David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
The Commodore 64 is by far the most famous and successful computer Commodore ever made. But there were numerous Commodore computer models over the years. Some were also successful. Some were complete flops. Overall Commodore had a good 18-year run, but it could have been so much longer and better.
Let’s take a walk through the Commodore computer models from the beginning in 1976 to the bitter end in 1994.
DOS veterans may remember messing with expanded and extended memory to get memory above 640K. Here’s what you need to know about expanded vs extended memory, or EMS vs XMS. They are two different approaches to solving the same problem.
Why do Lionel trains have three rails? After all, real trains usually have two. This unrealistic feature is a legitimate drawback for Lionel and other makes of O gauge trains, but the decision made sense at the time.
One of the most popular add-ons for an Apple II added CP/M compatibility. So I guess it should be no surprise that Commodore tried the same thing. But the Commodore 64 CP/M operating system and the associate Commodore 64 Z80 cartridge was a flop. Why?
If you’ve built a few PCs, or repaired a few PCs, you have some idea how important the power supply is. If you buy any old tin box that fits, you can probably expect to run into some problems. Here’s some advice on buying power supplies, including reliable power supply brands.
Although the 1970s may not have been quite the golden era for baseball that, say, the 1950s were, the decade produced a good number of stars. An important thing to consider, too, is that many players Generation X grew up watching came up in the 1970s. That, along with lower production numbers, makes it an important decade in today’s market. Let’s take a year by year walk through the most valuable baseball cards of the 1970s.
If you’re wondering about a vacancy switch vs occupancy switch, both types of switches have their uses. The basic difference comes down to whether you want the light to turn on when it senses motion and turn itself off after the last time it senses motion, or only turn itself off after the last time it senses motion.
Do AC adapters go bad? The answer surprises many people, but the answer is yes. The question, then, is how to lengthen their life expectancy and what to do if they do eventually go bad.
A watering hole attack is an indirect attack on a victim. Rather than directly attacking the victim’s network, the attacker attacks a web site that the victim’s employees are likely to visit. Then the attacker attacks the victim’s network, via its own workstations, from that web site. A former colleague asked me how you protect against watering hole attacks, and I thought this was a good exercise. So here are some strategies for watering hole attack prevention.
Old PCs, especially PCs from the 1980s to the mid 1990s, have a button with the curious label “Turbo.” On some PCs, a number on the front changes when you push it, or an LED toggles on or off. Why did old PCs have a turbo button?
Turbo buttons are a quirk of old PCs, kind of like their beige color that tends to turn yellow, but it served a functional purpose.