Join us on Wednesday 26 June 2019 at noon Pacific for the Preserving Computer History Hack Chat with Dag Spicer! In our age of instant access to the seeming total of human knowledge at the swipe of a finger, museums may seem a little anachronistic. But the information available at our fingertips is often only […]
The Commodore 64 was the highest selling computer of all time, and will likely forever remain that way due to the fragmentation of models in the market ever since. Due to this, it’s hardly surprising that it still has a strong following many years after its heyday. This means that the avid restorer has a […]
The MOS Technology 6502 was one of the more popular processors of the 1980s. It ran the Commodore 64, the NES in a modified form, and a whole bunch of other hardware, too. By modern standards, it’s barely fit to run a calculator, but no matter – [Nick Bild] built a VR game that runs […]
By now we should all be used to the astonishing variety of CPUs that have come our way created from discrete logic chips. We’ve seen everything from the familiar Von Neumann architectures to RISC and ever transport-triggered architecture done in 74 TTL derivatives, and fresh designs remain a popular project for many people with an […]
One problem with building things using state-of-the-art techniques is that sometimes those that look like they will be “the next big thing” turn out to be dead ends. Next thing you know, that hot new part or piece of software is hard to get or unmaintained. This is especially true if you are building something […]
The first sound card to output PCM audio — the kind you need for audio samples — wasn’t the Sound Blaster. The AdLib Music Synthesizer Card could output PCM audio over software. The AdLib card also cost $200 at the time of its release. This was too much for some, and in time the Creative […]
Turn the clock back six decades or so and imagine you’re in the nascent computer business. You know your product has immense value, but only to a limited customer base with the means to afford such devices and the ability to understand them and put them to use. You know that the market will eventually […]
The early history of microprocessors is a surprisingly complex one, with more than one claimant for the prize of being the first, and multiple competing families. That the first commercially available part was the Intel 4004 is a matter of record, but it’s fair to say that few of us will have ever encountered one. […]
If you listened to the National Weather Service Weather Radio in the US about 25 years ago, you’ll no doubt remember [Perfect Paul], one of the synthesized voices used to read current conditions and weather forecasts. The voice came from a DECtalk DTC01, a not inexpensive voice synthesizer first made in 1984 that also gave […]
Some may argue, but your choice of computing hardware says exactly zero about you, at least when you buy off the shelf. Your laptop or PC is only one of millions, and the chances of seeing someone with the exact same machine are pretty good. If you want to be different, you really need to […]