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Commodore hardware viruses–yes, they were possible

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing February 13, 2015June 3, 20241541, 1980s, 6502, commodore, commodore 64

The conventional wisdom is that computer viruses can wipe out your data, but they can’t do physical damage. The exception to that rule was, of course, Commodore, the king of cheap 1980s computers. Commodore’s earliest computer, the PET, had an infamous “poke of death” (POKE 59458,62) that could damage its video display, but the Commodore 64’s sidekick, the 1541 disk drive, had a couple of little-known vulnerabilities as well. Read more

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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Where Microsoft lost its way

Dave Farquhar Windows June 7, 2013July 9, 20171980s, 1990s, 6502, amiga, android, apple, apple ii, AT&T, atari, atari st, commodore, Digital Research, excel, IBM, IOS, Microsoft Basic, MOS, motorola, motorola 68k, nintendo, sony, unix, windows 8, windows me, xbox, XT

John C. Dvorak wrote an analysis of how Microsoft lost its way with Windows 8 this week.

All in all it sounds reasonable to me. His recollection of DOS and some DOS version 8 confused me at first, but that was what the DOS buried in Windows ME was called. But mentioning it is appropriate, because it shows how DOS faded from center stage to being barely visible in the end, to the point where it was difficult to dig it out, and that it took 15 years for it to happen. He’s completely right, that if Microsoft had pulled the plug on DOS in 1985, Windows would have failed. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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No, it doesn’t take a “serious hacker” to crack wi-fi through WPS

Dave Farquhar security March 26, 2013November 22, 20166502, Debit card, intel, john c dvorak, netgear, pc magazine, phone service, wi-fi

John C Dvorak is raving in PC Magazine about Netgear wireless routers and range extenders and how easy WPS makes it to set them up–and providing some very seriously flawed security advice along the way.

“Note that WPS is crackable by serious hackers using brute-force attack, but any SOHO user not dealing with government secrets should be fine.”
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Dave Farquhar

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How to get your first job in IT

Dave Farquhar Careers January 17, 2013August 20, 20186502, antivirus, certifications, computer security, journalism, troubleshooting, unix

I helped a friend of a former coworker with his resume this week. He’s looking to get their first jobs in IT, and found it difficult, even though he was applying for an entry-level helpdesk position.

His resume certainly indicated he was educated and able to hold down a job, but that wasn’t quite enough. Here’s what I had him do to beef up that resume to get past those initial rounds of screening and get interviewed.

Dave Farquhar

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The origins of Prince of Persia unearthed

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing April 23, 2012August 20, 20181980s, 6502, apple, apple ii, atari, commodore, commodore 64, USB flash drive, video game

Prince of Persia isn’t just a recent movie. It’s based on a video game series, the first of which was first released all the way back in 1989 for the venerable Apple II series of 8-bit computers. That original game, extremely simple by today’s standards, is a classic today.

The author, Jordan Mechner, had given up on looking for the 6502 assembly language source code behind the game until his dad found a box of disks buried in a closet. Among them were several hand-labeled disks claiming to contain the long-lost code. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Steve Jobs and the Commodore PET

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing November 5, 2011October 11, 20171980s, 1990s, 6502, amiga, amiga os, apple, apple ii, Chuck Peddle, commodore, commodore 64, intel, irving gould, jack tramiel, KIM, macintosh, Mehdi Ali, MOS, motorola, pixar, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, tape drive, Texas Instruments

There’s a nasty rumor floating around that in Walter Isaacson’s bestselling biography, Steve Jobs, Jobs alleges that Commodore copied the Apple II when making its first computer, 1977’s PET. Here’s the story of Steve Jobs and the Commodore PET.

The book doesn’t come right out and say it, but it insinuates it. I know how the PET came to be, and the PET would have happened whether the Apple II ever existed or not.
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Dave Farquhar

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Apple’s first CEO speaks

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing May 28, 2011April 16, 20251990s, 6502, apple, apple ii, Bill Gates, commodore, IBM, intel, Microsoft Basic, Steve Jobs, Tandy, Texas Instruments, TI

Business Insider has an interview with Apple’s first CEO, Michael Scott. (Not the guy from the TV sitcom.) It’s interesting reading from a historical standpoint.
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Dave Farquhar

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What’s wrong with my 6502 machine language article?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing, Writing May 25, 2011May 25, 20111990s, 6502, commodore, journalism

It occurred to me this morning that writing about what was wrong with my 6502 machine language article from the early 1990s might be useful. Or maybe that was just whatever the dentist was injecting into the roof of my mouth talking, but I’m going with it.

Should I cut myself some slack on account of my age at the time? Sure. But teenage Dave would have welcomed the critique of mid-30s Dave, if either could find Dr. Emmit Brown’s DeLorean.

Dave Farquhar

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Writing Tight 6502 Series Machine Code

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing May 23, 2011November 29, 20156502, commodore, commodore 128, DEC

This article appeared in the final issue of Twin Cities 128/64, published by Parsec, Inc. of Salem, Mass., sometime after April 1994. Parsec never paid for the article, so under the terms of Parsec’s contract, all rights reverted back to me 30 days after Parsec failed to remit payment.

So now I’m re-asserting my rights to the article. You’ll find the editing poor–all my semicolons appear to have been replaced by commas, for instance–and the writing full of cliches. But I would have been 16 or 17 when I wrote it, and I don’t think it’s a bad effort for a 17-year-old. And the article had some pretty clever tricks. I have to admit I’d forgotten 90% of what was in the article, but I recognize my own writing when I see it.

I’d like to thank Mark R. Brown, former managing editor of INFO magazine, for finding the article and bringing it to my attention. And one final word: Although I wrote this with the Commodore 128 in mind, the same tricks apply to any computer or console based on a 6502 or derivative.

Dave Farquhar

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Windows, ARM, emulation, misconceptions and misremembered history

Dave Farquhar Hardware May 22, 2011January 23, 20221980s, 1990s, 6502, amiga, android, apple, atari, atari st, Bill Gates, commodore, Digital Research, excel, IBM, intel, macintosh, Microsoft Basic, motorola, netbooks, Once Windows, unix, web os, windows 2000, windows 7, windows 8, windows nt, Windows XP, x86

I keep reading stuff about Windows and ARM and, well, I think people just aren’t remembering history.

I’m not saying that Windows 8 on ARM will save the world, or even change it substantially. It probably won’t, since Microsoft tends not to get things right the first time. But will I automatically write off the project? No. It could prove useful for something other than what it was originally intended. That happens a lot.

But I’m more interested in clearing up the misinformation than in trying to predict the future.
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Dave Farquhar

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