Tag: RETROCOMPUTING

I remember playing Star Wars from a cassette on our Apple ][. My dad bought it in a bike shop and it came with paddles and some starter cassettes like Breakout, Applesoft BASIC and Star Wars (complete with slightly off-pitch theme song). Later we upgraded the ][ to a ][+ on the inside (capable of addressing a whopping 8K of RAM!). We also upgraded to two disk drives -- something you really needed ...

We leave you with a tale of a person's first computer, and her desire to get rid of the thing! - Ed. Being in my late 20's, I am a member of the first generation of people that grew up with computers in pretty much all aspects of my life. I've witnessed and adapted to many new trends: Apple II's quirky ability to lock up when the 5 1/4" floppy got dusty, the introduction of a CD ROM drive to ...

My first computer was a used IBM 80286 with 640k RAM, a 10MB hard drive, running MS-DOS 3.0, and a sporting stylish 5.25" floppy drive on top of a 3.5" drive. The computer was brought home by my father, from work, when I was 6 years old. He'd bought it from the company when they upgraded to 386s that were brand new that year. When he carried the massive box into the living room that evening, I ...

When I was getting ready to head to high school in 1983 I begged my father to get me a computer. I really wanted an IBM PC, but on the middle class living we made do with IBM's newest model: the IBM PCjr It was a cute little computer with a "chiclet" keyboard, 128K of RAM and two cartridge slots. Nope, it didn't have a hard drive and the floppy drive was 180k. It took a couple of minutes to ...

Many people can remember the first computer they owned. Whether the experience was euphoric or maddening, the experience seems to be emblazoned into our minds like burn-in on a two decade old monochrome monitor. The topic can illicit tears of joy or sobs of frustration. But either way, there always seems to be a fondness and nostalgia surrounding our first computing machine. The first computer ...

Some people have an inordinate fondness for their first car. For me, it is my first computer. In Junior High School, I wanted a computer so bad I could taste it. What use did I have for a car? I was a geek and unlikely to get a date. I used to read Sky and Telescope magazine, and in the back they always had an advertisement for a new computer. This was in 1980, before PCs were mainstream. It ...

Manomio has certainly been patient in waiting for their fully licensed, retro-awesome Commodore 64 app to be allowed beyond the velvet rope guarding the entrance App Store. One of the hold ups that led to their initial rejection back in June was the presence of a BASIC interpreter. Rather than strip the code entirely, Manomio tucked it behind a Konami code of sorts. Once users began reporting ...

Do you ever think about the family lineage of your hard drive? Heck, do you ever think about the history of your hard drive at all? Of course you don't. Hard disk storage has become so ubiquitous, so reliable, and so inexpensive that most of us never give it a second thought. But where would Download Squad be if you didn't have all that cheap, seemingly endless space to download your prize finds ...

With all the buzz about the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing I got to thinking, how powerful were the computers that "took us to the Moon?" It turns out, they were nothing short of amazing. If you've never had a nerdy bone in your body, feel free to skip this post. But, if you ever laid on your back under the stars and thought about Mercury, Gemini, Apollo or the Space Shuttle, read ...