s/retrocomputing
computing with vintage or weak devices: 8bit/16bit, commodore, amiga, oric, atari, etc.
Posts
[https link] Animated 6502 Block Diagram (http link) run a transistor-level simulation of the MOS Technology 6502 and shows the internal state on Donald Hanson's Block Diagram. Runs in a (modern) webbrowser. [https link] source code (github) If you want to see it run ehbasic, press the run button and switch to the I/O tab. Type "c4000" into the text box, press enter, and then unfocus the texbox. This will send the input needed to get you to READY. Give it some time, it is slow. Type your...
I'm really enjoying browsing the "Usenet Oldnews Archive Newsgroups List" on gopher. It's an archive of Usenet posts from May of 1981 until somewhere in mid-March of 1982. [gopher link] Oldnews Archive An example of an entertaining post from the FA.apollo group: "Are Windows Necessary? It appears to me that one area of vastly greater functionality that should arrive with personal workstations is the capability to view more than one item at a time, e.g., "window" ... Can any of you who now...
This seems like it belongs here: [https link] a girl muses on what would happen if humanity lost the ability to make microchips. How would computing survive?
Y'all, this ProtoWeb is pretty freaking cool! It is an http proxy you can use in olde browsers and it preserves the old web from the late 1990s. However, they also have runescape (using an open source server) served over it, as well as real radio stations that work with winamp, up-to-date live weather data, and an old YouTube clone, that supports flash and realplayer, called WarpStream that duplices the YT videos from before 2010. It allows you to sign up and comment on videos. I believe they...
Just found out this cool thing called ProtoWeb that lets you use a proxy server to serve the web as it was back in 1996-1997. You can use it with old web browsers (and for Linux, I'm using Seamonkey). I also have this old book from 1997: "The Official America Online Internet Guide" that I found a few years ago, so I've been trying some of the websites in this book to see which ones ProtoWeb has preserved.
Machdyne Timeless Computers — Anyone hear of Machdyne? They make tiny FPGA "timeless computers". There's a custom Linux build called Kakao. They also make the Kaltstahl - a little USB device that store 256KB on ferroelectric RAM, with an estimated retention of 95 years @ +55C, and over 200 years @ +35C. They also have a real telnet BBS at bbs.machdyne.com I've told them about Gemini. I think this place and their community would blend well. Thought I'd see if I could raise some interest...
Internet pizza in 1994 — I recently posted some history of Xenix and how it was spun off into the SCO Group. Well, in between their spinoff from Microsoft Xenix and suing the pants off of IBM they had an adventure into the weird. Partnering with chain pizza store Pizza Hut, they participated in the first internet ordering of pizza, announced in 1994. It worked like this: you would hop on NCSA Mosaic and go to the Pizza Hut web site in Wichita, Kansas. This was described as a 486 running SCO...
manic miner on oric
You might not believe this, but just today, as I was editing an entry in my capsule, I found VIM to be too cumbersome and switched to ed yeah, ed. I started to play with it for some time (tip: regex are a must) and... I love it! Once you "get it", it can be surprisingly effective for some tasks
CLI/TUI Captive Portal Authentication — I have a small computer (uConsole/CM4) that I use in Linux console mode for simple tasks (programming, Gemini, text editing, e-mail). The hardware is too cramped to use with X/Wayland. I could not find any decent tutorial on how to authenticate against captive portals. Of course I only access networks that I am allowed to. Of course I tried to use a TUI browser (w3m/lynx); but it did not work. I suspect that JS is at fault. Any ideas? I look for a ready-...
I read an article from someone using a Palm m500 for modern purposes and I'm sorely tempted to try it myself. I actually kind of wish I kept the HP tablet I picked up when they were getting blown out as I loved that version of webOS.
Fixing a 41 year old bug in the SWTOOLS VOS SEDIT commmand on VAX/VMS 5.5-2 — So, at work I maintain a VAX running VMS 5.5-2. That version of VMS was released in 1991... I've recently been using the Unix-like tools in the LBL Software Tools Virtual Operating System from the DECUS Languages & Tools tape from 1986. The SWTOOLS VOS is a portable reimplementation of many Unix style programs and library routines, inspired by Kernighan and Plauger's Software Tools books, writen in a Ratfor, a...
Where to buy retrocomputers? — This might sound like a silly question, but where would you start looking to buy retrocomputers? I suppose there are things for sale on the internet, but not everything you can think of is actually as available as "modern" products seem. What if I want a specific model of a 386... where do you all go to find something like that? Or do you have to have been retrocomputing since back then? feel kinda dumb here since I have (confession time) actually thown out old...
When is retro computing? — Ubuntu is going to be 20 years old this year and that makes me wonder how old a computer and it's operating system has to be to be considered retro? For me, Windows 2000 is retro but wind XP is not. Also any mac using PowerPC or m68k is retro to me. (The podcast Linux After Dark just did a episode on trying to run warty warthog 4.10 and compare it to the next LTS, 24.04)
Classic Usborne books on home computer programming, including how to program adventure games, code to type. A true gem: [https link] Please note the link might not work if you're browsing from outside the UK if that happens and you aren't VPN click on the top left link and inform it you want the UK content. Cheers!
Getting instructions for your Atari 8-bit computer games — Hello! Just joined the Geminispace. Here's a very easy way to extract the instructions from the ATR disk images from any Atari 8 bit game. In this case, we were lucky to find the instructions within the preserved disks. [http link] The Wrath of Doom (difficult to play without instructions whatsoever) [https link] Explore Atari 8-Bit ATR Disk Images with a Web browser
A game for Commodore 64 — Paw Noir - platformer game project by Kirill Leyfer for commodore 64 retrocomputer.
Hi! I.m new to this Gemini stuff. I heard some about it at a podcast called Kodsnack. Anyway, I.m mostly looking around and wanted to make a little mark in this cool community. I,m not much of a programmer but I like to code on my old Commodore64. But some time ago I bought this Mega65. A spiritual successor to the Commodore65. The C65 was intended to be a successor to C64, suprise suprise. But the C65 was never released. Its fun to investigate this new Mega 65 computer and try to make some...
maximum resolution of atari st — Because in low res some 416x274 is possible, in med res maybe can pull out 832x274 - still little less pixels than in mono.
do you like square cursors or pipe like cursors? should the cursor blink?
90's Kids Trackball — Look at what arrived on my doorstep: The Microsoft Easyball, forgotten trackball of the 90's geared towards kids. Still works, has a serial connection and only one button. Time to play some Freddi Fish!
Protoweb Brings Back The 1995 Web — Have any of you heard of the Protoweb project yet? I hadn't until just this morning, and I thought it may be interesting to some people on here. The goal is to basically take old sites from the 95/96 era that have some dead functionality through the Wayback Machine (broken API's, streams that no longer exist, missing files, etc) and repopulate them one by one to produce a fully functional web from the mid-90's that's accessible by browser proxy. If you don'...
automatic pattern punching system — video features old computer with tui interface at miyata textile co. the operator loads software from tape on MZ-80K2 CLEAR(or CLEAN?) COMPUTER. screen shows: FOUND MR-463 (DATA) LOADING MR-463 (DATA) the software writes: ** AUTOMATIC PATTERN PUNCHING SYSTEM ** MR463-01 and then there is a menu. looks amazing.
Bit of a long shot, but does anyone know of any retro computing meetups or groups in Ohio (especially Columbus)? Would love to meet others & get the chance to check out some old computers in person!
Check out the 6502 community over at [http link] and especially the forum: [http link] Amazing treasure trove of resources.
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