Retro Computing

The Timex Sinclair 2068 was the US version of the much more popular Sinclair ZX Spectrum, one of the most successful home computers of the 1980s in the UK. The 2068 unfortunately didn’t match its British brother’s success.

Timex withrew from the US computer market in February 1984, soon after the release of the Timex Sinclair 2068, one of the early casualties of the home computer wars. The 2068 proved to be the last of Timex’s home 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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What was the most popular Commodore 64 monitor? What’s the best one today? Those aren’t quite as straightforward questions as they might seem. While there are a small number of clear-cut favorites, the truth is there were lots of different monitors C-64 users used in the 80s. And there are lots of options today too.

The “proper,” period-correct monitor for a Commodore 64 is the brown 1701 or 1702 for the breadbin-style C-64, or the beige 1802 for the streamlined C-64C. But there were lots of other third-party monitors, and many people used television sets.

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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

I thought the debate ended when the file format went obsolete, but then GIF came back as an animated file format. And with it came the argument of how to pronounce GIF. Is it JIF or GIF?

Steve Wilhite, the inventor of the file format, pronounced it JIF, and in the 80s, so did just about everyone else. In the mid 90s, pronouncing it like GIFT without the “T” became common, the logic being that the “G” stands for “Graphics,” not “Jraphics.”

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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

The original breadbin-style Commodore 64 and VIC-20 are designed to be easy to open while keeping production cost reasonably low. But they made the design so easy it’s hard. Worse yet, due to the age of the plastics, if you open one today the way Commodore intended, you can damage it. So here’s how to open a Commodore 64 or VIC-20. Let’s also talk about how to fix one if you damage the case when opening it.

The breadbin-style 64 and VIC-20 have three large L-shaped tabs on the back that originally behaved like pivots or hinges. If you try to use them like a hinge today, you’ll probably hear plastic popping, so the trick is to open the case slightly, then pull the top forward.

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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

Cheap PCs from the 90s and late 1980s often had a digital display that indicated the CPU speed. They were kitschy, and I can’t say I’ve ever seen a brand-name PC with one, but many cheap cases made overseas had them. That meant the computers that came from the little clone shop down the street probably had 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

Atari was on top of the world in 1982, so much so that the movie Blade Runner featured it as a dominant company in 2049. But it fell hard and fast, and several times. Here’s why Atari failed and didn’t maintain world dominance for 80 years like we once expected.

Atari’s failure happened on two fronts, the computer market and the game console market. Atari was an early pioneer in both, but its upstart competitors ultimately understood both markets better. But in all fairness, not all of the companies that understood the market better survived either.

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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