OS/2 Warp: A tribute

OS/2 Warp: A tribute

OS/2 Warp was my operating system of choice for most of the 1990s. It never achieved mass appeal, and I think I know why. But I still liked it anyway. Here’s a look at its advantages and disadvantages.

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Commodore 64 clones

Commodore 64 clones

The subject of clones was always controversial in Commodore circles, even during Commodore’s heyday. There were no true Commodore 64 clones in the 1980s and 1990s. Why? And would it have made a difference?

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Texas Instruments Home Computer: TI-99/4A

Texas Instruments Home Computer: TI-99/4A

Texas Instruments was supposed to dominate the home computer market in the 1980s. And on paper they had a good product. But things didn’t work out the way they were supposed to for the Texas Instruments home computer, the TI-99/4A. And that’s why you probably don’t hear as much about it as you’d think you would.

TI entered the personal computer market in 1979 and had some success in the early 1980s. But Apple’s former management literally doesn’t remember competing with it. Yet for a couple million people in the late 70s and early 80s, the TI provided their first experience with a home computer, and any home computer, however flawed, was something special then. So it provided some fond memories for people of a certain age.

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Super Mario Bros Commodore 64 version

Super Mario Bros Commodore 64 version

For years in the 1980s, there were rumors of a Super Mario Bros Commodore 64 port. Those rumors have persisted to the present day. Not one but two versions of the Nintendo franchise title do indeed exist on the C-64, but both are bootleg in every possible sense of the word.

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Commodore 64 motherboard revisions

Commodore 64 motherboard revisions

Commodore made the C-64 for about 11 years, so it’s probably no surprise they went through several Commodore 64 motherboard revisions during that time. Collectors enjoy the challenge of trying to get a machine with each type and revision of board, and knowing the characteristics of each board can help someone puzzle out the history of a machine, such as whether it had been repaired in the past.

Commodore made a lot of changes to the 64’s outward appearance over the years, but they made a lot of changes internally as well. This helped them drive the price down from $595 to $149 over the course of about three years.

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Abit BP6: In memoriam

Abit BP6: In memoriam

Somewhere around here I still have my old Abit BP6 motherboard. Abit is a long-dead manufacturer of enthusiast motherboards, and the BP6 was one of its landmark achievements. It was the first cheap dual-CPU board.

The Abit BP6 is a bit obscure today, but hardware enthusiast sites like Tom’s Hardware Guide were pretty excited about it in 1999.

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CPM operating system

CPM operating system

The CPM operating system (or CP/M operating system) was the first popular operating system for personal computers. Its rise and fall has been fairly well documented, if not well understood, and its author, Gary Kildall, is a tragic hero in the early history of computers.

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Commodore 1541 disk drive: Slow. Unreliable. Cheap enough.

Commodore 1541 disk drive: Slow. Unreliable. Cheap enough.

The Commodore 1541 disk drive was the most common Commodore 64 floppy drive. Commodore fans from the 1980s loved to hate it. It was the first disk drive priced low enough to gain mainstream acceptance. But it was slow and loud and unreliable.

We put up with it anyway. A home computer was a luxury in those days and most of us had some idea how lucky we were to live through that time and experience it firsthand.

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PIF file type meaning

When it comes to file types you should never trust, PIF belongs high on the list. PIF used to be an important file type, but it’s largely obsolete today. But if you’re curious, here’s the PIF file type meaning.

Get ready for a trip down computing history lane. But this once-important file format is risky today. In all honesty, it’s largely outlived its usefulness in most instances.

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Commodore 1581 drive

Commodore 1581 drive

The Commodore 1581 drive was the C64 3.5 floppy released in 1987 to extend the usable life of its 8-bit line of computers. It was an 800K floppy disk drive using the 15then-new 3.5-inch disk format. It stored almost as much data as five 5.25-inch disks formatted by a Commodore 1541, and was the closest thing to affordable mass storage available for the C-64 at the time.

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