Author: Dave Farquhar

MFM vs RLL hard drives

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
MFM vs RLL hard drives

The most common type of hard drive for most of the 1980s was called MFM. At least that’s what we commonly call them today. That was to distinguish them from a similar type we called RLL. How much difference there was between the two was always a bit controversial. But let’s look at MFM vs RLL hard drives.

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Cusanelli’s, St. Louis

Dave Farquhar St. Louis
Cusanelli’s, St. Louis

A very old white building stood for decades, and allegedly centuries, near the intersection of Lemay Ferry road and Bayless in the inner ring St Louis suburb of Lemay. The historic building, most recently home to Cusanelli’s, was demolished in 2023 after more than three years of vacancy. But colorful rumors about its history persist.

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Mac Bluetooth stopped working? Four ways to fix it

Dave Farquhar Macintosh
Mac Bluetooth stopped working? Four ways to fix it

So you get to your virtual meeting on time, but nobody can hear you. Or you get connected and your Mac insists on using its built-in speakers and microphone, and not your headset. I’ve been there. Here’s what I do if my Mac Bluetooth stopped working. It’s usually possible to get the Bluetooth working again without too much disruption.

Fixing Mac Bluetooth is generally a matter of turning your Bluetooth off and back on, resetting the Bluetooth stack, deleting and re-adding your Bluetooth devices, and/or rebooting. Sometimes it takes a combination of those things, so following a process can help.

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Marx 9625 train set

Dave Farquhar Toy trains
Marx 9625 train set

Marx train set 9625 was an entry-level electric train set Marx that Sears sold in 1952. It was one of the last Marx electric sets to use designs that originated before World War II.

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Triton Turbo XT

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing
Triton Turbo XT

The Triton Turbo XT is an interesting piece of 1980s oddware. The picture kind of gives it away. But that’s not a TI-99/4A perched in front of an XT clone for no reason. The Triton Turbo XT was an upgrade to make your TI-99 IBM compatible. Sort of.

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How many Atari Jaguar games are there?

Dave Farquhar Retro Gaming
How many Atari Jaguar games are there?

The Atari Jaguar console was an infamous flop that led to Atari exiting the console business. One of the problems the console had was not having enough games, and not having enough AAA titles. But how many Atari Jaguar games were there?

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Why Eric Davis isn’t in the Hall of Fame

Dave Farquhar Baseball
Why Eric Davis isn’t in the Hall of Fame

Eric Davis was one of the most exciting players in baseball in the 1980s, and a feel-good story in the late 1990s when baseball really needed one. He looked like a future Hall of Famer when he broke into the major leagues. So why isn’t Eric Davis in the Hall of Fame?

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Marx 36000 C&O gondola

Dave Farquhar Toy trains
Marx 36000 C&O gondola

The Marx 36000 Chesapeake & Ohio gondola is a somewhat realistic-looking gondola with lettering for a midwestern railroad. It was part of their short-lived 7-inch line, though it’s easy to convert to a 3/16 car if desired. The 36000 dates from 1955 to 1957, making it somewhat more scarce than the Wabash gondola. Read more

Toilet hard to flush? Try the simple things first

Dave Farquhar DIY
Toilet hard to flush? Try the simple things first

There is a fair bit of advice out there about fixing a hard to flush toilet. Unfortunately, most of them start with the more expensive and less effective remedies first. In this blog post, I’ll walk you through troubleshooting a hard to flush toilet, starting with the cheap and easy fixes first, not last.

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Berlinger Dairy, St Louis

Dave Farquhar St. Louis
Berlinger Dairy, St Louis

Balthazar Berlinger, an immigrant from Switzerland, kept cows in his back yard where he lived on the 3400 block of Indiana Avenue in south St. Louis. In 1888, he started selling milk over a counter in his living room–fifty years before Prairie Farms.

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