David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
The Commodore 64 came equipped with a powerful sound chip called the SID, acronym for sound interface device. In its later years, one of the ways Commodore enthusiasts extended the usefulness of their machines was by adding a second sound chip. Let’s talk about this capability and how many people took advantage of it.
The Marx 4222 steam type electric freight train set was a hybrid set from the early 1950s with a plastic 400 locomotive and four wheel plastic tender paired up with 6 inch tin freight cars. At least four variations of this set exist. They all came with the same locomotive and tender and a New York Central 20102 caboose. The differences in the variations are in the type and number of freight cars.
This specific set illustrates the challenges of collecting Marx sets. Marx used the same catalog number on multiple variations in the same decade. It’s not something Marx did all the time, but someone at Marx must have liked the number 4222.
Atari’s final game console of the 20th century was a console called the Jaguar. It entered a crowded game console market when it was released in late 1993, and it left the market in 1996 with more of a whimper than a roar. Today, it is a prized collectors item. Here’s why the Atari Jaguar is so expensive.
Launched in November 1993 at a price of $249 and soon reduced to $199, and then to $159 and $99, the Jaguar is worth considerably more than that today. Read more
The other day I went for a walk, threw my phone in my pocket like I always do, and didn’t think anything of it. But then when I got home, the charger didn’t want to plug in. Here’s what to do if your phone charger won’t plug in or your phone doesn’t want to charge when you plug your charger in.
What’s the ideal operating system to run on a retro PC? There are several names you hear over and over again. MS-DOS 6.22 is probably the most frequent option. MS-DOS 3.31 is one that comes up from time to time. Then there’s FreeDOS, and SvarDOS, an open source DOS optimized for 8088-class PCs. I don’t think enough people talk about IBM PC DOS 2000. I think it’s an underrated choice.
IBM PC DOS 2000 was derived from the same code base as MS DOS 6.22, so it has a very high degree of compatibility with the most common and most popular retro DOS. But it also has some advantages.
The Marx 761 train set was a windup set headed by Marx M10005 diesel engines, one with a clockwork motor and one unpowered, along with freight cars. It allowed Marx to use up slow selling obsolete inventory. Marx sold it from 1951 to 1953, when presumably it had worked through its surplus of locomotives.
A friend bought an old house recently, and he came across an odd outlet. He asked me to look at it, wondering what it was, and if it was even AC. He thought it might be high voltage DC, a holdover from a very different time. It turned out what he had was a Harvey Hubbell Twist-Tite outlet.
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Jeff Kent has an unusual Hall of Fame case. He has a reputation for being surly, not being the best teammate, and then there is that motorcycle incident, but if his career had looked a little bit different, I think everyone would have looked right past all of that.
I argue that Jeff Kent had an inverted career, and that inverted career made it more difficult for him to put up conventional Hall of Fame numbers.
The Marx 552 gondola was a staple of Marx’s 6-inch line, running from way back in 1935 to 1952. It came in four different major variants, and only one of them is rare. The 552 is a good car for toy train operators, and also makes a nice Christmas train or display because of its color choices. Read more
Officially, the maximum memory in the Dell Latitude E6420 laptop is 8 GB. That is the maximum stated Dell’s website, and the large memory vendors state the same thing. It’s hard for them to guarantee compatibility when the OEM states the maximum is 8 GB. Unofficially, numerous people, including yours truly, have upgraded them to 16 GB. Here’s how to install 16 GB in a Dell Latitude E6420 successfully.