David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
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.
The concept of abandonware does not exist anywhere in copyright law, although there seems to be a perception that it does. In this blog post, we will explore the idea, why it exists, and why it persists.
On August 2, 2000, a second-tier Linux vendor acquired a struggling Unix vendor. The merger received some press, but if you weren’t really following Linux at the time, it would have been easy enough to miss. But the merger of Caldera and SCO 24 years ago today created a litigation monster.
I don’t think it’s news to anybody that the days of being able to go to thrift stores and find interesting retro computers and software without any effort are over, and probably not coming back. And last week, I lamented about what ruined thrift stores. But that’s not to say there aren’t interesting and useful retro items you can still find at thrift stores. I’ll give you a dozen ideas.
In the late 1990s, there were various rumors about Windows NT on the Macintosh. Most of them didn’t pan out, but with the development this month of a way to run Windows NT 4.0 on a Power Mac to get the reverse Hackintosh you may have had nightmares about, this seems like a good time to revisit those old rumors.