In 2020, Microsoft surprised the community by publishing on GitHub the original source code of GW-BASIC, its classic BASIC interpreter from 1983. The repository, archived in read-only mode since November 2023, stands as a unique reference document: over 30 assembly files for the Intel 8088 architecture, used to build one of the most widely deployed […]| System Administration
Clip art collections from the early 1990s are today's forgotten cultural time capsules, freezing life three decades ago as digital illustrations full [...]| Vintage Computing and Gaming
[Benj's note -- I originally wrote this in 2020 and had it sitting around until now. I still think it might be useful to someone in the future, so I [...]| Vintage Computing and Gaming
In August 2022, I joined up with Ars Technica as their AI and Machine Learning Reporter. Of course, even while documenting one of the wildest cutting-edge stories in tech at the moment, my heart never strays far from the subject of this site: vintage technology and the history behind it. In between writing about AI […]| Vintage Computing and Gaming
[ Phillip Heller is a member of the Prodigy Preservation Project. Here, he writes about his progress since Part 1 in January. –Benj ] Reverse engineering Prodigy is not without challenges. Though the patent describes the communications protocol and the TBOL language well, it lacks detail of the application protocols – that is, the communications […]| Vintage Computing and Gaming
“Now computing can be fun and easy for the entire family.” The Tandy Sensation was an early attempt at a specialized Multimedia PC. In this case, Tandy came up with a 25 MHz 486SX computer with a 107 MB hard drive, built-in CD-ROM drive, stereo sound card, a voice/fax modem, SVGA color graphics, and more. […]| Vintage Computing and Gaming
In the mid-1990s, my dad gave me a Hewlett Packard HP 95LX he bought from a friend and never used. The HP 95LX (1991) is a really cool handheld PC that runs DOS from ROM. While looking for 95LX software around 1997 (according to the file dates, although it’s very possible I grabbed them earlier), […]| Vintage Computing and Gaming