Collaborate Disseminate
For those of us who remember Radio Shack as more than just an overpriced cell phone store, a lot of the nostalgia for the retailer boils down to the brands …read more Continue reading A Deep Dive Into a 1980s Radio Shack Computer Trainer
The last couple years have seen an incredible flourishing of the cyberdeck scene, and probably for about as many reasons as there are individual ’deck designs. Some people get really …read more Continue reading Computers for Fun
When the need for speed overcomes you, thoughts generally don’t turn to 8-bit computers. Sure, an 8-bit machine is fun for retro gameplay and reliving the glory days, and there …read more Continue reading This Snappy 8-Bit Microcomputer Brings the Speed to Retrocomputing
Quiz time, what was the first commercially available microcomputer? The Altair 8800? Something obscure like the SCELBI? The Mark-8 kit? According to [The Byte Attic], it was actually the Q1, …read more Continue reading The First Microcomputer: The Q1
Not to start a debate in the comments or anything, but what would you say was the first microcomputer, or personal computer? We suppose the answer depends on your definition. …read more Continue reading Inputs of Interest: Canadian MCM/70 Was Kinda Like the First Cyberdeck
Over on Hackaday.io, [Zoltan Pekic] has been busy building a stack of tools for assisting with verifying and debugging retro computing applications. He presents his take on using Intel hex …read more Continue reading Customisable Micro-Coded Controller Helps With In-Circuit Debugging
To say the Heathkit name is well known among Hackaday readers would be something of an understatement. Their legendary kits launched an untold number of electronics hobbies, and ultimately, plenty …read more Continue reading VCF East 2021: Preserving Heathkit’s 8-Bit Computers
[Ken Shirriff] recently shared some pictures and a writeup from his visit to the Large Scale Systems Museum, a remarkable private collection of mainframes and other computers from the 1970s to the 1990s. Housed in a town outside Pittsburgh, it contains a huge variety of specimens including IBM mainframes and …read more
Continue reading Big Beautiful Vintage Computers, and Where To Find Them
For anyone who’s seen a 1970’s era microcomputer like the Altair 8800 doing its thing, you’ll know the centerpiece of these behemoths is the array of LEDs and toggle switches used as input and output. Sure, computers today are exponentially more capable, but there’s something undeniably satisfying about developing software …read more
Continue reading Bare Metal Programming with Only Three Buttons
Among the rows of digital dinosaurs, one blinking front panel stood out. It certainly looked the part of a retro computer; with banks of blinking LEDs and multicolored paddle switches. But upon closer inspection, the laser cut wooden front panel betrays the fact that this machine is an impostor. It may have the appearance of a machine from the heady days where home computers looked like they could have doubled as a prop on the bridge of Kirk’s Enterprise, but it’s actually a product of much more modern provenance.
It’s called the Cactus, a love letter to the homebrew …read more
Continue reading VCF East: Cactus, Retro Because it Wants to Be