A blog about retro-computing
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
Last week, the day after I returned from my work trip to Montreal, I checked the mail and found that my Uthernet II card had arrived. Perfect timing! I wanted to take my time and document the unboxing and installation for my blog, so I just left it in my truck and decided I would …
June 11, 2018
Recently, I found a Craigslist ad for a working Apple Laserwriter Pro 630 with accessories for $40. It had ports for AppleTalk, AAUI Ethernet, SCSI HD, Serial and Parallel, all of the cables needed and the manual. I rarely print anything myself but a printed schematic or manual to read through would be nice. I also …
May 26, 2018
After I built my home brew game pad, I tried it out on all sorts of games. My game pad creation was a success, even though it was not quite showing a full 0 to 255 spectrum in my BASIC test. It worked great on every game I tried it on. Until I tried it …
May 18, 2018