Compaq Presario: Born Aug 27, 1993

Compaq Presario: Born Aug 27, 1993

On Aug 27, 1993, Compaq unveiled its first Presario computer, a PC with a consumer-friendly price point from a company better known for making expensive business PCs. Compaq sold them at retail, at stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA. It became a mass-market monster that made life very difficult for other PC makers.

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Working with Andy Warhol: Jeff Bruette’s recollections

Working with Andy Warhol: Jeff Bruette’s recollections

In the summer of 1985, Jeff Bruette drew a life-changing assignment at work. His employer, Commodore, had just hired a new graphics spokesman named Andy Warhol, but he didn’t know anything about computers. Commodore selected Jeff Bruette to teach him the necessary computer skills.

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IBM 5170 PC/AT

IBM 5170 PC/AT

The IBM 5170 PC/AT, launched August 14, 1984, is a very popular retro PC, for several reasons. It was the last of the open architecture IBM PCs. And from 1984 to about mid-1987, it was the fastest and most expensive IBM PC. It wasn’t the fastest PC in its category. Compaq took care of that. But if you wanted true blue IBM, this was the machine. It was also controversial, both in its heyday and even today. Let’s talk about why.

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The Caldera-SCO merger of 2000

The Caldera-SCO merger of 2000

On August 2, 2000, a second-tier Linux vendor acquired a struggling Unix vendor. The merger received some press, but if you weren’t really following Linux at the time, it would have been easy enough to miss. But the merger of Caldera and SCO 24 years ago today created a litigation monster.

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12 retro items you can still find at thrift stores

12 retro items you can still find at thrift stores

I don’t think it’s news to anybody that the days of being able to go to thrift stores and find interesting retro computers and software without any effort are over, and probably not coming back. And last week, I lamented about what ruined thrift stores. But that’s not to say there aren’t interesting and useful retro items you can still find at thrift stores. I’ll give you a dozen ideas.

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Windows NT 4.0 on the Power Macintosh after years of rumors

Windows NT 4.0 on the Power Macintosh after years of rumors

In the late 1990s, there were various rumors about Windows NT on the Macintosh. Most of them didn’t pan out, but with the development this month of a way to run Windows NT 4.0 on a Power Mac to get the reverse Hackintosh you may have had nightmares about, this seems like a good time to revisit those old rumors.

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What ruined thrift stores

What ruined thrift stores

I was watching LGR’s retrospective on making retro videos on YouTube and one of the things he said struck me. He said thrifting is a lot different now than it was in 2009. In this blog post, I’ll tell you what ruined thrift stores. I saw it happen while it was happening.

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A USB floppy drive for retro computing

A USB floppy drive for retro computing

One of the reasons people keep a bridge PC around is the difficulty of writing 720k double density floppies with a modern USB floppy drive. In this blog post, I’ll share the secret of the MPF82E, a USB floppy drive that can write double density 720K disks, making it ideal for retro computing.

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Chips and Technologies Super 386: A forbidden CPU

Chips and Technologies Super 386: A forbidden CPU

UMC wasn’t the only company with a forbidden CPU in the 90s. Fellow chip set maker Chips and Technologies took a somewhat similar approach late in the previous generation, with an independently created clean room implementation of the 386. This short-lived CPU may be the rarest 386.

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Commodore 2031 disk drive: Last of its kind

Commodore 2031 disk drive: Last of its kind

Later revisions of the Commodore 2031 look just like the 1541. But was this drive just the IEEE version of the 1541? And what about this drive almost made the 1541 not happen at all? In this blog post, we will dig into the last 170k IEEE drive Commodore made for the PET series, from 1981 to 1983.

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