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Why were early computers beige?

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing November 12, 2015September 5, 20191980s, 1990s, apple, apple ii, atari, atari st, Benjamin Moore, Bennington Gray, commodore, commodore 64, IBM

It’s a common question: Why were early computers beige? In some ways it seems a curious color choice today.

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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Tinkering isn’t dead, but it is changing

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized February 12, 2015December 4, 20181980s, apple, apple ii, capacitor, capacitors, IBM, pi, radio shack, raspberry, Raspberry Pi, tinkerer

When Radio Shack announced its bankruptcy, I read more fears that the age of tinkering is dead than I read laments for the store.

I follow the logic, because Radio Shack was the only national store chain that ever tried to cater to tinkerers. But I don’t think people abandoning Radio Shack means tinkering is necessarily dead. I have plenty of indications that it’s still very much alive, but it’s also very different from how it used to be.

Dave Farquhar

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The forgotten computer that changed the world

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing July 22, 2014December 6, 2020amiga, apple, apple ii, commodore, commodore 128, IBM, macintosh

A rather hastily written and sloppily edited piece showed up on Slashdot yesterday morning that caught my attention, because it was about the Amiga 2000. The Amiga 2000 is a dear machine to me; in 1991, our family upgraded to one from a Commodore 128. I still have both machines, and there isn’t much that I know today that I didn’t first experience on one of those two machines.

This is an Amiga 2000 that looks fairly pristine. Inside there was lots of room for hard drives, memory, CPU upgrades, and video devices.

Although I think the piece was little more than a used computer store’s effort to unload some hard-to-move inventory, I do agree with the premise. For a machine that had a tremendous impact on the world as we know it today, the A2000 is criminally unknown. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Happy late 50th birthday, z/OS!

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Retro Computing April 8, 2014April 7, 20141960s, amiga, apple, apple ii, IBM, mainframe

It was 50 years ago this month that IBM released the first modern mainframe, the System/360. The System/360 was notable for being the first series of systems built with interchangeable parts, rather than being custom-built. It’s also notable because its direct descendants are still in production: In the 1970s, it became the System/370, the System/390 in the 90s, and the z series today. The systems originally ranged from 1 MHz to 50 MHz in speed, and came with anywhere from 8 KB to 8 MB of RAM. To put that in perspective, the low-end model was comparable in power to an early Apple II desktop computer from 1977, and the high-end model was comparable in power to the 486 PCs we ran Windows 3.1 on in the 1993-94 timeframe. Or you could compare it to one of my souped-up Amigas, if you prefer (I do). But the same software that ran on the low-end model would run on the high-end model, and there’s a pretty good chance that software from the 1960s will run on a modern Z series mainframe today, with little to no modification.

Twenty years ago this architecture was supposed to be on its way out, but it never really went away. IBM keeps modernizing it, so I expect z/OS has a long life ahead of it. It’s entrenched, and when technology gets entrenched, there’s no getting rid of it.

There isn’t much new, young mainframe expertise in training these days, and it turns out there are certain jobs that mainframes do better than smaller PCs do. Most large companies have at least one mainframe, and it’s not going anywhere, but the people who can care for it and feed it are retiring fast. If you want some job security, you can do a lot worse than learning everything you can about IBM Z series mainframes in addition to the other things you know.

Dave Farquhar

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The trade off of fidelity and convenience in marketing, and how it doomed my favorite company

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing March 5, 2014July 14, 20171980s, amiga, apple, apple ii, atari, atari 2600, commodore, commodore 64, IBM, kindle, mac os x, macintosh, NES, nintendo, nintendo nes, os x, radio shack, Star Trek, unix

I’m reading a book called Trade-Off, by former USA Today technology columnist Kevin Maney. It’s primarily a marketing book.

Maney argues that all products are a balance of fidelity and convenience, and highly favor one or the other. He additionally argues that failed products fail because they attempted to achieve both, or failed to focus on either one.

An example of a convenient product is an economy car. They’re inexpensive to buy and inexpensive to keep fueled up, but don’t have much glitz and you probably won’t fall in love with it. A high-end sports car or luxury car is a lot less practical, but you’re a lot more likely to fall in love with it, and gain prestige by driving around town in it. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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The Post-Dispatch may be giving the wrong idea about the dollar value of vintage computers

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing February 6, 2014September 15, 20251541, 1980s, 1990s, amiga, apple, apple ii, Apple Lisa, collectibles, commodore, commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, compaq, dell, hp, IBM, macintosh, radio shack, recycling, VGA, XT

Disclaimer: I wrote this article back in 2014. I leave it here as a snapshot of the state of how things were in 2014. The situation at the time you are reading this is likely different.

Articles like Top 10 collectibles for value, from the Post-Dispatch this week, frequently make me nervous, mostly because of statements like this one:

[D]id you know that computer parts can bring home cash, too?

Statements like that tend to get people’s hopes up way too high. I find the timing interesting though, seeing as a TRS-80 Model 1 sold at a St. Louis estate sale this past weekend. The estate seller’s reaction? “Normally you can’t give that stuff away.”

Dave Farquhar

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IBM PCjr and Tandy 1000

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing January 29, 2014September 26, 20221980s, apple, apple ii, christmas, commodore, commodore 64, IBM, ibm pcjr, lenovo, macintosh, mainframe, Personal Computer, radio shack, Tandy, tandy 1000, XT

On January 29, 1984, two computers hit the market. One was Apple’s Macintosh. It needs no introduction. The other was the IBM PCjr. It was a little less successful. We’ll talk about what this has to do with the Tandy 1000 in a minute.

The PCjr is one of the biggest flops in computing history. Few people know much more about it than that. It ended up being an important computer, but it certainly didn’t meet IBM’s expectations. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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Sculley on Jobs

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing September 11, 2013September 16, 20231980s, amiga, apple, apple ii, Apple Lisa, atari, commodore, IBM, Korea, macintosh, pixar, Steve Jobs, Toy Story

John Sculley famously fired Steve Jobs in September 1985, a move that’s pretty universally panned today. Nearly 28 years later, Forbes asked Sculley about it.

Here’s the money quote:

“He was not a great executive back in those early days. The great Steve Jobs that we know today as maybe the world’s greatest CEO, certainly of our era, he learned a lot in those years in the wilderness.”

Dave Farquhar

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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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Mimic Systems Spartan: Apple II emulator for the C-64

Dave Farquhar Retro Computing March 3, 2013June 24, 20241980s, apple, apple ii, atari, atari 2600, colecovision, collectibles, commodore, sears, spartan

The Mimic Systems Spartan was an elusive bit of C-64 hardware that made it Apple II+ compatible. It’s one of the more interesting Apple II clones of the 1980s. People thought of it as an Apple II+ emulator for the Commodore 64, though it wasn’t emulation in a modern sense.

Mimic Systems took out full-page ads in all of the Commodore magazines, starting in late 1984, promoting the product heavily.

The problem with it was that you couldn’t buy one, at least not in 1984 or 85. The Spartan finally appeared in 1986, and at that point, not many people wanted one anymore. So Spartans are exceedingly rare today.

But it actually seemed like a decent idea. In 1984, that is.

Dave Farquhar

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