Author: Dave Farquhar

AMD 5×86: Announced September 1995

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
AMD 5×86: Announced September 1995

What do you do if you are an Intel competitor in 1995, facing an aggressive marketing campaign spinning 5th generation CPUs as a necessity, and your own 5th generation CPU is 18 months away from delivery? You hot rod a 486 CPU core, call it 5th generation, and hope for the best. That is what the AMD 5×86 CPU, announced in late September 1995, was. AMD released it in November of that year.

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How many Amigas Commodore sold

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
How many Amigas Commodore sold

The number of Amigas Commodore sold has always been controversial. There is no question it was less successful than the Commodore 64, no question it was less successful than the PC clone ecosystem, and every possibility it sold fewer units than IBM sold on its own. But the number Commodore sold has always been a mystery, and it turns out I’ve been telling people the wrong number.

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Napster’s end of the road

Dave Farquhar Music
Napster’s end of the road

On September 24, 2001, Napster settled a lawsuit with the RIAA for $26 million. This effectively ended Napster as an MP3 file sharing service but other similar services soon appeared in its place. Attempts to turn itself into a subscription-based service failed and it liquidated less than a year later.

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80 Micro: The magazine for TRS-80 owners

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
80 Micro: The magazine for TRS-80 owners

It’s September, and that means Septandy. That makes today as good of a day as any to talk about 80 Microcomputing (later shortened to 80 Micro), one of the most successful of the early computer magazines. It also featured an innovation that changed the direction of the industry for good.

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Osborne Computer’s bankruptcy and the Osborne Effect

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Osborne Computer’s bankruptcy and the Osborne Effect

41 years ago today, on September 13, 1983, Osborne Computer Corporation, one of the early makers of CP/M computers and a pioneer in portable computing, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Although it was able to secure funding and emerge from bankruptcy in January 1985, Osborne never fully recovered and was out of business by early 1986.

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Jerry Sanders, cofounder of AMD

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Jerry Sanders, cofounder of AMD

Jerry Sanders was a cofounder and the longtime CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, one of the longest running manufacturers of CPUs. He and eight other former Fairchild employees founded AMD in 1969. Sanders was born September 12, 1936, making this is as good of a day as any to look back on his career.

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What’s the Frequency, Kenneth remembered

Dave Farquhar Music
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth remembered

We’ll pause my regular content for a moment to take a look back at an old R.E.M. song, “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth,” that saw its release 30 years ago today. I still remember the first time I heard it. And the third or fourth. It was an event.

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Marx stream line steam type train set 4822

Dave Farquhar Toy trains
Marx stream line steam type train set 4822

The Marx steam type train set number 4822 is a mid 1950s electric train set with a basic steam engine and 7-inch freight cars. It’s an attractive set and a very good example of post-war tin lithography. Marx eventually switched from lithography to plastic. This set was part of Marx’s transition period from lithography to plastic.

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RTX 3050 GPU in an HP Elitedesk 800 SFF PC

Dave Farquhar Hardware
RTX 3050 GPU in an HP Elitedesk 800 SFF PC

An RTX 3050 GPU seems like the ideal video card for a small form factor desktop like the HP Elitedesk 800 G4. In this blog post, I’ll explain the obstacles that stand in the way of this pairing and options for overcoming them.

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Compaq Presario: Born Aug 27, 1993

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Compaq Presario: Born Aug 27, 1993

On Aug 27, 1993, Compaq unveiled its first Presario computer, a PC with a consumer-friendly price point from a company better known for making expensive business PCs. Compaq sold them at retail, at stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA. It became a mass-market monster that made life very difficult for other PC makers.

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