The Silicon Underground

Why people say CRTs don’t have pixels

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 29 May 2026 11:00:59 +0000

I keep hearing people say that CRTs don’t have pixels. That is incorrect. We talked about pixels all the time in the 1980s when CRTs were all we had. In this blog post, I will try to clear up the

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DR DOS: Revenge of CP/M

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 29 May 2026 11:00:33 +0000

DR DOS was a third party clone of MS DOS that developed a well-deserved niche following in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Even though it was first released May 28, 1988, its copyright date of 1976 suggests some historical

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AMD K6-2 released May 28, 1998

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 27 May 2026 11:00:16 +0000

AMD launched its K6-2 microprocessor on May 28, 1998, a little over a year after its predecessor, the K6. The K6-2 built upon the K6, increasing performance to better compete with the Pentium II. Since it still used the Socket

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Bill Gates’ Internet Tidal Wave Microsoft memo

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 27 May 2026 11:00:05 +0000

30 years ago today, on May 26, 1995, Bill Gates wrote a company memo to Microsoft. It was something he did every few years, outlining the company’s top priority. But this one was different. It was a five-alarm fire titled

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What happened to Tandy computers

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 26 May 2026 11:00:50 +0000

What happened to Tandy computers? Tandy was a pioneer in the personal computer industry, one of three companies that introduced pre-built, ready to run computers in 1977. And for about 12 years, they were a force to be reckoned with.

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Quantum Link: AOL before it was AOL

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 25 May 2026 11:00:15 +0000

I used AOL before it was AOL. And if you had a Commodore and a modem in the 1980s, you may have too. On May 24, 1985, Control Video reorganized and became Quantumlink, or Q-Link for short, on its way

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Advantages and disadvantages of Windows 3.0

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 22 May 2026 11:00:50 +0000

I hear the question from time to time what the advantages and disadvantages of Windows 3.0 were. Windows 3.0, released May 22, 1990, is generally considered the first usable version of Microsoft Windows. It was certainly the first one to

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Microsoft’s attempted merger with Intuit

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 21 May 2026 11:00:45 +0000

Before Microsoft was obsessed with Netscape, it was obsessed with another piece of software: Quicken. Unable to beat it in the marketplace with a clone called Microsoft Money, Microsoft tried to buy its publisher, Intuit, outright. On May 20, 1995,

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Kaypro II launched May 20, 1982

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 20 May 2026 11:00:01 +0000

On May 20, 1982, Kaypro shipped its very successful Kaypro II computer, a portable computer that ran CP/M and its associated software. Its main innovation was bundling a selection of popular software with the computer and selling the bundle for

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Microsoft Antitrust case of 1998

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 19 May 2026 11:00:14 +0000

On May 18, 1998, the Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, seeking ultimately to break up the company. The case was controversial at the time and remains controversial now, but I would also argue the case is

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