Retro Computing Archives

Clive Sinclair: a US perspective

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 30, 2025July 30, 2025

Who did more than any other person in history to make computers affordable? My nomination goes to Sir Clive Sinclair, who was born on this day 85 years ago, July 30, 1940. And I’m an American who never used one of his computers.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

dfarq.homeip.net

What a bit bucket is

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 30, 2025April 5, 2025

Whenever I hear people complain about the save icon looking like a floppy disk and being anachronistic, I like to think about older anachronism. Bit bucket is a fun one. A modern bit bucket is a device that discards output, like /dev/null in Linux and Unix.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

IBM PS/2 E: The first Energy Star computer

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 29, 2025June 1, 2025

On June 29, 1993, IBM released the first energy star computer, the IBM PS/2 E. The “E” stood for energy. But while it was undeniably more efficient than other desktop PCs, arguably it was a PS/2 in name only. To make the PS/2 E more efficient, IBM used a mashup of technology, including but not limited to borrowing technology from its Thinkpad laptops. To celebrate its green nature, IBM adorned it with a big green stripe across the front. Yes, the stripe was green, not the traditional IBM blue.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

What went wrong for Yahoo

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 25, 2025May 25, 2025

Reddit calls itself the front page of the Internet. But for a good decade or even a decade and a half, Yahoo had as legitimate of a claim as any to the title of front page of the Internet. On July 25, 2016, Yahoo met an inglorious end as an independent company, selling out to Verizon for $4.8 billion. That makes today as good of a day as any to look at what happened to Yahoo, the first front page of the Internet.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

The Caldera-Microsoft Lawsuit of 1996

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 24, 2025May 25, 2025

On July 23, 1996, Novell sold the intellectual property of Digital Research to Linux vendor Caldera. The common thread the two companies had was Ray Noorda. Noorda had been CEO of Novell and was Novell’s largest shareholder, and Caldera was part of Noorda’s Canopy Group, where he incubated startups. The very next day, Caldera filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, accusing it of violating sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Amiga 1000: Ten years ahead of its time

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 23, 2025January 7, 2026

On this day, 39 years ago, on July 23, 1985, Commodore introduced its Amiga 1000 computer. And let’s just say the world wasn’t ready for it yet. Dave Haynie, a Commodore engineer who worked on the later models, has said there was no such thing as a 1980s computer. There were 1970s computers and 1990s computers, and it was the Amiga that dragged the rest of the industry into the 1990s.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

The MCI Worldcom merger, bankruptcy, and scandal

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 21, 2025July 21, 2025

On November 4th, 1997, MCI and Worldcom merged in a deal worth $37 billion. This was an attempt by two large telecommunications companies to to combine and rival AT&T, but instead it turned into one of the biggest scandals and bankruptcies of its era. On July 21, 2002, the combined company went bankrupt, setting a record at the time as the largest bankruptcy in history.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Intel founded July 18, 1968

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 18, 2025June 13, 2025

Intel was founded July 18, 1968, by semiconductor pioneers Gordon Moore (of Moore’s law fame) and Robert Noyce and investor Arthur Rock. Intel’s employee #3 was Andrew Grove. Moore, Noyce, and Grove had all worked together at Fairchild Semiconductor in the mid 1960s.

The name “Intel” means INTegrated ELectronics. Moore and Noyce didn’t want to name the company after themselves, as it would sound like “more noise.” With noise being an undesired property in electronics, they initially chose the name NM Electronics, using their initials, but changed the name to Intel less than two weeks after its founding. Intel was already a trademark of a hotel chain, so the young company bought the rights to the name.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Retro emojis: We had ’em in the 80s and 90s

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 17, 2025July 17, 2025

It’s world emoji day, which makes today the perfect day to look back at retro emojis from the 80s and 90s. It might surprise you to hear we had emojis that long ago. We’ve had them since 1982, to be precise. The first known use was on a bulletin board by Scott Fahlman, a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor, on September 19, 1982. They didn’t stop there. Whether we called them emojis, emoticons, smileys, or just faces, they proliferated throughout online life in the 80s and 90s.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Reasons for Escom’s bankruptcy

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 16, 2025July 16, 2025

On July 15, 1996, German PC manufacturer Escom declared bankruptcy. But Escom wasn’t necessarily just an ordinary PC manufacturer. Escom went bankrupt less than 2 years after acquiring the Commodore and Amiga brand names and starting to use their technology. Were Commodore and Amiga cursed? Or was there something else going on that led to Escom’s bankruptcy?

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net