Retro Computing Archives

Compute!’s Gazette magazine, 1983-1995

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 3, 2025May 3, 2025

In July 1983, one of my personal favorite Commodore computer magazines of all time, Compute!’s Gazette, was born. An offshoot of the general computer magazine Compute!, Gazette’s first issue was dated July 1983 and quickly proved successful, closely following the trajectory of the Commodore 8-bit computers it covered.

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

Jack Tramiel and Atari

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 2, 2025January 28, 2026

On July 2, 1984, Atari got a new owner. After a disastrous 1983, its owner, Warner Communications, wanted out, just a year and a half after Atari had $2 billion in sales. It went from being called the greatest acquisition in history in the New York Times to a toxic asset in about 18 months. Warner found a buyer in Jack Tramiel, the exiled founder of Commodore.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

The earliest surviving Tom’s Hardware Guide article

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

The earliest dated article still active on Tom’s Hardware Guide is dated July 1, 1996. It was an article about CPU softmenus, something we pretty much take for granted today, but at the time was only available on select Abit and QDI motherboards. I’m not 100% certain that Tom’s Hardware Guide made its debut on July 1, 1996. In fact, I’m pretty sure it didn’t. But without a firm birth date, today’s as good of a day as any to look back at the very early days of a venerable PC hardware website.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Apricot Computers: An underrated British brand

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing June 30, 2025April 28, 2025

You hear a lot about Sinclair and Amstrad and Acorn computers. But when it comes to British brands, it seems like we don’t hear a lot about Apricot. But thanks to a television program that aired in early 1990, we know a fair bit about Apricot’s triumphs and struggles in the highly competitive PC market of the 1980s and 90s. It was on June 30, 1999 that Apricot closed its factory in Scotland and wound down its brand.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Spyglass: A web browsing pioneer’s IPO

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing June 27, 2025May 26, 2025

Quick: Who was the first browser manufacturer to hold an IPO in the dotcom era? Netscape? WRONG! Its competitor Spyglass beat it out, holding its IPO June 27, 1995. Its IPO did rather well too, issuing two million shares at a cost of $17 per share and raising $28.5 million. A week later, it was trading for $28.25 per share.

The same week Spyglass went public, Netscape filed plans with the SEC for its own IPO.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

VA Linux’s transformation after leaving the hardware business

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing June 26, 2025November 3, 2025

In the wake of the dotcom bubble bursting, the record-setting startup VA Linux made a difficult decision. On June 26, 2001, it exited the hardware business. It was a curious decision but probably the right decision, because it survived nearly 14 more years as an independent company before being acquired by Gamestop.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Windows 98 shipped June 25, 1998

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing June 25, 2025June 19, 2025

It was late and it was overhyped. But it was better than Windows 95. On June 25, 1998, Microsoft shipped Windows 98, and while it didn’t get the fanfare Windows 95 did, it was better than Windows 95. And if you want a retro PC box today, you’re usually better off running Windows 98 or, better yet, 98SE on it than Windows 95.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

AMD Athlon: AMD’s game changing CPU from 1999

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing June 23, 2025June 23, 2025

On June 23, 1999, AMD announced its much anticipated Athlon CPU, the successor to its very successful K6. It launched less than two months later, on August 9, 1999. The Athlon proved to be the CPU that separated AMD from all of the other x86 CPU manufacturers who fell by the wayside. It was the first non-Intel x86 CPU that outperformed Intel’s fastest CPU at the time.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Coleco Adam computer

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing June 5, 2025April 5, 2025

The Coleco Adam computer was a 1983 attempt by toy and game console maker Coleco to enter the growing home computer market. Critics and consumers looked forward to the computer after Coleco unveiled it June 5, 1983, but it never lived up to that anticipation. Coleco discontinued the Adam in 1985. Nevertheless, the Adam remains an interesting might-have-been.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

When Chrome passed Internet Explorer for the first time

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 30, 2025May 26, 2025

It was on April 30, 2012 that Chrome passed Internet Explorer in market share for the first time. It took nearly 14 years for someone to pass the former afterthought in the Microsoft Plus pack to become the dominant browser. The two browsers jockeyed for the lead for two weeks, with Chrome overcoming IE for good on May 14, 2012.

With Chrome taking over, we traded one monopolist, Microsoft, for another, Google.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net