David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Jerry Sanders was a cofounder and the longtime CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, one of the longest running manufacturers of CPUs. He and eight other former Fairchild employees founded AMD in 1969. Sanders was born September 12, 1936, making this is as good of a day as any to look back on his career.
We’ll pause my regular content for a moment to take a look back at an old R.E.M. song, “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth,” that saw its release 30 years ago today. I still remember the first time I heard it. And the third or fourth. It was an event.
The Marx steam type train set number 4822 is a mid 1950s electric train set with a basic steam engine and 7-inch freight cars. It’s an attractive set and a very good example of post-war tin lithography. Marx eventually switched from lithography to plastic. This set was part of Marx’s transition period from lithography to plastic.
An RTX 3050 GPU seems like the ideal video card for a small form factor desktop like the HP Elitedesk 800 G4. In this blog post, I’ll explain the obstacles that stand in the way of this pairing and options for overcoming them.
On Aug 27, 1993, Compaq unveiled its first Presario computer, a PC with a consumer-friendly price point from a company better known for making expensive business PCs. Compaq sold them at retail, at stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA. It became a mass-market monster that made life very difficult for other PC makers.
42 years ago this week, on August 25, 1982, the arcade game Burger Time was released in Japan. Published by Data East, Bally Midway imported it to North America later that year. It was popular in 1983, and I think it’s one of the most underrated arcade games of the 1980s.
The Marx/Allstate diesel freight train set number 9611 was an electric train set featuring twin diesel locomotives pulling plastic freight cars with 4 wheels and fake trucks to make them look like 8 wheels. It replaced earlier sets Marx made for Sears like the 9644, replacing metal cars with plastic.
In the summer of 1985, Jeff Bruette drew a life-changing assignment at work. His employer, Commodore, had just hired a new graphics spokesman named Andy Warhol, but he didn’t know anything about computers. Commodore selected Jeff Bruette to teach him the necessary computer skills.
The IBM 5170 PC/AT, launched August 14, 1984, is a very popular retro PC, for several reasons. It was the last of the open architecture IBM PCs. And from 1984 to about mid-1987, it was the fastest and most expensive IBM PC. It wasn’t the fastest PC in its category. Compaq took care of that. But if you wanted true blue IBM, this was the machine. It was also controversial, both in its heyday and even today. Let’s talk about why.
It was 35 years ago this week, on August 14, 1989, that Sega released is its 4th generation game console, the Sega Genesis, to the North American market. It initially cost $189. In other parts of the world, you know this console as the Mega Drive. In the United States, it was Sega’s most successful console and it created a blueprint for competing with Nintendo.