Epic! 8-bitguy uses 1 weird trick to detroy rare prototypes!

[Mikoyan]

The car overall felt cheap and cost-reduced to the max

This is literally the whole point of the NSC Jetta. Make something cheap enough for the US and China. VWs are not my thing, but I can respect a B5.

Watched Adrian's newish one last night and he did one of the Retro Dudes things that annoys me: Obligatory two-minute hate every time OS/2 or Microchannel are brought up. Literally "Well we all know what happened, OS/2 flopped and NT became the basis of everything... I mean I've never really looked into it, but..." Well... Why don't you look into it, mister Knows Every Detail of Every Rev of Bullshit Mac System Boards? Sure, Windows and Cheap Taiwanese Clones took over the 90s world but....

The VAX and by extension also the PDP11 and PDP7 would be very interesting to me too. DEC sure did make a lot of cool things.

There's a dude out there doing a restoration of an old PDP-12 at his college. It's actually a mildly interesting series, though it's kind of peak 'take advantage of your EECS students for youtube views'.

 

[HootersMcBoobies]

I'm kinda tired of consumer retro shit at this point. There's nothing interesting about Commodore machines or old PC clones or fucking compact Macs.

I like keeping Adrian's Basement on in the background while working on other stuff. I find his use of oscilloscopes and hardware debugging skills really interesting. 8-bit guy is nowhere near that level, but I still think some of his stuff is interesting (but not really background video stuff). His solar stuff in cringe though.

 

[HootersMcBoobies]

VWestLife (Kevin Tekel) could seem like one of the few only sane YouTubers

I feel like this post could be a good start to an entire thread on this guy.

 

[Pissmaster]

I'm kinda tired of consumer retro shit at this point. There's nothing interesting about Commodore machines or old PC clones or fucking compact Macs.

It's hard to stay into the hobby when so many 20th century retro computers are now dying on the shelf due to capacitor problems, and the days of randomly finding ones for a song at yard sales are loooooooooooooooong over. Same goes for video games.

Bring on the emulators for everything now. It's fun to run Macintosh System 7 at absurd HD resolutions. All the icons become microscopic when you're running them at 13000x13000.

 

[Pee Cola]

There are some channels that do a lot of this, but they don't get a ton of views. Gen X manchildren and euroboomers aren't interested in real computers - they're interested in glorified game consoles.

Do yourself a favor and subscribe to the Advent of Computing podcast. This dude goes down all sorts of crazy rabbit holes, and he's easy to listen to. He just did a 3 part series on the IBM System/360, man that was a wild story.

I like keeping Adrian's Basement on in the background while working on other stuff. I find his use of oscilloscopes and hardware debugging skills really interesting.

I play Adrian in the background whenever I'm working on electronics stuff (usually old computers tbh). GadgetUK Is another good YouTuber to play in the background during an extended lab session.

 

[Basic Block]

I'm always looking to improve my electronics troubleshooting techniques and would appreciate videos where the level of troubleshooting far exceeds simply shotgunning components until shit works. Anybody with a soldering iron can repair things. Let's see some finesse. I want to see exact component failure pinpointed with a logic analyzer or scope.

 

[Kalsarikännit]

It's hard to stay into the hobby

I’d say it’s not hard to stay in the hobby, but it’s hard to stay a casual in the hobby.

It’s no longer a “buy this thing for dirt cheap and piddle around with it, then junk it when it stops working” hobby. Computers initially not working is becoming the standard, and getting these things going again requires actual work, and getting familiar with the details of how the things function.

If you’re buying to consoom or just buying for it to “just work”, then there’s very little reason to stick around in the hobby. But if you’re buying to solve puzzles and work on electronics, then have fun with them afterwards, there’s a lot more this hobby offers. I buy my stuff “for parts” on purpose.

Also, this attitude of problem-solving has led to the new cards and boards people have been making. The wonderful part about these old computers is, because the scale is much smaller, you can actually solo program something substantial for it.

 

[AmpleApricots]

I like how you can wrap your mind around both hardware and software completely. With systems up to around the early 90s vintage you can reach a level of familiarity where you really know every nook and cranny, from how the keyboard controller works to how the OS works. With modern CAD and manufacturing costs, it's also trivial to design such hardware or expansions for it yourself. It's not even expensive. You also absolutely don't have to interact with the community, for anything. (I see this as a big plus)

 

[Susanna]

I like how you can wrap your mind around both hardware and software completely. With systems up to around the early 90s vintage you can reach a level of familiarity where you really know every nook and cranny, from how the keyboard controller works to how the OS works. With modern CAD and manufacturing costs, it's also trivial to design such hardware or expansions for it yourself. It's not even expensive. You also absolutely don't have to interact with the community, for anything. (I see this as a big plus)

This is what I really like about very early micros (and minis) like the Apple I. That computer/terminal split makes it a fairly easy machine to understand. The computer just streams output to the terminal over an internal teletype. Simplicity itself. I've wanted to buy an Apple I kit for quite a while, but unfortunately then I'd either be stuck finding vintage chips, or worse, basically assembling a much more powerful SBC from components to run an Apple 1/2 emulator on, which is nowhere near the same thing. I would be tempted to just buy an old Macintosh or something, that's still primitive enough to learn even if it isn't primitive enough to build on my own, but it's my understanding that these days those basically never come with working monitors, keyboards, and floppy drives, so meh to that idea, too.

Unfortunately dad's old NeXT workstation is dead dead dead, or I'd content myself by playing around with that.

 

[Migraine Box]

I would be tempted to just buy an old Macintosh or something, that's still primitive enough to learn even if it isn't primitive enough to build on my own, but it's my understanding that these days those basically never come with working monitors, keyboards, and floppy drives, so meh to that idea, too.

Compact Macs are definitely a mixed bag but not that hard to dig into. As long as you don't have a Maxell bomb shitting over everything or a necked CRT, they're surprisingly easy to repair. Good gear replacements for the floppy drive mechanisms are plentiful, recapping is a slog but very doable, and modern SCSI replacements are finally becoming really affordable. Biggest problem are the delusional prices people are asking for them nowadays.

Also, define "dead dead dead". When it comes to NeXT stuff, I've seen people pull miracles on the most thrashed-looking machines.

 

[Susanna]

Compact Macs are definitely a mixed bag but not that hard to dig into. As long as you don't have a Maxell bomb shitting over everything or a necked CRT, they're surprisingly easy to repair. Good gear replacements for the floppy drive mechanisms are plentiful, recapping is a slog but very doable, and modern SCSI replacements are finally becoming really affordable. Biggest problem are the delusional prices people are asking for them nowadays.

How about the Apple ][c? That’s probably my favourite in terms of aesthetics.

Also, define "dead dead dead". When it comes to NeXT stuff, I've seen people pull miracles on the most thrashed-looking machines.

It stopped booting back in the mid 90s and has been sitting beneath a pile of stuff in the garage basement since. I plugged it in a couple years ago and got nothing. Board looked fine but I never got out a technical manual and oscilloscope to check particularly deep. Power supply was fine, I did check that with a multimeter.

 

[AmpleApricots]

I have an Performa 475 I absolutely adore and while it's not high on the list for rabid collectors it's a cool machine that can run a lot of stuff. Instead of a crystal, it has a fancy clock generator and you can move a few resistors around to clock it to 33 Mhz. ( it goes up to 40 Mhz actually but that would mean overclocking the chipset, which I was not willing to try. 33 Mhz it can take as some machines with identical chipsets are clocked like that - 25 Mhz to 33 Mhz is a 33% speedup after all!) I then replaced the CPU with a full 040 rated at 33 Mhz. Incredibly fun machine that's also able to run quite a few advanced programs while still being a 68k. Threw a SCSI2SD in, before these SCSI SD solutions it was a (often either very expensive or you better like the noise of server drives) PITA to get old SCSI systems up and running.

In the case of that particular computer, almost every SMD cap was leaking, so were some of the secondary side power supply caps. When I got it, it was completely dead as in wouldn't turn on. The fix was very easy in the end and it's always worth it to try.

 

[Migraine Box]

How about the Apple ][c? That’s probably my favourite in terms of aesthetics.

Fantastic little machines, really only limited by their lack of expandability. Their power bricks can be a little iffy, but from what I've heard it's dead simple to build a new one out of a laptop supply.

Also, thank god every Apple II model uses basic composite out. The bespoke //c monitor is one of the most ungodly CRTs ever built and if anything goes wrong with one, lol. Lmao. Lmfao.

 

[Ahriman]

Victor has a very comfy channel

Big fan of the Retro Dutchman.

 

[Kalsarikännit]

How about the Apple ][c? That’s probably my favourite in terms of aesthetics.

They’re cute and aesthetic but you’ll be paying through the nose for one with a decent keyboard because, trust me, you do not want the non-alps version. It’s a fucking nightmare to type on.

Also, not a Mac. If you want a compact Mac that has a higher chance of “just working”, Macintosh SE FDHD/SuperDrive are your best choice. The hard drive will most likely be dead but SD card solutions are not frowned upon, and if you want to use floppy disks then the SuperDrive uses the normal 1.44MB ones as opposed to the older and increasingly hard to find/use 800KB disks.

 

[Mikoyan]

I'm always looking to improve my electronics troubleshooting techniques and would appreciate videos where the level of troubleshooting far exceeds simply shotgunning components until shit works. Anybody with a soldering iron can repair things. Let's see some finesse. I want to see exact component failure pinpointed with a logic analyzer or scope.

There's a not-well-known fella I've been watching of late that might just be what you're looking for. You'll want to look at all of his videos but here's a new one that describes what I'm talking about:

He has another video from a week or two ago that goes into how to decode firmware ROMs and integrate that into your logic analyzer troubleshooting like he does here.

Of course, these videos show the counterpoint, too: What's meticulous troubleshooting really buy you when turns out many of the chips are bad and the parts shotgun would've gotten you done in an hour?

 

[Migraine Box]

They’re cute and aesthetic but you’ll be paying through the nose for one with a decent keyboard because, trust me, you do not want the non-alps version. It’s a fucking nightmare to type on.

The springpin keyboard isn't the most atrocious thing in the world. I mean it's bad, but still better than some of Apple's later ADB keyboards for Macs. The Alps one is absolutely god-tier though. I lucked out with mine.

Also, not a Mac. If you want a compact Mac that has a higher chance of “just working”, Macintosh SE FDHD/SuperDrive are your best choice. The hard drive will most likely be dead but SD card solutions are not frowned upon, and if you want to use floppy disks then the SuperDrive uses the normal 1.44MB ones as opposed to the older and increasingly hard to find/use 800KB disks.

I still need to bum the roms and SWIM from a later Mac to upgrade my base SE. I have a pile of Superdrive FDDs, which will work in an 800k system, but they only read/write in 800k and don't bother with 1.44mb disks. Since SE/30s go for retarded money, I was thinking of hotrodding a normal SE with dual floppies, BlueSCSI, and maybe a 68030 accelerator if any of those projects escape development hell.

 

[Kalsarikännit]

The springpin keyboard isn't the most atrocious thing in the world.

It is. I have one. The ADB membrane keyboards are cringe, but at least they don't crunch and spam anywhere from 0-5 characters on press. Remember, backspace doesn't work on the Apple II basic prompt. It's so bad, I don't use it anymore. It's a shame, because the Alps keys really are fantastic (I use a IIGS keyboard as my go-to ADB). Also, the Apple IIe platinum has the best keyboard I've ever felt, so I just use that instead.

maybe a 68030 accelerator if any of those projects escape development hell.

Would be neat, but I think they will be on par with an SE/30 in terms of price. That said I've been hotrodding a Classic, so there's no reason not to have fun with it.

 

[Migraine Box]

It is. I have one. The ADB membrane keyboards are cringe, but at least they don't crunch and spam anywhere from 0-5 characters on press. Remember, backspace doesn't work on the Apple II basic prompt. It's so bad, I don't use it anymore. It's a shame, because the Alps keys really are fantastic (I use a IIGS keyboard as my go-to ADB). Also, the Apple IIe platinum has the best keyboard I've ever felt, so I just use that instead.

I forgot to say that removing the rubber mat under the keys makes it feel much nicer. Haven't encountered chattering like that though, sounds really dreadful. MacEffects makes a modern drop-in replacement for the IIc that uses Matias switches, but good god it costs about as much as outright hunting down another IIc w/the alps mech.

Slight disagree on the IIe Platinum having the best keyboard. The Platinum using the IIGS layout is definitely a massive improvement for usability, so I'll concede there, but I've never been a fan of the SMK switches. Too stiff and, at least on my Platinum, a bit scratchy. The regular IIe used Alps SKCC switches which feel so much nicer.

 

[AmpleApricots]

I'm surprised the community doesn't do more in the keyboard department. On my research the last time the only computer that had widely available modern options for input (up to USB even, which is kind of a challenge compared to e.g. PS/2) was the Amiga. There's ARMs in mechanical keyboards now and there is quite a bit of a selection of retro looking, programmable keyboards on aliexpress. (e.g. here and here) These micros are more than good enough to talk e.g. ps/2 or what the apple's and amigas of this world do. Doesn't seem like anyone ever even attempted it. I have an early A2000 keyboard here, before they switched from cherry to membrane and even that thing is very mid in build quality compared to a modern chinese mechanical keyboard for about ~100.