Revisionist historians talk about how MS-DOS standardized computer operating systems and changed the industry. That's very true. But what they're ignoring is that there were standards before 1981, and the standards established in 1981 took a number of years to take hold.

In the 1980s, a computer monitor offered a clearer picture than a TV by eliminating the need to modulate/demodulate the video signal, which caused degradation. But in 2003, it's next to impossible to find affordable composite monitors for 20-year-old computers, and when you can find them, their size pales in comparison to a $99 TV. Why bother with a really old, curvy 13" monitor when you can retro-compute in luxury on a flat 19" TV?

The Register: IBM has finally brought the Great Rebellion [OS/2] to a close.

I guess I need a "retro" category here. Anyway, I found this on Slashdot this morning: The Computer Magazine Archive. Don't let the URL fool you--it's not just Atari stuff.

I don't remember how I stumbled across it, but textfiles.com tries to collect documents from the classic days of BBSing, which the curator defines as having ended in 1995. I wouldn't have thought it that recent. I was still BBSing in the summer of '94, but by the fall of '94 I'd discovered the Web, and I thought I was the last one to wake up to it.

Recovering data from an old large hard drive out of a 486. Someone asked how. No problem.