Retro Computing Archives

Intel Celeron 266 introduced April 15, 1998

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 15, 2026November 28, 2025

On April 15, 1998, Intel introduced its Celeron 266 processor. It was the first Celeron in a product line that lasted 25 years, but it wasn’t one of Intel’s finest moments. The Celeron was a cut-down Pentium II, designed in a rush as a response to pricing pressures from AMD. And it looked like a typical rush job.

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

Google’s acquisition of Doubleclick

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 14, 2026April 14, 2026

On April 13, 2007, Google agreed to acquire DoubleClick for US$3.1 billion in cash. Google had already been in the advertising business since 2000, with its Adwords product. Buying Doubleclick further sent Google down the road of funding itself through selling advertising.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Cyrix 486SLC CPU: Introduced April 13,1992

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 13, 2026November 28, 2025

On April 13, 1992, Cyrix debuted its 486SLC CPU. Cyrix didn’t have its own fabrication plants so they relied on other chipmakers, such as SGS Thomson and Texas Instruments, to manufacture the chips. Part of the agreement allowed TI to make its own derivatives of the chips, and share the advances back to Cyrix. The 486SLC was really more a 386SX/486SX hybrid than a true Intel 486 clone. It plugged into a 386SX socket and had the 486 instruction set and 1K of L1 cache. But clock for clock the Intel 486 was faster in a fair fight, and having just a 16-bit external bus kept it from being a fair fight.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Intel 486 CPU announced April 10, 1989

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 10, 2026April 10, 2026

Intel announced the 486 CPU at Comdex on April 10, 1989. It was an expensive chip, priced at $950 each in quantities of 1,000. I thought it would be fun to look back at what the magazines at the time had to say about Intel’s then-new CPU.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Osborne Computer liquidated April 9, 1986

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 9, 2026April 9, 2026

40 years ago today, on April 9, 1986, Osborne Computer Corporation, one of the early makers of CP/M computers and a pioneer in portable computing, liquidated after three years of financial hardship. Its demise is generally blamed on its founder, Adam Osborne, saying too much about an upcoming computer. But that oversimplifies a longer and more complex story.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Atari ST introduced April 8, 1985

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 8, 2026April 8, 2026

It is hard for me to be objective about the Atari ST, because I was a dyed in the wool Amiga fanboy in the early ’90s. But the Atari ST was released April 8, 1985 and quickly sold 50,000 units. For a while, it looked like the future belonged to the Motorola 68000-based computers and the ST was going to be a big part of that.

Then again, since you probably are not reading this on an Atari ST, there is an argument that the ST was a failure. So it could be that I am grading on a curve. I expected the machine to be a nothing burger, and it ended up selling 2.1 million units at a time when 2.1 million units shipped still was a pretty impressive number.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Hayes compatible modem: What it means

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 7, 2026April 7, 2026

A lot of software advertises itself as working with a Hayes modem or Hayes compatible modem. What does that mean? And what’s Hayes? It’s a de facto standard named after a defunct maker of modems. Let’s talk about why Hayes was important. It was so important, you can even still buy a USB Hayes compatible modem for legacy applications today.

Hayes introduced a command set that started with the letters AT, for ATtention. Other makers adopted this command set and cloned the Hayes modem to various degrees, leading to the terminology of a Hayes compatible modem.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Windows 3.1 released April 6, 1992

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 6, 2026April 6, 2026

Released April 6, 1992, Windows 3.1 was the successor to the very successful Windows 3.0. It wasn’t great, just like Windows 3.0 wasn’t great. But it was a graphical user interface that ran on very inexpensive ordinary PCs, and enough people considered it good enough that it more or less ensured the future belonged to Windows.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

AMD K6 released April 2, 1997

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 3, 2026April 15, 2026

AMD launched its K6 microprocessor on April 2, 1997. It was a competitor for Intel’s Pentium II CPU, but unlike the Pentium II, it plugged into the previous-generation Pentium socket. Being less expensive than a Pentium II and using less expensive motherboards, the AMD K6 allowed for much less expensive PCs. The K6 competed successfully with Intel.

The K6 cost between $244 and $469 at launch time. That undercut Intel by about 35%.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net

Thomas Rattigan, short-lived Commodore CEO

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 2, 2026April 2, 2026

On April 23, 1987, Thomas Rattigan drove to work just as he would any other day. But when he arrived at Commodore’s office building in suburban Philadelphia that morning, company guards informed him he’d been fired. They escorted him from the premises, not even giving him a chance to gather his family photos from his desk. It sounded like a cruel April Fool’s joke, but it wasn’t April Fool’s Day. That was the day Commodore promoted him, on April Fool’s Day 1986.

Rattigan ended up having the last laugh, although it took a few years.

Dave Farquhar

dfarq.homeip.net