David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Typically we associate game cartridges with consoles, but for a time in the 1980s, computer software, especially games, were also distributed on cartridge. Here’s why computer game cartridges fell out of fashion.
Computer game cartridges were convenient because they loaded quickly, but their high cost of production led publishers to prefer disk or tape. There was also some concern that repeatedly removing cartridges would wear out an expensive computer.
In 1982, Atari could do no wrong. Its 2600 game console outsold its most successful competitor 10 to 1. But its followup, the Atari 5200, flopped. Here’s why the Atari 5200 failed.
Atari had all of the ingredients it needed for success, but it didn’t put them together. This opened the door for other companies, including Nintendo.
I had an interesting question the other day. What should you do if a ground wire comes off your light fixture while you’re installing it? You have several options.
If you can’t return the fixture, you can reattach the wire a couple of different ways. Or you can ground the fixture without that wire. But if all that fails, the ground wire is a safety feature and the light fixture will work properly without it.
Enough has been written over the years about Lionel wiring to fill volumes. Not so much for American Flyer, though. Fortunately, when it comes to Lionel vs American Flyer wiring, there’s a lot of similarity. Most of the advice you find about Lionel wiring applies.
Why does the government require CISSP or Security+ for certain jobs? While requiring people to pass a test can cause problems, I’ve seen it solve bigger problems.
Certification tests establish a baseline set of knowledge that a person filling a role has mastered. It provides a standard, repeatable, and objective third-party measure of a person’s qualifications, even if it’s possible to game the system.
If you mess around with DOS long enough, you’ll eventually try to run a program and get an error message that says Incorrect DOS version. This means you’re trying to run a program designed for a version of DOS other than the one you’re running.
The best solution is to run programs under the same version of DOS they were designed to run under. But when you can’t do that, as long as you are running DOS 5.0 or newer, you can use the SETVER command to lie to the program and bypass the error check. The program will run, though there is a risk it may not be fully compatible.
I had a 13-year-old microwave quit in a rental unit the other week, so I had to replace it. No problem, I figured. When I changed the one in my house it took less than an hour. But this one didn’t go as easy. If your over the range microwave is stuck, like mine, here’s what to try next.
Over the range microwaves typically hook onto a bracket attached to the wall, then hang from the cabinets on 2-3 large bolts. But some have extra hooks higher up on the brackets, and if yours is stuck, that’s probably why.
Connecting an Apple II to a modern or modern-ish television is easier than getting a good picture from it. Connecting an Apple II to a 1980s TV is trickier. Here’s how to connect an Apple II to a TV, and some tips for improving the picture.
Apple II computers, from the original 1977 model all the way up to the 16-bit Apple IIgs have an RCA jack supplying standard composite output. This plugs into the composite video jack on a relatively modern TV just like a game console–just ignore the sound inputs, and be prepared to have to adjust the picture for the best quality.
Lionel changed its coupler designs several times in the prewar era. That leads to a fair question. Are all Lionel prewar coupler types compatible? Can you use the different types together? As always, the answer is, it depends.
The two most common types of Lionel prewar couplers are compatible with each other. But the two later types are not directly compatible with the tab-in-slot coupler, though there are a couple of tricks that can help you.
For a while in the 80s, floppy disks reliably doubled in capacity every 2-3 years. But floppy disks stopped increasing in capacity at 2.88 megabytes, and some people are surprised that 2.88 megabyte floppies even existed. What happened to 2.88 MB floppies? And why did the industry stop at such a relatively low capacity?
2.88 megabyte floppies never gained adoption outside of very high-end systems, partly due to their high cost. When more cost-effective options became available, 2.88 megabyte floppies and drives faded away.