Retro Computing Archives

Radio Shack laptops

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing May 23, 2018March 14, 2024

Tandy didn’t invent the laptop, but Radio Shack sold more laptops than anyone else in the 1980s. Here’s a look back at the pioneering Radio Shack laptops. They may have been unsophisticated by today’s standards, but they were very innovative for their time.

Radio Shack also sold desktop and home computers, but its laptop line was a huge success.
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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 does BBS mean, or bulletin board system?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing May 16, 2018March 28, 2025

What does BBS mean? In the 1980s and early 1990s, before the Internet was available for home use, hobbyists would set up a computer with a modem on a phone line to see who would call in. In some cases, hundreds of people did. Here’s a look back at the days of the BBS, or bulletin board system, and what people did with their modems in days of yore.

Dave Farquhar

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1980s technology

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 30, 2018May 9, 2025

Although 1980s technology is recognizable today, by modern standards, it had shortcomings. Yet I can’t think of another decade that was so obsessed with technology. Growing up in the 80s probably is what made me a technologist, and I know I’m not alone in that. Many of my peers went the same direction I did for the same reasons. So let’s take a look at 80s technology and how it shaped the world to come.

Subsequent decades railed against the 1980s in many ways, but you have to learn how to walk before you learn to run. It’s clear that the 1980s was, if nothing else, that turning point. While 1989 technology is rudimentary compared to 30 years later, elements of modern technology were present in 1989 that weren’t visible at all in 1980. And not all of the 1980s nostalgia is negative. The Netflix series Stranger Things is a tribute to the 80s at heart.

Dave Farquhar

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Video card vs graphics card

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Retro Computing April 26, 2018November 11, 2024

Occasionally someone comes on a hardware forum and asks for help with the terms video card vs graphics card, and apologizes for possibly asking a n00b question. The thing is, it’s not a bad question at all. While there’s technically no difference between them today, in retro computing, there was a difference. And even in modern times, the two words certainly imply different things. So let’s dig in.

Dave Farquhar

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Commodore 65: A 16-bit C-64 that never was

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 5, 2018January 19, 2026

The Commodore 65 was an ill-fated attempt to extend the Commodore 8-bit line one last time and release a hybrid 8/16-bit computer with some backward compatibility with the Commodore 64. The concept was similar to the Apple IIgs and the Nintendo Super NES. Commodore never released it.

Dave Farquhar

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Is emulation legal?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 2, 2018August 7, 2024

It’s generally only a matter of time before someone discovers emulation, the ability to run old software on new systems. And since people can do it without necessarily paying for the software they run, someone may wonder, is emulation legal?

Emulation certainly tends to be a gray area. You can do it legally, but not everyone does. And there are a good number of misconceptions about what you are and aren’t allowed to do. But plenty of emulation happens all the time, without breaking the law at all.

Dave Farquhar

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1990s AOL competitors

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing March 20, 2018March 10, 2025

It’s hard to believe now, and nobody should have believed it then, but around 1997, analysts were calling AOL the only blue-chip dotcom stock. The problem was the golden age of dialup ended around 1998. But AOL served a purpose, for a time. Here’s a look back at 1990s AOL competitors.

In the 90s, technology stocks were a slightly different category. Today we don’t distinguish them, but companies who made and sold physical goods like IBM were easier to understand than companies whose business model revolved around the Internet and or proprietary information services.

Dave Farquhar

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Packard Bell vs Hewlett-Packard

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Retro Computing March 19, 2018September 10, 2022

I didn’t realize that the question of Packard Bell vs Hewlett-Packard existed anymore. The search engines say otherwise. So here’s the difference between these two rather old brands.

Dave Farquhar

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Why did Compaq fail?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing March 15, 2018September 6, 2024

Compaq was a high-flying PC brand in the 1980s and 1990s. It created the first successful and fully legal IBM PC clone, set records as a startup, usurped IBM as the standard bearer in the PC market, and made sturdy, highly regarded desktop PCs and servers. But today it’s just a trademark that HP owns and doesn’t use. Why did Compaq fail?

There were several reasons why Compaq failed, but one stands taller than the others.

Dave Farquhar

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Why is x86 so popular? Momentum.

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Retro Computing January 10, 2018June 9, 2024

Intel and Intel-compatible x86 CPUs are everywhere around us. It’s been a long time since you could buy a desktop or laptop computer with anything but an x86 CPU in it. Even Apple, a longtime anything-but-Intel stalwart, started using x86 CPUs more than a decade ago. That raises a fair question: Why is x86 so popular?

Dave Farquhar

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