I've been getting nostalgic for DOS lately. Well, certain DOS games *cough* Railroad Tycoon *cough*.

One of my coworkers' wives is nostalgic for '80s boy bands whose name I refuse to mention, so there certainly are worse things for me to be nostalgic about. Sure, DOS is terrible, but not that terrible.

I've written in the past about the Feds busting people using BBSs for nefarious purposes in the early 1990s. But the only stories I've ever heard were from the perspective of the people who got busted, often second or third hand.

Here's a story from the side of someone who helped the Secret Service for three days in the 1980s.

A story today about the possibility that a prominent California Republican was once a co-founder of the Commodore 64 warez group Fairlight caused an uproar on Slashdot today.

Reading it brought back some memories.

I'm sure pretty much everyone who cares has already seen this on Slashdot or wherever, but I found this blog entry from one of the designers of the Atari ST fascinating.

It's been said that Ed Roberts of Altair fame was the last person to get the better of Bill Gates in a business deal.

But I'll say it was Jack Tramiel.

So I got this Xbox really cheap. When I got it home, I found out why--the DVD drive wouldn't open. It's a good thing I didn't pay much for it.

I found an article today telling why plastic cases discolor with age.

Executive summary: It's the nature of the material it's made of.

So I'm reading On The Edge, a longish book that tries to tell the story of Commodore properly, including the people who made it happen, and the companies it bought along the way.

I'm glad the story got told.

So, I got my hands on a working Nintendo NES and Mike Tyson's Punch-Out cartridge. I used to play that game at my cousin's, about 20 years ago. It's addictive.

I saw an MSNBC article this week about people using the original Playstations (not the later streamlined version pictured at the top of the article) as high-end CD players.