a quick youtube short on playing the 1976 Mattel handheld game "Auto Race" but figured out pretty quickly that the game wasn't working. So I dove into disassembling the unit and figuring out the problem. Taking it apart and debugging it was fun. (Slight spoiler: I figured out what was wrong, was an easy fix), and the game plays great now!
174509351
submission
Shayde writes:
I was fortunate enough to have someone reach out to me and ask if I wanted a couple old terminals he had lying around. He was hoping they'd go to a collector or someone who would appreciate them, not someone who would flip them on ebay or sell them for scrap.
I've always had a weakness for VT220's, as to me they were the first of the 'modern' DEC equipment line. They came out with the VAXes in the 80s as the powerhouses for education and small business. This video is me documenting picking up the terminals, getting one set up hooked to a Raspberry PI and putting it through the paces.Link to Original Source
173430574
submission
Shayde writes:
In 1984, Apple II's were at the top of their game in the 8 bit market. A company in New Jersey decided to get in on the action and built an exact clone of the Apple. The Franklin Ace was chip and rom compatible with the Apple II, and that led to it's downfall. In this video we resurrect and old Franklin Ace and not only boot ProDOS, but also get the Z80 coprocessor up and running, and relive what coding in Turbo Pascal in the 80s was like.
172418941
submission
Shayde writes:
I've been working on a PDP/11 I basically got as a 'barn find' from an estate sale a year ago. The project has absolutely had it's ups and downs, as the knowledgebase for these machines is aging quickly. I'm hoping to restore my own expertise with this build, but it's been challenging finding parts, technical details, and just plain information.
I leaned pretty heavily on the folks at the Vintage Computing Federation (vcfed.org), as well as connections I've made in the industry — and made some great progress.
The latest chapter in how it's going was just posted, check it out if you're keen on retrocomputing and old minicomputers and DEC gear.
