s/retrocomputing
computing with vintage or weak devices: 8bit/16bit, commodore, amiga, oric, atari, etc.
Posts
Visicalc Reconstructed — [https link] A nice walkthrough for anyone curious about what it would take to write Visicalc in C In the dumbest way possible,btw. I laughed, I cried. But found it amusing. The Hacker News discussion has interesting tidbits [https link]
💬 1 comment · 2 likes · Mar 21 · 7 weeks ago
TI-99/4a Unix -like OS — I am definitely going to try it out when I get back to my TI. I got a PEB expansion with 32K, untested, and can't wait to do something.
💬 3 comments · 1 like · Feb 24 · 2 months ago
6502 laptop [https link]
💬 2 likes · Feb 16 · 3 months ago
And the TI is up
💬 11 likes · Feb 03 · 3 months ago
Inside the TI-99/4A — It's really pretty. Reminds me of Christmas.
💬 6 comments · 5 likes · Jan 31 · 3 months ago
— spell.mywire.org:1960/~stack/0256.gmi
Confession: I bought three TI99/4A's — Any TI99/4A fans out there?
💬 10 comments · 1 like · Jan 09 · 4 months ago
[https link] Animated 6502 Block Diagram (http link) run a transistor-level simulation of the MOS Technology 6502 and shows the internal state on Donald Hanson's Block Diagram. Runs in a (modern) webbrowser. [https link] source code (github) If you want to see it run ehbasic, press the run button and switch to the I/O tab. Type "c4000" into the text box, press enter, and then unfocus the texbox. This will send the input needed to get you to READY. Give it some time, it is slow. Type your...
💬 3 comments · 2 likes · 2025-12-13 · 5 months ago
I'm really enjoying browsing the "Usenet Oldnews Archive Newsgroups List" on gopher. It's an archive of Usenet posts from May of 1981 until somewhere in mid-March of 1982. [gopher link] Oldnews Archive An example of an entertaining post from the FA.apollo group: "Are Windows Necessary? It appears to me that one area of vastly greater functionality that should arrive with personal workstations is the capability to view more than one item at a time, e.g., "window" ... Can any of you who now...
💬 3 comments · 3 likes · 2025-11-10 · 6 months ago
This seems like it belongs here: [https link] a girl muses on what would happen if humanity lost the ability to make microchips. How would computing survive?
💬 4 comments · 2 likes · 2025-10-23 · 6 months ago
Y'all, this ProtoWeb is pretty freaking cool! It is an http proxy you can use in olde browsers and it preserves the old web from the late 1990s. However, they also have runescape (using an open source server) served over it, as well as real radio stations that work with winamp, up-to-date live weather data, and an old YouTube clone, that supports flash and realplayer, called WarpStream that duplices the YT videos from before 2010. It allows you to sign up and comment on videos. I believe they...
💬 1 comment · 2 likes · 2025-04-01 · 1 year ago
Just found out this cool thing called ProtoWeb that lets you use a proxy server to serve the web as it was back in 1996-1997. You can use it with old web browsers (and for Linux, I'm using Seamonkey). I also have this old book from 1997: "The Official America Online Internet Guide" that I found a few years ago, so I've been trying some of the websites in this book to see which ones ProtoWeb has preserved.
💬 2 comments · 1 like · 2025-03-31 · 1 year ago
Machdyne Timeless Computers — Anyone hear of Machdyne? They make tiny FPGA "timeless computers". There's a custom Linux build called Kakao. They also make the Kaltstahl - a little USB device that store 256KB on ferroelectric RAM, with an estimated retention of 95 years @ +55C, and over 200 years @ +35C. They also have a real telnet BBS at bbs.machdyne.com I've told them about Gemini. I think this place and their community would blend well. Thought I'd see if I could raise some interest...
💬 5 comments · 2 likes · 2025-03-15 · 1 year ago
Internet pizza in 1994 — I recently posted some history of Xenix and how it was spun off into the SCO Group. Well, in between their spinoff from Microsoft Xenix and suing the pants off of IBM they had an adventure into the weird. Partnering with chain pizza store Pizza Hut, they participated in the first internet ordering of pizza, announced in 1994. It worked like this: you would hop on NCSA Mosaic and go to the Pizza Hut web site in Wichita, Kansas. This was described as a 486 running SCO...
💬 2 comments · 4 likes · 2025-01-13 · 1 year ago
manic miner on oric
💬 1 like · 2025-01-11 · 1 year ago
You might not believe this, but just today, as I was editing an entry in my capsule, I found VIM to be too cumbersome and switched to ed yeah, ed. I started to play with it for some time (tip: regex are a must) and... I love it! Once you "get it", it can be surprisingly effective for some tasks
💬 6 likes · 2025-01-10 · 1 year ago
CLI/TUI Captive Portal Authentication — I have a small computer (uConsole/CM4) that I use in Linux console mode for simple tasks (programming, Gemini, text editing, e-mail). The hardware is too cramped to use with X/Wayland. I could not find any decent tutorial on how to authenticate against captive portals. Of course I only access networks that I am allowed to. Of course I tried to use a TUI browser (w3m/lynx); but it did not work. I suspect that JS is at fault. Any ideas? I look for a ready-...
💬 7 comments · 2024-11-10 · 1 year ago
I read an article from someone using a Palm m500 for modern purposes and I'm sorely tempted to try it myself. I actually kind of wish I kept the HP tablet I picked up when they were getting blown out as I loved that version of webOS.
💬 11 comments · 1 like · 2024-08-06 · 2 years ago
Fixing a 41 year old bug in the SWTOOLS VOS SEDIT commmand on VAX/VMS 5.5-2 — So, at work I maintain a VAX running VMS 5.5-2. That version of VMS was released in 1991... I've recently been using the Unix-like tools in the LBL Software Tools Virtual Operating System from the DECUS Languages & Tools tape from 1986. The SWTOOLS VOS is a portable reimplementation of many Unix style programs and library routines, inspired by Kernighan and Plauger's Software Tools books, writen in a Ratfor, a...
💬 3 comments · 2 likes · 2024-07-15 · 2 years ago
Where to buy retrocomputers? — This might sound like a silly question, but where would you start looking to buy retrocomputers? I suppose there are things for sale on the internet, but not everything you can think of is actually as available as "modern" products seem. What if I want a specific model of a 386... where do you all go to find something like that? Or do you have to have been retrocomputing since back then? feel kinda dumb here since I have (confession time) actually thown out old...
💬 4 comments · 1 like · 2024-04-23 · 2 years ago
When is retro computing? — Ubuntu is going to be 20 years old this year and that makes me wonder how old a computer and it's operating system has to be to be considered retro? For me, Windows 2000 is retro but wind XP is not. Also any mac using PowerPC or m68k is retro to me. (The podcast Linux After Dark just did a episode on trying to run warty warthog 4.10 and compare it to the next LTS, 24.04)
💬 14 comments · 2024-03-29 · 2 years ago
Classic Usborne books on home computer programming, including how to program adventure games, code to type. A true gem: [https link] Please note the link might not work if you're browsing from outside the UK if that happens and you aren't VPN click on the top left link and inform it you want the UK content. Cheers!
💬 1 comment · 2 likes · 2024-03-25 · 2 years ago
Getting instructions for your Atari 8-bit computer games — Hello! Just joined the Geminispace. Here's a very easy way to extract the instructions from the ATR disk images from any Atari 8 bit game. In this case, we were lucky to find the instructions within the preserved disks. [http link] The Wrath of Doom (difficult to play without instructions whatsoever) [https link] Explore Atari 8-Bit ATR Disk Images with a Web browser
💬 2 likes · 2024-02-22 · 2 years ago · #atari
A game for Commodore 64 — Paw Noir - platformer game project by Kirill Leyfer for commodore 64 retrocomputer.
💬 1 comment · 2 likes · 2024-02-22 · 2 years ago
Hi! I.m new to this Gemini stuff. I heard some about it at a podcast called Kodsnack. Anyway, I.m mostly looking around and wanted to make a little mark in this cool community. I,m not much of a programmer but I like to code on my old Commodore64. But some time ago I bought this Mega65. A spiritual successor to the Commodore65. The C65 was intended to be a successor to C64, suprise suprise. But the C65 was never released. Its fun to investigate this new Mega 65 computer and try to make some...
💬 8 comments · 6 likes · 2024-01-18 · 2 years ago
maximum resolution of atari st — Because in low res some 416x274 is possible, in med res maybe can pull out 832x274 - still little less pixels than in mono.
💬 1 comment · 1 like · 2024-01-03 · 2 years ago
Page 1 of 2