Author: Dave Farquhar

Marx steam type freight set 9365

Dave Farquhar Toy trains
Marx steam type freight set 9365

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.

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APF Imagination Machine

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
APF Imagination Machine

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.

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APF MP1000 game console from 1978

Dave Farquhar Retro Gaming
APF MP1000 game console from 1978

The APF MP1000 was a second generation video game console produced by APF, a small New York City based electronics firm that started out producing calculators, moved to a first-generation console called TV Fun that played Pong-type video games on an ordinary TV, and then decided to try to build on that success by going up against Atari and Mattel. In this blog post, we’ll talk about this rare 1978 game console.

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You don’t need cyber threat intelligence. Buy this instead

Dave Farquhar security
You don’t need cyber threat intelligence. Buy this instead

Last week I saw another hot take on Twitter. This Twitter influencer asserted that for most organizations, Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) is a waste of money and they would be better off spending that money elsewhere. In this blog post, I will dig into this argument, including what proper use of Cyber Threat Intelligence looks like.

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Marx diesel freight train set 8142

Dave Farquhar Toy trains
Marx diesel freight train set 8142

The Marx diesel freight train set number 8142 was a late 1950s electric train set featuring twin diesel locomotives pulling 6-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.

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Use an IBM 5170 without a battery

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Use an IBM 5170 without a battery

I got tired of my IBM 5170 PC/AT draining batteries every few months. And unlike newer PCs, operating an IBM 5170 without a battery isn’t just a matter of taking the battery out, leaving it out, and relying on the BIOS to auto configure with sensible defaults. The BIOS in the 5170 wasn’t that advanced. But if you are willing to compromise on one thing, you can use a 5170 without a battery while retaining the IBM BIOS and ROM Basic so it still feels like using an IBM.

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Is CISSP worth it in 2024? How to know

Dave Farquhar security
Is CISSP worth it in 2024? How to know

I’ve had two different people ask me in the last month if CISSP is still worth it in 2024. I have mixed feelings, so in this blog post, I’ll explore this complicated question so you can decide if CISSP is still worth it for you.

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Marx steam freight train set 50875

Dave Farquhar Toy trains
Marx steam freight train set 50875

Marx train set 50875 is very similar to some variants of another set, 52875, and set 50885. But it has a distinct number on the box, so let’s walk through set 50875, which featured a 2-4-2 steam locomotive with a slopeback tender pulling three freight cars and a caboose.

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Why we like retro

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Why we like retro

Why do we like retro? The question comes up from time to time on forums and podcasts and discussion groups. I think there is more than one answer, but none of them are terribly complicated. In this blog post, I’ll explore retro’s appeal.

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SvarDOS: FreeDOS for XT-class systems

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
SvarDOS: FreeDOS for XT-class systems

YouTuber Tech Tangents recorded a video about the difficulty he encountered installing FreeDOS on an IBM 5150. A similar problem will exist on any XT class system. He ended up essentially having to make his own distribution to get around the limitations. I’m sure he wishes he’d known about a FreeDOS derivative that already existed to solve his problem. That derivative is called SvarDOS.

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