Retro Computing

The Sega Genesis connects to a TV in much the same way as other consoles of similar vintage. But there are some dangers unique to the Genesis that give you an opportunity to damage either the console or your TV. We certainly don’t want that. Here’s how to hook up a Sega Genesis to a TV without damaging either.

Some Genesis parts are interchangeable with other systems, but not universally. That means it’s very important to verify the AC adapter you plan to use, as well as the AV cable you want to use, to avoid damage to your console, your TV, or both.

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Commodore 64 power supplies are notoriously unsafe to use. As a result, all Commodore power supplies have a bad reputation. I won’t say it’s unfair. But it means questions about the Commodore 128 power supply come up frequently on vintage computer discussion groups. Is the Commodore 128 power supply safe to use? The short answer is yes. Here’s why.

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Ah, the 301 keyboard error. The POST error you might be able to fix with your bare hands, or could require a soldering iron. Hopefully that doesn’t scare you off. It’s more frequently a pretty easy fix, especially if the PC isn’t terribly old.

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The HP Touchpad tablet was, dare I say it, the biggest technological flop of the 2010s. It was HP’s attempt to compete head to head with Apple with a premium-priced tablet that didn’t run Android and, of course, didn’t run Apple’s iOS. Instead it ran WebOS, an operating system it acquired from Palm, Inc.

HP didn’t meet expectations with the Touchpad, and discontinued it after just 50 days on the market. But there are lessons to learn from HP’s experience with its tablet, even if it’s largely forgotten today. Read more

The Commodore SFD-1001 is a somewhat obscure Commodore disk drive that found itself in an odd spot. It was a nearly state of the art drive when Commodore released it in 1984, but it worked with a computer line that Commodore wasn’t making anymore. It gained a cult following regardless, and retains a fair bit of mystique, and collector interest, to this day.

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CRT burn in is a phenomenon where an image becomes permanently etched into a monitor’s phosphors. This causes the outline of the image to remain visible, even when the monitor is off. It’s a problem that we frequently find on vintage CRT monitors today.

Burn in is most frequently associated with CRTs, though it can happen with other display types. Modern technology usually mitigates burn in on newer displays, so burn in rarely happens with modern displays, such as LCD or LED displays.

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The Atari 2600 had the largest game library of its generation, and it wasn’t close. Other systems surpassed it, but in its time, the 2600 was king. But how many Atari 2600 games are there? Like many questions, it depends.

It’s really two questions, since some titles were released under multiple names, even though they were the same title. There were about 450 unique Atari 2600 games, but the number of variations of those games pushes the total number of cartridges much higher, around 900 by some counts.

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The Commodore 1084 monitor was Commodore’s flagship monitor, a monitor that worked with everything they produced in the late 1980s, including the C-64, the C-128 in 40 and 80 column modes, the Amiga line, and Commodore’s CGA-equipped PC clones like the Commodore Colt. Its versatility makes it popular with retro computer enthusiasts today. Not only does it work with almost any Commodore computer, it also works with a lot of non-Commodore computers.

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