Should you buy an IBM PS/2?

Should you buy an IBM PS/2?

At the dawn of October 1988, the IBM PS/2 was looking like a success. As it closed out its third quarter of 1988, IBM announced the PS/2 had sold 3 million units in its first year and a half on the market. The pace of 2 million units a year made it one of the best-selling machines in the world at the time. But it ultimately proved to be IBM’s downfall in the PC market. So it’s historically significant, however you feel about IBM. But should you buy an IBM PS/2? Is an IBM PS/2 a good retro computer?

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Tandy CM-11 monitor

Tandy CM-11 monitor

The Tandy CM-11 monitor, introduced in 1988, was the more expensive CGA-compatible monitor from the Tandy 1000’s heyday. It had a reputation for being reliable, but more importantly, it included a better picture tube than its entry-level counterpart, to provide a display more worthy of the Tandy tagline of “Clearly Superior.”

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Early home computer blank 80

Early home computer blank 80

It seems like a good Jeopardy question. This early home computer was called the blank 80. In this blog post, I’ll fill in the blank, explain what the number 80 meant, and why the number was more memorable than the initials.

The early home computer blank 80 was the TRS-80, manufactured by Tandy Corporation and sold in its Radio Shack stores.

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Radio Shack Armatron

Radio Shack Armatron

The Radio Shack Armatron was a toy robotic arm manufactured by Tomy, the Japanese toy maker, and imported and sold at Radio Shack stores from 1984 to 1991 and again in 1994. It was a robotic arm that you controlled with joysticks and it came with game pieces so you could make a game of trying to pick up objects and perform simple tasks.

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Tandy MMS-10 under-monitor speakers

Tandy MMS-10 under-monitor speakers

The Tandy MMS-10 is a self contained speaker unit that sits under a monitor, providing external speakers for vintage computers. Radio Shack sold them for use with 1990s multimedia PCs. But the MMS-10 looks and works well with an Amiga computer too. And who would blame you for using one with a Tandy 1000?

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Tandy CM-5 monitor

Tandy CM-5 monitor

The Tandy CM-5 monitor, introduced in 1987, was the less expensive CGA-compatible monitor from the Tandy 1000’s heyday. It was a very basic monitor and had a reputation for being reliable, but Tandy cut some corners on the picture tube.

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Windows 7 retro gaming PC

Windows 7 retro gaming PC

If you want a Windows 7 retro gaming PC, you have a lot of options. The dizzying number of options may make it more confusing. But it’s also part of the appeal. Let’s talk about how to select components and build one. As for the argument whether Windows 7 is retro: If you’re nostalgic for it, it’s retro.

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EGA on a CGA monitor

EGA on a CGA monitor

As expensive as CGA monitors are, EGA monitors or even more expensive and difficult to come by. But did you know you could do EGA on a CGA monitor, albeit with some caveats? In this blog post, I’ll explain what degree of interoperability CGA and EGA have.

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MFM vs RLL hard drives

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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Triton Turbo XT

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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