Author: Dave Farquhar

GE Widescreen 1000: Big time TV for big budgets

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GE Widescreen 1000: Big time TV for big budgets

The GE Widescreen 1000 was a big time TV for big time budgets in an era of excess, with the tagline “This is GE Performance Television.” Introduced in June 1978, it cost about 3/4 as much as a family sedan at the time. But middle class families weren’t the target audience for this set.

The General Electric Widescreen 1000 (WS1000) cost $2,800. For the money you got a 45-inch screen, hardwood veneer paneling, two speakers, and a spot to plant a matching VCR.

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Cyrix 486DLC CPU: Introduced June 1992

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing 2 Comments
Cyrix 486DLC CPU: Introduced June 1992

In the first week of June 1992, Cyrix debuted its 486DLC CPU. Cyrix didn’t have its own fabrication plants so they made arrangements with Texas Instruments to manufacture the chips in May 1992. Part of the agreement allowed TI to make its own derivatives of the chips. The 486DLC was really more a 386DX/486SX hybrid than a true Intel 486 clone. It plugged into a 386DX socket and had the 486 instruction set and 1K of L1 cache. Clock for clock the Intel 486 was faster, though the 486DLC had its uses.

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Intel 8088s and non-Intel non-clones

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing 1 Comment
Intel 8088s and non-Intel non-clones

The Intel 8088 CPU made its debut June 1, 1978. It rose to fame as the CPU powering the IBM PC, PC/XT, and tens of millions of PC and XT clones from the 1980s. But did you know Intel wasn’t the only company that manufactured 8088 CPUs? No fewer than nine other companies produced exact copies of the Intel 8088, and they did it with Intel’s cooperation. In this blog post, I’ll explain why.

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Why people say CRTs don’t have pixels

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing 1 Comment
Why people say CRTs don’t have pixels

I keep hearing people say that CRTs don’t have pixels. That is incorrect. We talked about pixels all the time in the 1980s when CRTs were all we had. In this blog post, I will try to clear up the confusion around pixels and the difference in the way CRTs and LCDs handle them.

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DR DOS: Revenge of CP/M

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing 3 Comments
DR DOS: Revenge of CP/M

DR DOS was a third party clone of MS DOS that developed a well-deserved niche following in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Even though it was first released May 28, 1988, its copyright date of 1976 suggests some historical significance. Indeed, it was more than just any clone of MS-DOS. Arguably it was both a clone and a predecessor. DR DOS was its own grandpa.

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AMD K6-2 released May 28, 1998

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AMD K6-2 released May 28, 1998

AMD launched its K6-2 microprocessor on May 28, 1998, a little over a year after its predecessor, the K6. The K6-2 built upon the K6, increasing performance to better compete with the Pentium II. Since it still used the Socket 7 architecture, a complete system based on the K6-2 could be quite a bit cheaper than an equivalent Pentium II system.

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Bill Gates’ Internet Tidal Wave Microsoft memo

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing 1 Comment
Bill Gates’ Internet Tidal Wave Microsoft memo

30 years ago today, on May 26, 1995, Bill Gates wrote a company memo to Microsoft. It was something he did every few years, outlining the company’s top priority. But this one was different. It was a five-alarm fire titled “The Internet Tidal Wave,” warning that the Internet was going to change everything and had the potential to disrupt the current order, displacing Microsoft and other titans of the computer industry.

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What happened to Tandy computers

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing 2 Comments
What happened to Tandy computers

What happened to Tandy computers? Tandy was a pioneer in the personal computer industry, one of three companies that introduced pre-built, ready to run computers in 1977. And for about 12 years, they were a force to be reckoned with. But depending on how you count it, it came to an end in 1993 or 1995. Here’s what happened to Tandy computers and why they fell so quickly.

In 1989, the Tandy 1000 was still the best selling computer in the world but it was no longer profitable and sales were fading fast. Turnaround efforts failed and on May 26, 1993, Tandy sold its manufacturing operations to AST, another maker of PC clones.

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Quantum Link: AOL before it was AOL

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing 3 Comments
Quantum Link: AOL before it was AOL

I used AOL before it was AOL. And if you had a Commodore and a modem in the 1980s, you may have too. On May 24, 1985, Control Video reorganized and became Quantumlink, or Q-Link for short, on its way to reinventing itself as an online service for home computers. It opened for business November 5 of the same year.

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Advantages and disadvantages of Windows 3.0

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing 0 Comment
Advantages and disadvantages of Windows 3.0

I hear the question from time to time what the advantages and disadvantages of Windows 3.0 were. Windows 3.0, released May 22, 1990, is generally considered the first usable version of Microsoft Windows. It was certainly the first one to see commercial success. The oft-repeated advice to always wait for Microsoft’s version 3 is a direct reference to Windows 3.0 that still gets repeated today.

Although Windows 3.0 is clumsy by today’s standards, in 1990 it had the right combination of everything to take the world by storm.

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