Dave Farquhar, Author at The Silicon Underground

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Marx diesel freight train set 9629

Dave Farquhar Toy trains March 21, 2024March 22, 2024

The Marx diesel freight train set number 9629 was an early 1950s electric train set featuring twin diesel locomotives pulling 7-inch freight cars. It’s an attractive set and a very good example of post-war tin lithography, which was becoming something of a lost art at the time.

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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Store controllers and cables safely without damaging them

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing March 20, 2024March 16, 2024

It’s something I think we’ve all done before. You get done playing video games and you don’t want to just leave the controllers plugged into the console and laying around somewhere. So you pick up the controller, unplug it, wrap the cable around the controller, then set it aside or even put it in a box. Maybe you even disconnect the console and wrap the video cable around the console. But did you know that doing that can damage the plastics? In this blog post, I’ll show you a better way to store game controllers and consoles neatly without the risk of damage.

Dave Farquhar

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PC mouse connector types

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing March 19, 2024March 19, 2024

The last several vintage computer mice I’ve bought on Ebay were not properly described. So I figured I would write this guide because it will help people find the right mouse for a computer, and if you are trying to sell one on Ebay, properly describing the mouse connector type will help you sell it more quickly, and potentially get more money.

Dave Farquhar

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Hash collisions in computer security

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, security March 18, 2024March 26, 2024

Last week, Robin of the YouTube channel 8-bit Show and Tell wondered out loud on Twitter why Chrome flags Netracer 1.1, a modern indie Commodore 64 game, as malware. I think this is a classic case of hashing algorithms having gone wrong. In this blog post, I’ll explain what a hash collision is, using this collision of my hobby of retro computing and my day job of information security as an example.

Dave Farquhar

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Marx Pioneer Express electric train set

Dave Farquhar Toy trains March 14, 2024March 14, 2024

Marx train set 15630 was an electric train set from 1973, sold by Sears. While some Marx collectors joke that the only rare Marx train set is the one that doesn’t run, this old-timey 1970s train set cobbled together from Marx’s leftovers is rare and valuable today.

Dave Farquhar

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80s computer brands

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing March 13, 2024April 22, 2024

A small number of 80s computer brands are the same as today, but a lot more companies played in the field than now. Profit margins were higher then, so industry consolidation wasn’t the matter of survival that it is now. You might be surprised to see all of the most popular computer brands of today were around in the 80s. But many popular 1980s computers no longer exist in any form.

There’s a human element to 80s computing that the 90s erased. In this list, besides the familiar stories, you’ll find a computer designed by an engineer who grew up in public housing, computers designed by two women, and a company that didn’t survive its CEO dying in a car crash celebrating its IPO. While some survived the 80s and into the 90s or even today, others only lasted a few years. The 1980s were a make or break time, and many broke.

Dave Farquhar

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Resume hacks for your first security job

Dave Farquhar security March 12, 2024March 12, 2024

I conduct a fair number of interviews, and that means I see a lot of resumes. In my most recent round of interviews, I was interviewing intern candidates. There was absolutely nothing wrong with their resumes. They built exactly the type of resumes their counselors tell them to. In this blog post, I’ll tell you what your counselors in school aren’t telling you about resumes, including hacks to help you land your first security job.

Dave Farquhar

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eMachines never obsolete PCs: More than a meme

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing March 11, 2024March 10, 2024

It’s a meme from the turn of the century, an irony to end all ironies. The cheapest computers on the market at the time, which were arguably obsolete the day before you bought them, had stickers on the front bragging they were never obsolete. Of course I’m talking about the eMachines never obsolete marketing campaign.

Now, what eMachines said and what they meant by never obsolete were two very different things, but if anything that just made the stickers more ludicrous.

Dave Farquhar

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Marx steam type freight set 9365

Dave Farquhar Toy trains March 7, 2024March 7, 2024

Marx’s steam freight train set catalog number 9365 is one of its more unusual 4-wheel plastic sets of the 1950s. In this blog post, I’ll explain what makes it special.

Dave Farquhar

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APF Imagination Machine

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing March 6, 2024April 9, 2024

The APF Imagination Machine was a hybrid game console/home computer from 1979 that sought to exploit a gap in the market. Although it was not a commercial success, it is a historically interesting machine and they were not the last console to attempt that approach.

Dave Farquhar

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