Boomer Tech Thread - *crack* *sip* Yep, the C64 was a good computer.

[Least Concern]

I have an old PowerPC MacMini which I don't know what to do with. That think was rancid. (literally, it was in a restaurant kitchen and needed several alcohol baths) I'm not even sure why I took it. I need to stop hoarding.

One thing I recommend to tech-aware people who have a spare machine lying around is to try installing BSD or Linux on it and get familiar with it enough to make it usable - and don't choose one that's going to be too easy for you, like Ubuntu or the other really friendly Linux distros; the fun will be in occasionally having some issues you need to work out through Internet searches or pouring over man pages as you learn new things.

Or you could just install old Bungie games on it. That'd be fun too.

 

[Amelia Watson]

I have an old PowerPC MacMini which I don't know what to do with. That think was rancid. (literally, it was in a restaurant kitchen and needed several alcohol baths) I'm not even sure why I took it. I need to stop hoarding.

On the other hand, I have one (1) old 68k Mac and that thing is one of my favorite old systems, by far.

If you're really bored and want something to do with it, I believe MorphOS works on it. A PPC Amiga-like OS, which is pretty decent from what I remember fucking about with it. I have it running on a 1.67GHz G4 laptop, and still pretty able for internet shit as well as older Amiga stuff.

 

[Catler]

On the other hand, I have one (1) old 68k Mac and that thing is one of my favorite old systems, by far.

The 68k Macs are awesome, I've got two of them kicking around that I use occasionally, they're fun to program.

There's a large (and competent) hobbyist community around them unlike a lot of old systems and there's constantly new software and peripherals coming out for them like https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/

Thankfully gamers and youtubers aren't very interested in old Macs, so the community around them is tolerable.

 

[AmpleApricots]

I did some very minimal setups even on more exotic systems, it's kinda fun in a "will this run" kind of way but if you've done it a few times you'll figure out that a cross-compiled modern linux kernel also runs on a somewhat expanded amiga just, well, slow.

ARM systems and modern energy costs pretty much but destroyed the upsides to run any of that old stuff in any minimal setup. You can get a usable linuxoid in under three watts. For only a few bucks, even.

If you're really bored and want something to do with it, I believe MorphOS works on it. A PPC Amiga-like OS, which is pretty decent from what I remember fucking about with it. I have it running on a 1.67GHz G4 laptop, and still pretty able for internet shit as well as older Amiga stuff.

That I might try out.

The 68k Macs are awesome, I've got two of them kicking around that I use occasionally, they're fun to program.

I have a "higher end" 040 Performa I equipped with a SCSI2SD drive and a network card, I also replaced the CPU with a "full" one with FPU and clocked the system to 33 Mhz. it's a very decent machine and if I had to pick between an expanded A1200 or this Performa to take with me to an empty island, I'd pick the Performa tbh. It's true, these old Macs seem to fly under the radar of the retro consoomer crowd. It also has the full amount of VRAM.

--
I recently got a 13.3" 2560x1600 screen for unrelated reasons only to find out that it's pretty much the perfect screen for all things retro. 640x480, 800x600, strange DOS resolutions and refresh rates (everything between 75 Hz and 48 Hz really, and that without internally mangling the refresh rate - and it wasn't even advertised as capable of doing this, not even the EDID resolutions advertise it can do this).. together with an OSSC it eats and displays absolutely everything I throw at it and because of the high pixel density (~230 PPI) even weird non-integer scaling looks sharp. I used to have a rube goldberg contraption of OSSC and Framemeister to get my old computer stuff somehow on the screen without it getting mangled, not necessary with this one. Basically only need the slight tweaking the OSSC affords me and the screen's internal scaler. Everyone who had headaches with getting old computers on a modern screen (usually a bit more complicated than old consoles because of the plethora of resolutions and refresh rates, especially DOS boxes) will know how amazing it is to have found the "perfect screen". It's also at a size where everything doesn't look ridiculously oversized, too. It even manages that mac's not-quite-VESA 800x600 setting perfectly fine. I'll probably get a second one.

 

[Catler]

I have a "higher end" 040 Performa I equipped with a SCSI2SD drive and a network card, I also replaced the CPU with a "full" one with FPU and clocked the system to 33 Mhz. it's a very decent machine and if I had to pick between an expanded A1200 or this Performa to take with me to an empty island, I'd pick the Performa tbh. It's true, these old Macs seem to fly under the radar of the retro consoomer crowd. It also has the full amount of VRAM.

Both of mine are compact Macs, an SE and Classic II. Only the Classic II gets any real use, there's no real reason to use the SE over it. I've got a SCSI2SD in it as well, the floppy emu I mentioned above, and it has an internet connection via an esp8266 that provides slip support.

Truthfully having internet on a machine from 91 is more of a novelty than anything, it makes transfering files a bit easier and there are some modern programs like wallops that take advantage of it.

I've seriously considered putting in a modern third party FPU expansion card, but eh, there doesn't seem to be a ton of value in adding one to this particular computer.

 

[WinnieTheJew]

Universal binaries

I forget what the tool to do it was called but I remember stripping PPC code out of those universal apps to save disk space on an Intel MacBook. I always thought it was stupid to ship a package containing lots of unusable code.

Think Different, but not two separate downloads different. The users can't handle it.

 

[AmpleApricots]

esp8266 that provides slip support.

Not quite on-topic but that esp8266 is a ridiculously use- and powerful MC. Some people build entire computers with it, VGA output via GPIO and everything. I even saw a youtube video of one emulating a x86, running Win 3.1.

Truthfully having internet on a machine from 91 is more of a novelty than anything, it makes transfering files a bit easier and there are some modern programs like wallops that take advantage of it.

I have a small ARM system that offers FTP- and additional other services (NTP, telnet etc.) for my old computers, it's mostly just useful for that because pretty much all these old systems have some sort of FTP client if they have networking. It also has serial connections via usb to RS232 for the computers that don't have networking. Neat little use for a small ARM.

I've seriously considered putting in a modern third party FPU expansion card, but eh, there doesn't seem to be a ton of value in adding one to this particular computer.

The only program I'm aware of that actually uses the FPU in my system is a program for generating fractals. It's not too useful, I mostly just didn't want to overclock the original CPU and replaced it with one that had the right rating. At that time you could still get full 040s with FPU for like, twenty bucks. (the chipset isn't overclocked, it actually supports these speeds in other 68k Macs of that generation) I'm not sure if the Amiga crazies gobbled up the 040 like they did to the 060s, but I think they are mostly focused on FPGAs now. I also ran MacOS on my 060-expanded Amiga with graphics card and emulator, it's actually considerably quicker than the Performa, but it's kind of a weird setup and there are some pitfalls, like MacOS stuff not being fully compatible to the 060 - you even need a specific patch so that it doesn't outright just lock up if a 060 is in use, Apple was pushing PowerPC and apparently really didn't want the 060 to be used in Macs. (for the record, the Performa is much more fun than such a crazily expanded Amiga - an Amiga expanded like this is just heaps of patches and hacks on the original OS which doesn't accommodate all this stuff at all, and barely any software to actually take advantage of any of it. Compare it to a heavily modded Bethesda game that crashes every five minutes, just in Computer form. If any of you are salivating over such an "ultra-rare" Amiga - don't. You're not missing much.)

I also desoldered the CPU socket and soldered the CPU directly onto the mainboard, to be able to fit a better heatsink on it and also lose some heat through the grounding plane. A 040 at that speeds isn't stable in all situations without some cooling. All the SMD caps had leaked (as had most of the power supply caps) so I needed to fix it up a little anyways.

 

[Least Concern]

Think Different, but not two separate downloads different. The users can't handle it.

Yes, unironically. Normie users aren't going to know or care which processor they have in their system and they shouldn't have to.

 

[WinnieTheJew]

Yes, unironically. Normie users aren't going to know or care which processor they have in their system and they shouldn't have to.

Windows normies can handle 32 and 64 bit downloads just fine. I'm surprised Apple normies can bathe or eat without assistance.

 

[Kiwi Lime Pie]

The first computer that was "mine" was a commodore 64. I really enjoyed playing games on this, and my favorites were Olympics and Ghostbusters. The Olympics game had stuff like pole vaulting and gymnastics, and the USSR was selectable as a country which I thought was pretty neat.

I think the Olympics game was also available for the oldschool Apple IIs that were in my school's computer lab at the time. I remember playing it with two classmates, and I think China and Japan were also options for playable countries with the winning person having a brief clip of their country's national anthem played via crude synthesized sound. The only down side was that we had no idea how to make the athletes run, jump, etc. so we simply mashed keys non-stop and hoped for the best.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

 

[Least Concern]

View attachment 3355772

Ah, yes, the days of loading a game for twelve minutes just so you can play it for two minutes before moving on to the next one because it's shit.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Ah, yes, the days of loading a game for twelve minutes just so you can play it for two minutes before moving on to the next one because it's shit.

Not always! If it was a good game and you died you might have to load it for twelve minutes again.

Tapes like that is a tech-boomer thing though, hearing "Bruce Lee is on 49" then looking at the number wheels turning while fast forwarding sounds like arcane bullshit to young people.

 

[Niobium]

Does this count? I know they're still making them but the first ones were produced in 1999. I probably would've failed high school math if I didn't have mine. In addition to cheating on tests by painstakingly typing out notes on the keypad, I also first got into programming with it. Saved me a ton of time since I didn't have to type in formulas over and over.

 

[Least Concern]

Does this count? I know they're still making them but the first ones were produced in 1999. I probably would've failed high school math if I didn't have mine. In addition to cheating on tests by painstakingly typing out notes on the keypad, I also first got into programming with it. Saved me a ton of time since I didn't have to type in formulas over and over.View attachment 3369604

As someone who was in high school in 1999, I assure you they were produced well before that. Wikipedia says the TI-81, the first in the line, came out in 1990.

I loved to program on mine too. I had a lot of fun making my own games and things during boring classes, which nobody else ever played.

 

[Cupronickel]

it's only 11 years old but it has a cult following

 

[Least Concern]

Went down a bit of a YouTube rabbit hole on old tech demos today.

Computer animation circa 1974:

An introduction to the compact disc from 1982:

(The last line of this makes me think this might actually be a prank, but…)

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

it's only 11 years old but it has a cult followingView attachment 3381282

I have one somewhere that is 22 years old. As of a couple of years ago it still worked.

Went down a bit of a YouTube rabbit hole on old tech demos today.

Computer animation circa 1974:

An introduction to the compact disc from 1982:

(The last line of this makes me think this might actually be a prank, but…)

The mighty Mental Ray in action.

 

[AmpleApricots]

I have an Transmeta-based ITX board somewhere too. Interesting about the board is that it has a PCI port, graphics integrated (some ATI chip) and has a 12V barrel plug and otherwise generates it's voltages on board, which I feel every ITX board should do. Think that Transmeta-chip should be compareable to mid-to-late Generation P3 so fast enough for early 3d titles (System Sock 2, Thief etc.) I guess?

Wow, two years. Time flies.

I transplanted this board from it's beaten up and kinda ugly thin client case into one of these very small ITX cases I had lying around. It's about the speed level of a 700-800 Mhz Pentium 3, while having a tiny heatsink on the CPU and only consuming about 10W. ATI Radeon 7000M graphics are just fine, although not exactly the best money could get you around the time this was new. Windows 98 runs very well on it off some flash card. (There's a proper IDE header but I'm too cheap to buy an IDE SSD) A RAM socket allowed me to expand the machine up to 512 MB. Comfy machine. Brings back memories of an easier time and I can kinda understand why some people are so attached to the old Win 9x aesthetics. It totally wants to make me check my emails, check what's going on in ICQ or mIRC and then go to yahoo.com for the latest news. Maybe play some Ultima Online while I'm at it?

I think this would be an ideal, very minimalist *BSD/Linux machine too. Just exotic and old enough to get all that hipster and retro cred but with none of the bad concience of running a 3 gigawatt space heater as was the fashion these days while still enough omph to actually do anything with it besides watching it to take seconds loading the busybox binary after entering a command. A "classic" OS is probably the more utilitarian choice though. Also of course great for the space-challenged. What to do with it though, I don't think I really need it.

EDIT:

(and don't ask me why it's everquest, I don't know either. The text is clearly referencing UO and that's how I knew it.)

 

[Carpe Jugulum]

I still have a working (last time I checked) ZX Spectrum 128k in it’s very battered box but no games (oops). I have very fond memories of typing in code for hours to make pretty pictures.

Also all the Dizzy games and Chuckie Egg were fab.