A blog about retro-computing
Having rescued, restored or otherwise acquired about every type of Apple II and Mac computer that is realistically obtainable (I’m looking at you Apple I), I decided to switch it up a bit and work on something a little outside of the box. Not so far outside of the box that it was not a …
February 7, 2021
As soon as I got my Uthernet II card installed into my Apple IIGS, I started wondering how many network and Internet application and protocols a networked IIGS would support. One that I was particularly interested in was IRC, or Internet-Relay-Chat. A little history of my experience with IRC When I was in college, there …
May 16, 2020
A while back I answered a ‘free old computers to good home’ ad on CL and ended up with a Macintosh Color Classic that needed recapped. (http://www.retroadventures.net/recapping-a-color-classic/) I recapped the board and his machine was very stable but all too slow to really use for much. I started looking into the best way to max …
December 16, 2018
Recently, I came upon an opportunity to pick up an Apple IIc. I have been thinking about acquiring one so that I could take it with me to hotels when I travel for work, allowing me to get my vintage fix while on the road. I contacted the seller, who assured me that everything was in …
September 20, 2018
While I was testing the Zork Telnet Server a thought came to me… “I should write a menu into the rbash login script giving the user a choice between all of the different Infocom text adventure games.” I decided that I would do just that, but I didn’t want to complicate the project and delay …
August 22, 2018
So far, in my experience collecting and restoring vintage Apple and Mac computers, I have found that the overwhelmingly vast majority of this equipment works as well now as it did the day that it was made, without any real work beyond a good cleaning. Whenever I pick up a new box of someone’s vintage …
August 20, 2018
Recently, I emailed a friend of mine about an Apple II+ that I remembered he had a while back. He still had it and he was not sure it even worked. Jason is the most experienced vintage Macintosh restoration technician that I have ever met. If it was part of the Macintosh family, he has …
August 11, 2018
When I was a kid, I read a ton of books. In about 1987, my mom brought me home two new books to read and she was very excited about them. They were called “Choose your own adventure” books. You would read a chapter or two, and then the book would ask you a question, …
August 1, 2018
So far, all of the testing that I have done on the Uthernet II card has been in my ROM01 IIgs. It is my go-to machine for retro computing and so naturally, I installed the card in that machine. This week I was asked to do some testing of the card in an non-enhanced IIe. …
July 16, 2018
Since my last post, I have learned a lot about how Marinetti works, how the Uthernet II card works, and I have gotten a chance to work with some very awesome people. Glenn Jones of A2RetroSystems.com has allowed me to be a part of the 2018 BETA testing for a new batch run of Uthernet II …
July 4, 2018