Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Quinn Dunki, Jack Nutting, and Carrington Vanston
Topic: Costly Custom Creations
Continuing a discussion from last time, on the iterative process of designing, building, testing; costly custom creations; parts shortages; why it’s generally difficult.
Topic and feedback notes:
- Florida Retrocomputing Club (Facebook group)
- Keep the Bombe on the Bletchley Park Estate
- Poorly packed TeleType
- Call-A.P.P.L.E. 40th anniversary issue
- Interactive adaptation of WarGames
- Work on TI CC-40 peripherals (AtariAge thread)
- Atari Lynx HandyCast
- Ultima Codex: Favourite Fan Projects of 2017
Retro Computing News:
- Grand Digital computer race at NMOC
- Stunt Car Racer ported to Atari 8-bits
- ZXbaremulator (ZX Spectrum on a Raspberry Pi)
- Navy targeting computer on HaD
- Steve Jobs job application
- A.I. beats Q-Bert
- Q-Bert infinite points
- Benj Edwards’ tweet about his collection
Upcoming events:
- Florida Retrocomputing Club (Facebook group, meetup March 10)
- Home Computer Museum (opens March 16, in Helmond, The Netherlands)
- Vintage Computer Federation
- VCF Southeast 6.0: April 21-22, Roswell, GA. Speakers: Bill Dromgoole, Don Eyles, Dave Walden
- VCF East XIII: May 18-20, Wall, NJ.
- VCF West XIII: August 4-5, Mountain View, CA.
- Tandy Assembly (Oct 13-14, Springfield, OH)
Vintage Computer Commercial
Retro Computing Gift Idea:
Auction Picks:
- Carrington: Heathkit H-89
- Paul: Osborne car adapter
Feedback/Discussion:
Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X - link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars
Listen/Download:
Source:: RCR 167 - Costly Custom Creations
RCR 166 - Retrocomputing Replicators
Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Earl Evans, and Jack Nutting
Topic: Retrocomputing Replicators
Part of the fun of retrocomputing in the modern age is seeing what we can do with new technology to help our old hardware do things that were never before possible, or difficult, etc. With relatively easy availability of PCB design tools and fabrication shops, people set off to make their own projects, and share them. And maybe make a few and sell them. And people want them, and then they run out of time, interest, materials. Could things be better?
Topic and feedback notes:
- CFFA3000 Run 5 coming soon
- Centre for Computing History is running a “build-your-own-Z80-computer” workshop
- 10 PRINT official
- Qodem (Qmodem simulator)
- Cool-Retro-Term
- review of Qodem, using Cool-Retro-Term
- WinAmp in a browser
- Panic’s Audion story
- Shack 1980s Cell Phone Review video
Retro Computing News:
- solution for what to do when the monitor finally breaks: Retro Man Cave on YouTube: Amiga to VGA | GBS-8220 Review (CGA/EGA/YUV to VGA)
- Atari is jumping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon
- Kickstarter for the DSKY kit
- #plottertwitter
- Nolan Bushnell was offered an award at GDC, an offer that was rescinded
- Game Master Cartridge. CoCo enhancer. Write-up on VITNO by John Linville
- Stewart Cheifet is considering producing a play about his friend and Computer Chronicles co-host Gary Kildall
Vintage Computer Commercial
Retro Computing Gift Idea:
Auction Picks:
- Earl: RARE Commodore 8296 Computer - A Real Beauty
- Jack: Oric Nova 64
- Paul: TI/994a Editor/Assembler
Closing notes:
Feedback/Discussion:
Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X - link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars
Listen/Download:
Source:: RCR 166 - Retrocomputing Replicators
RCR 165 - Computers and advertising
Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Jack Nutting, and Carrington Vanston
Topic: Computers and advertising
In honor of the Big Sports Game in the US, we attempt to talk about computers and advertisements. What advertisements made an impression on you, caused you to buy something? Were advertisements really mostly aimed at kids? Or were those just the ones we saw because we were kids? How have things changed? Did Carrington appear in a Quark ad campaign?
Topic and feedback notes:
Retro Computing News:
- The Life of David Kelley, According to His Shelves
- BASIC 10Liners Contest
- TX_Dj vintage computer videos
- Caper in the Castro: the first (?) LGBTQ computer game
- Apple II+ Mini
- ZX Spectrum Next laptop project
Vintage Computer Commercial
Retro Computing Gift Idea:
Auction Picks:
- Carrington: Star Saga: Two, The Clathran Menace for Apple IIgs
- Paul: MacRecorder
- Jack: HP 5036A trainer
Closing notes:
- Alpeh One
- 1994 Paul is impatient to hear about Marathon
- Midwest Pirates’ Guild, Greg Schaefer Interview (raw footage from The BBS Documentary)
Feedback/Discussion:
Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X - link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars
Listen/Download:
Source:: RCR 165 - Computers and advertising
RCR 164 - Retrocomputing Goals for 2018
Panelists: Earl Evans (hosting), Paul Hagstrom, Michael Mulhern, and Carrington Vanston
Topic: Retrocomputing Goals for 2018
What are some of your retrocomputing goals and projects for the coming year?
Topic and feedback notes:
- ZX-Modules development tools going away
- Realms of Quest V (VIC-20 RPG in development):
Retro Computing News:
- Night a UNIVAC Computer Predicted The Next President
- Ultimate Apollo Guidance Computer talk
- Lisa OS source code to be released
- France’s 1983 Minitel
- Xerox Alto zero-day crack
- The Culture of Tech Podcast (Benj Edwards)
- Classic Computing Show podcast (David Greelish)
- Jason Scott Talks His Way out of It podcast (Jason Scott)
- Soviet control rooms, analogue panels
Vintage Computer Commercial
Retro Computing Gift Idea:
Auction Picks:
- Carrington: PET 2001-8 C
- Earl: 4x Gold DIP Carriers for 1960s Logic Chips
- Michael: PDP-8
- Paul: Lisa 1
Closing notes:
Feedback/Discussion:
Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X - link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars
Listen/Download:
Source:: RCR 164 - Retrocomputing Goals for 2018
RCR 165 - Retrocomputing Goals for 2018
Panelists: Earl Evans (hosting), Paul Hagstrom, Michael Mulhern, and Carrington Vanston
Topic: Retrocomputing Goals for 2018
What are some of your retrocomputing goals and projects for the coming year?
Topic and feedback notes:
- ZX-Modules development tools going away
- Realms of Quest V (VIC-20 RPG in development):
Retro Computing News:
- Night a UNIVAC Computer Predicted The Next President
- Ultimate Apollo Guidance Computer talk
- Lisa OS source code to be released
- France’s 1983 Minitel
- Xerox Alto zero-day crack
- The Culture of Tech Podcast (Benj Edwards)
- Classic Computing Show podcast (David Greelish)
- Jason Scott Talks His Way out of It podcast (Jason Scott)
- Soviet control rooms, analogue panels
Vintage Computer Commercial
Retro Computing Gift Idea:
Auction Picks:
- Carrington: PET 2001-8 C
- Earl: 4x Gold DIP Carriers for 1960s Logic Chips
- Michael: PDP-8
- Paul: Lisa 1
Closing notes:
Feedback/Discussion:
Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X - link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars
Listen/Download:
Source:: RCR 165 - Retrocomputing Goals for 2018
RCR 163 - 2017
Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Ian Baronofsky, and Jack Nutting
Topic: 2017
YEAR++
Topic and feedback notes:
- Edladdin
- Retro_gaming (Instagram)
- “The Great Apple II BBS Tour” contest:
- telnet://a80sappleiibbs.ddns.net:6502 (A 80’s Apple II BBS)
- telnet://cqbbs.ddns.net:6502 (Captain’s Quarters)
- telnet://dura-bbs.net:6359 (Dura-Europas)
- PDP-8/L renovation (page in Swedish)
- ABC80 archive (page in Swedish)
Retro Computing News:
- Engelbart’s Mother of All Demos excerpts from a lecture from 1986
- Osborn (FozzTexx) plays the Lucy & Linus song on an IMSAI 8080 via AM radio interference
- BMOW working on Apple II FPGA disk controller card
- The story of Tetris Max
- BMOW RetroUSB/Wombat (ADB-USB)
- Computer Museum (Joe Strosnider) review of Retro USB
- Carte Blanche II
- OPL2LPT AdLib compatible parallel port board
- Blake Patterson’s 8-bit holiday demos for 2017
- demo from The Voice (MUSE, Apple II)
- “>Cows are cool (Paul as a kid recording his voice with The Voice)
- Dave Cheney dives into C. Gordon Bell’s “What Have We Learned from the PDP-11 paper” from 1976
- Programma 101 early computer, nunmber game being played
- Ken Shirriff gets an IBM 1401 mainframe to create a Christmas card
- Skool Daze ported to Atari 8-bit
Some upcoming shows/gatherings:
- Retrogathering 2018 Vintage Computer Edition, January 27 2018, Västerås, Sweden
- VCF Pacific Northwest, Feb 10-11 (2018), Seattle, WA at LCM+L
- Retrocomputing devroom CfP for FOSDEM, February 3-4, 2018, Brussels, Belgium
Vintage Computer Commercial
Retro Computing Gift Idea:
Auction Picks:
- Ian: Fujitsu FM-8
- Paul: 3COM Audrey (Ocean)
Closing notes:
- C64 Cynthcart
- Funko Pop! figures staged on a NeXTstation TurboColor, punnilly captioned for an exceedingly narrow audience
- Kevin scanned an Apple brochure in which the colors are weird
- Large version of original Apple II ad
- The evolution and history of the Apple logo
Feedback/Discussion:
Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X - link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars
Listen/Download:
Source:: RCR 163 - 2017
RCR 164 - 2017
Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Ian Baronofsky, and Jack Nutting
Topic: 2017
YEAR++
Topic and feedback notes:
- Edladdin
- Retro_gaming (Instagram)
- “The Great Apple II BBS Tour” contest:
- telnet://a80sappleiibbs.ddns.net:6502 (A 80’s Apple II BBS)
- telnet://cqbbs.ddns.net:6502 (Captain’s Quarters)
- telnet://dura-bbs.net:6359 (Dura-Europas)
- PDP-8/L renovation (page in Swedish)
- ABC80 archive (page in Swedish)
Retro Computing News:
- Engelbart’s Mother of All Demos excerpts from a lecture from 1986
- Osborn (FozzTexx) plays the Lucy & Linus song on an IMSAI 8080 via AM radio interference
- BMOW working on Apple II FPGA disk controller card
- The story of Tetris Max
- BMOW RetroUSB/Wombat (ADB-USB)
- Computer Museum (Joe Strosnider) review of Retro USB
- Carte Blanche II
- OPL2LPT AdLib compatible parallel port board
- Blake Patterson’s 8-bit holiday demos for 2017
- demo from The Voice (MUSE, Apple II)
- “>Cows are cool (Paul as a kid recording his voice with The Voice)
- Dave Cheney dives into C. Gordon Bell’s “What Have We Learned from the PDP-11 paper” from 1976
- Programma 101 early computer, nunmber game being played
- Ken Shirriff gets an IBM 1401 mainframe to create a Christmas card
- Skool Daze ported to Atari 8-bit
Some upcoming shows/gatherings:
- Retrogathering 2018 Vintage Computer Edition, January 27 2018, Västerås, Sweden
- VCF Pacific Northwest, Feb 10-11 (2018), Seattle, WA at LCM+L
- Retrocomputing devroom CfP for FOSDEM, February 3-4, 2018, Brussels, Belgium
Vintage Computer Commercial
Retro Computing Gift Idea:
Auction Picks:
- Ian: Fujitsu FM-8
- Paul: 3COM Audrey (Ocean)
Closing notes:
- C64 Cynthcart
- Funko Pop! figures staged on a NeXTstation TurboColor, punnilly captioned for an exceedingly narrow audience
- Kevin scanned an Apple brochure in which the colors are weird
- Large version of original Apple II ad
- The evolution and history of the Apple logo
Feedback/Discussion:
Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X - link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars
Listen/Download:
Source:: RCR 164 - 2017
RCR 162 - 3-Smooth
Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Jack Nutting (not hosting)
Topic: 3-Smooth
3x3x3x3x2.
Feedback notes:
Retro Computing News:
- Atari shows off new joystick
- A digital clock implemented in Life
- NASA fires Voyager-1’s thrusters for first time in 37 years
- CARDIAC (CARDboard Illustritive Aid to Computation)
- Paleotronic Magazine
Vintage (Computer) Commercial(s)
Retro Computing Gift Idea:
Auction Picks:
Closing notes:
Feedback/Discussion:
Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X - link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars
Listen/Download:
Source:: RCR 162 - 3-Smooth
RCR 161 - Living Computers
Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Cynde Moya, and Jack Nutting
Topic: Living Computers: Museum + Labs
This week we are joined by Cynde Moya, collections manager, and chair of the acquisitions committee for the Living Computers: Museum + Labs in Seattle. We discuss various topics, including some of the new exhibits and acquisitions, philosophy of restorations, challenges in cataloging, availability of time sharing accounts, and lots more.
Topic notes:
- Search LCM+L’s catalog
- Get an account to log into LCM+L’s various time-sharing computer systems
- Start a discussion about using these systems
- Read LCM+L engineer’s restoration stories
- Multics, now on Raspberry Pi
- Multics simulator
- 6180 Maintenance Panel is being driven by a Xilinx BASYS3, running this Multics emulation.
Feedback notes:
Retro Computing News:
- 1088XEL
- Mini-ATX board assembly video
- Floppy Days interviews Stewart Chefeit
- Reviving the Atari 1027
- Terry’s Rubber Rollers
- HP archives destroyed in Santa Rosa fires (Santa Rosa Press Democrat)
- Loss of HP archive a wake-up call for computer historians (IEEE Spectrum)
- Bitsavers.org
- Ted Nelson’s junk mail collection (so far)
- Ted Nelson junk mail scanning costs spreadsheet
- The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture (Brian Dear, 2017)
- cyber1 PLATO simulator online
- Software Preservation Network
- Minimal Computing thought pieces (see especially Old Machines Running Old Languages)
Upcoming show notes:
Vintage Computer Commercial
Retro Computing Gift Idea:
Auction Picks:
Feedback/Discussion:
Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X - link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars
Listen/Download:
Source:: RCR 161 - Living Computers
RCR Episode 160 - The Final Frontier
Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Jack Nutting, and Carrington Vanston
Host’s Topic: The Final Frontier
160. $A0. A high-ASCII space. LDY. Space bars. Keyboards? Places to put things? Yeah, we got nothing.
Feedback notes:
- Micro Computer Machines of Canada MCM/70
- Portable ejects a floppy disk in space
- FitalyStamp for Palm
Retro Computing News:
- Steve Wozniak launches Woz-U
- Cross Chase, massively multiplatform game
- Chase in play
- The infinitely profitable program
- Orca/C, Linker, and OrcaLib library available on GitHub
- 6502 Badge from VCF Midwest
- Badge build video
- Rob Justice and Apple’s SOS-internal DRM support
Vintage Computer Commercial
Retro Computing Gift Idea:
Auction Picks:
- Carrington: Apple Letter Quality Printer
- See also: graphics with Apple daisy wheel printer
- Jack: Atari Fossil Centipede Watch
- Paul: DEC cart
- Intellivision computer module in box
- Apple II random number generator card
- Model 100 with DVI and monitor
- “DVI” stands for “Disk/Video Interface”. Not “Digital”. Whatever. We’re not re-recording it.
- TRS-80 Space Warp tape
Closing notes:
- Welcome to Macintosh - 12
- The story of Audion
- Steven Frank’s online Beagle Bros. museum
- Early Winter 1987 DAK Catalog
Feedback/Discussion:
- @rcrpodcast on Twitter
- Vintage Computer Forum
- RCR Podcast on Facebook
- Throwback Network
- Throwback Network on Facebook
Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X - link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars
Listen/Download:
Source:: RCR Episode 160 - The Final Frontier