80-90s Computing — Three lovely UNIX machines networked together...
Three lovely UNIX machines networked together during Bytefest 2024. Btw Rhapsody OS is surprisingly a nice experience compared to the standard (pre-X) Mac OS.| Tumblr
Three lovely UNIX machines networked together during Bytefest 2024. Btw Rhapsody OS is surprisingly a nice experience compared to the standard (pre-X) Mac OS.| Tumblr
I have ~5500 followers here on tumblr after years of activity, but I never liked the lack of interaction here. When I started the “blog” here, one of the goals was to get feedback and interesting insights from others when I was working on something retrocomputing related. This never worked. Tumblr was never really good for text interaction. This, along with a lack of time, caused me to reduce my activity here. Things got worse when many of the people I followed here moved elsewhere. Some ...| 80-90s Computing
I got some new SGI computers. I was surprised because I thought the SGI guys from the Czech Republic gave me all their leftovers. I had to go to one of the original SGI offices in Brno this time. The office design was very 90s and there were classic SGI artworks on the walls. All the people there are now HPE employees but many of them started there working for SGI when every employee had an Indy or O2 on their desk. The “loot” contains: Two SGI O2 / MIPS R5000 / 2x SCSI HDD / the one with...| 80-90s Computing
The original SimCity 2000 had a strict requirement for an SVGA video card that supported 640x480 resolution with 256 colors. I used to believe that this was an inflexible requirement, but it turns out that the hardware requirements were eased in the Windows version. Not only did it allow the game to run in 16-color modes, but it was also bundled with a special VGA driver developed by Microsoft. This driver enabled modifications to the color palette, just like in the 256-color modes. I was com...| 80-90s Computing
I just wrapped up an article on the Toshiba T3200SX, a desktop-replacement laptop from 1989. This beauty boasts a 386(SX) CPU and a stunning VGA gas-plasma display. You can check it out here: https://retro.swarm.cz/toshiba-t3200sx-1989/ For those of you who are new to the world of vintage computers, this article can provide some valuable context and perspective. I delved into why the 386 was such a crucial milestone for PCs and a few lesser-known details. I absolutely adore this machine. I do...| 80-90s Computing
“SuperCGA” and ATI Graphics Solution and GEM Desktop 8bit guy published a video about SuperCGA cards, which reminded me that this was a topic a recently dug into. I’ve never really worked with CGA/EGA monitors. When we had a computer at home for the first time in 1989, it was an IBM PS/2 Model 20 borrowed from dad’s office. That computer already had an on-board graphics chip that worked with VGA monitors. One year later, my family decided to buy our own computer. It was a 286 clone wi...| 80-90s Computing
New Item: HP Integral Personal Computer I am trying to avoid buying any old computer, but a friend of mine and I made an exception in this case and bought this together. Somebody in Prague offered a non-working HP Integral Personal Computer (1985) for $420. It was just 15 minutes of traveling from my friend’s home, so he visited the seller and told him that he would buy it if he could look into it, measure voltages and check for corrosion (either from caps or a leaked battery). The seller a...| 80-90s Computing
Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 batteries still alive Last summer, I put new set of alkaline batteries in this portable beauty as I needed it for a photoshoot. A few months later, I used the machine also during a vintage computer event and (both times) I forgot to remove them. The stand-by energy consumption is apparently so low that nine months, the computer still holds the data in its RAM disk. (original article with hi-res photo)| 80-90s Computing
SGI IrisVision add-in 3D accelerator for PC (1990) – Vintage Computers and 3D Acceleration: After years, I’ve finished a long in-depth write-up about an interesting piece of history - the SGI IrisVision 3D accelerator from 1990. It was a scaled-down version of the graphics board set from the SGI Personal IRIS and was intended for PC compatibles (16-bit AT bus) and PS/2 computers (MCA). The whole thing started when IBM licensed the graphics hardware and the IRIS GL 3D API for their IBM RS/...| 80-90s Computing
Iomega ZIP 100 drives Thanks to friends of mine, I was able to get two working parallel-port ZIP drives from Iomega. My father used to use these during the 1990s as ZIP disks were popular in offices in Czech Republic. He later switched to an internal ZIP drive connected to IDE when his parallel-port external one died and used it for another 10 years. I have a few systems where it is not possible to add a network controller so I though that this would be a good device for faster data transfers...| 80-90s Computing
Small portables: Libretto and PSION 5MX These tiny machines were something I dreamed of during my childhood. I got my hands on a Toshiba Libretto much later. It was maybe 10 years ago when I needed to read diagnostic data from my old car (a Skoda Octavia I 1.6MPI with an automatic transmission – not having a manual transmission was considered heresy even back then in Czech Republic and I always enjoyed being weird). A friend of mine lent me the original diagnostic device together with this ...| 80-90s Computing
Peugeot 106 Electrique (1995) This little electric car was made in the mid-90s. It offered a 20-kW electric motor and 11-kWh NiCd battery that provided range about 80-100 km. This particular vehicle was recently upgraded with a 3-phase on-board AC charger (up to 12kW) and a BMW i3 Li-Ion battery offering 28 kWh of usable energy and range about 200-250 km per charge. It is fascinating how much the technology evolved. Peugeot 106 had top speed just 90 km/h and although its motor offered up ...| 80-90s Computing
A lovely dashboard in a battery-powered Peugeot 106 Electrique (1995). They made thousands of these in PSA.| 80-90s Computing
I am playing Vette! on a Toshiba T3200SX while waiting for sudden summer rain to go away. A lot of the 80s stuff here: Chrysler LeBaron GTC Turbo Convertible (1988), Toshiba T3200SX (1989) and Vette! (1989) (hi-res photo)| 80-90s Computing
A guy with his portable TRS-80… (hi-res photo)| 80-90s Computing
Replacing HDD in Toshiba T3200SX There are not many laptops that can offer worse experience of replacing a hard drive. I got this T3200SX from a friend of mine and he gave me also a 120MB Conner hard drive. The machine itself had a working 40MB Conner drive, but I decided that it would be nice to have more disk space. I thought that it could take just a few minutes in a machine of this size… but I was wrong. The hard drive replacement involves dismantling the lid, peeling off the LED board ...| 80-90s Computing
First steps with my Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 I recently acquired a shiny Model 100 portable with necessary accessory. I played a bit with the machine before cleaning it and I was a bit surprised that it could retain data in the RAM disk for minutes after disconnecting the power. That gave me the impression that there was a backup battery inside, which scared me enough to open the machine immediately… and yes, although the battery still provided some voltage, it started destroying itself and t...| 80-90s Computing
TRS-80 Model 100 Acquisition A guy contacted me that he found a complete TRS-80 Model 100 at the recycling center, ready to be destroyed. He was not a vintage computer collector but realized that it could have value for some, so he started to google somebody who can appreciate it and found my Czech blog. He wrote me a message that I could take it for free if I was interested. … and I indeed was. This particular machine travelled to our country during the socialism era and it is quite rare h...| 80-90s Computing
There are very few photos of me on my blog. Let me fix it with this one…| 80-90s Computing
A cheap CPU in a very expensive computer In the mid-1990s, there were so many articles about how cheap all the RISC CPUs were compared to what Intel offered. You could read it in an every computer-related magazine every month. Scientist friends of mine at universities desperately wanted to have such RISC CPUs in their own personal computers. They never really liked x86 design and they were used to work on UNIX workstations, so they didn’t even need any support for running Windows. However, ...| 80-90s Computing
