Retro Computing

The HP Touchpad tablet was, dare I say it, the biggest technological flop of the 2010s. It was HP’s attempt to compete head to head with Apple with a premium-priced tablet that didn’t run Android and, of course, didn’t run Apple’s iOS. Instead it ran WebOS, an operating system it acquired from Palm, Inc.

HP didn’t meet expectations with the Touchpad, and discontinued it after just 50 days on the market. But there are lessons to learn from HP’s experience with its tablet, even if it’s largely forgotten today. Read more

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.

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The Commodore SFD-1001 is a somewhat obscure Commodore disk drive that found itself in an odd spot. It was a nearly state of the art drive when Commodore released it circa 1983, but it worked with the PET, a computer line that Commodore was phasing out. It gained a cult following regardless, and retains a fair bit of mystique, and collector interest, to this day.

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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.

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CRT burn in is a phenomenon where an image becomes permanently etched into a monitor’s phosphors. This causes the outline of the image to remain visible, even when the monitor is off. It’s a problem that we frequently find on vintage CRT monitors today.

Burn in is most frequently associated with CRTs, though it can happen with other display types. Modern technology usually mitigates burn in on newer displays, so burn in rarely happens with modern displays, such as LCD or LED displays.

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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.

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The Commodore 1084 monitor was Commodore’s flagship monitor, a monitor that worked with everything they produced in the late 1980s, including the C-64, the C-128 in 40 and 80 column modes, the Amiga line, and Commodore’s CGA-equipped PC clones like the Commodore Colt. Its versatility makes it popular with retro computer enthusiasts today. Not only does it work with almost any Commodore computer, it also works with a lot of non-Commodore computers.

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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.

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One question that comes up pretty frequently among vintage computer enthusiasts is what to use as a MOS 6522 replacement. Commodore used this chip extensively, but so did others. There are suitable replacements in the form of second-source 65c22 chips, but not all of them work. Here’s what to use.

Commodore went out of business in 1994, and started winding down its chip production as early as 1992. But some of its designs were available through second sources, and the 6522 was one of them.

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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

In the 80s, when all-in one computers like the Amiga 500, Apple IIc, Atari 520 and 1040ST, and Tandy 1000EX and HX were popular, monitor stands helped us keep our systems organized. It’s hard to find a monitor stand from the period now, but there’s an acceptable modern substitute, or you can make your own. If you make your own, you can make it suitable for 8-bit systems as well, letting you stack your disk drives next to a monitor with the system unit underneath.

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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

A photo of someone’s newly acquired Amiga 2000 turned up on a vintage computing forum recently. It was sporting two 3.5″ drives, but also had a Chinon 5.25″ drive in its lower bay. Someone asked what the 5.25-inch drive was for. I responded it’s a good sign the system has an Amiga Bridgeboard in it. The Bridgeboard turns a big-box Amiga like a 2000 into an odd hybrid Amiga-PC clone.

First released in 1987, the Amiga Bridgeboard consisted of most of an IBM PC clone on a single full-length card. It had its own ISA bus, but it was also able to access some Amiga functionality, not just to provide IO but also to provide ways to share data between the two systems.

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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