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Commodore 256: The 8-bit that never was

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 21, 2017April 5, 20241980s, amiga, CBM, commodore, commodore 64, DEC, IBM, IRA

In 1985, Commodore followed up on its best selling Commodore 64 with a model with twice as much memory. The design of the 128 offered the possibility of following up with a Commodore 256. It never happened. Instead, Commodore moved on from 8-bit machines after the 128. Here’s why.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.

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Disadvantages of the 8086 microprocessor

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Retro Computing July 11, 2017August 11, 20176502, amd, apple, Apple Lisa, DEC, IBM, intel, MOS, motorola, x86

An 8086-series microprocessor, the 8088, powered the original IBM PC. Its direct descendants power PCs to this day. Not only that, they power modern Macs too. This was always controversial, especially running Mac OS on Intel chips. Why? What are the disadvantages of the 8086 microprocessor?

Dave Farquhar

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What happened to Digital Equipment Corporation?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing June 20, 2017October 3, 20181980s, 1990s, altavista, amiga, apple, commodore, compaq, computer security, d-link, DEC, Digital Equipment Corporation, Digital Research, firewall, hp, IBM, intel, lexmark, linksys, macintosh, netgear, PIP, spam, syntax, unix, windows nt, x86

Digital Equipment Corporation was perhaps the second most important computer company in history, behind IBM. Its minicomputers challenged IBM, and, indeed, Unix first ran on a DEC PDP-7. DEC’s Alpha CPU was one of the few chips to make Intel nervous for its x86 line. It created the first really good Internet search engine. In a just and perfect world, DEC would still be dominating. Instead, it faded away in the 1990s. What happened to Digital Equipment Corporation, or DEC?

There’s a short answer and a long answer.

Dave Farquhar

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Advantages and disadvantages of Windows NT 3.1

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing May 18, 2017November 29, 20181990s, AIX, amiga, apple, best buy, DEC, hp, IBM, intel, linksys, motorola, Orange Book, proprietary unix, unix, windows nt, Windows XP, wrt54g, x86

I’ve talked a lot about the advantages and disadvantages of old milestone operating systems. But what were the advantages and disadvantages of Windows NT 3.1? That’s a fair question.

Dave Farquhar

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Origin of CP/M’s PIP command

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing June 8, 2016November 26, 2018command prompt, commodore, commodore 128, DEC, Digital Equipment Corporation, Gary Kildall, PIP, syntax, unix

CP/M was, as you probably know, the first popular microcomputer operating system. It was good but imperfect, and its cryptic command for copying files, PIP, is often cited as an example. Copy makes sense. Even the Unix equivalent, cp, makes sense–it’s copy without the vowels. But what does PIP mean? What’s the origin of CP/M’s PIP command?

Dave Farquhar

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HP splits in two.

Dave Farquhar Hardware October 13, 2014October 22, 20181980s, capitalization, compaq, DEC, dell, hp, IBM, lenovo, lexmark, Western Digital

Don’t you feel like trying something new
Don’t you feel like breaking out
Or breaking us in two
You don’t do the things that I do
You want to do things I can’t do
Always something breaking us in two –Joe Jackson

After years of buying up companies, HP is splitting up. While that’s probably more prudent that exiting the desktop PC business, which is another idea they flirted with in the past, it’s anyone’s guess how this is going to work out.

But it’s what all the cool kids are doing, so it’s what the investors want, and that means HP is going to do it. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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More about Pfsense, the alternative to the crappy consumer router

Dave Farquhar security February 24, 2014July 11, 2018android, antivirus, AV, DEC, firewall, freebsd, hp, Image File, linksys, netgear, PCI Express, pfsense, tinkerer, tp link, vulnerability, x86

I spent some time over the weekend playing with Pfsense, and I can’t say much about it other than it does what it says. I didn’t throw a ton of hardware at it–the best motherboard I have laying around is a late P4-era Celeron board, and the best network card I could find was, believe it or not, an ancient Netgear 10/100 card with the late, lamented DEC Tulip chipset on it. Great card for its time, but, yeah, nice 100-megabit throughput, hipster.

If you actually configure your routers rather than just plugging them in, you can do this. Plug in a couple of network cards, plug in a hard drive that you don’t mind getting overwritten, download Pfsense, write the image file to a USB stick, boot off the USB stick, and follow the prompts. Then, to add wireless, plug in a well-supported card like a TP-Link and follow the howto. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Hints for surviving if the shutdown put you out of work

Dave Farquhar Saving money October 3, 2013Aldi, cable tv, christmas, DEC, mortgage, preschooler

I’ve seen plenty of news stories of how the government shutdown is affecting 800,000 or so government employees. What the news stories fail to mention is a large number of contractors are out of work too, until this passes. I can only guess on that number, but there’s no doubt it numbers in the millions, and little doubt it’s in the tens of millions.

As a former government contractor myself, I dealt with losing my job unexpectedly earlier this year, so some tips on dealing with an unexpected loss of a paycheck, even if it’s temporary, are fresh in my mind. There are five things you have to do.

I’m not here to gloat about anything. I’m here to try to help. Some of these things won’t be pleasant, but they’ll reduce pain in the long run if this lasts longer than a week. Keep in mind that everything I’m advocating is something I’ve done myself.

Dave Farquhar

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What happened to Altavista

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 2, 2013November 4, 20171990s, altavista, commodore, compaq, DEC, Digital Equipment Corporation, intel, Intel Core, IPO, yahoo

For as long as I can remember, my home page has been about:blank. But for a good chunk of the 1990s, I would have done well to set it to altavista.digital.com. Here’s what happened to Altavista.

Most people remember Altavista as the thing people used before Google, if they remember it at all. But I remember it as the first great search engine, because I’ve done my best to forget what search was like before Altavista came along. So I was a little sad to see Yahoo shut down what was left of the first great search engine in the summer of 2013. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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