Vintage Apparatus

Here's something I dont do very often. Ya'll know I have a Patreon? I do! And I'll be using it for behind the scenes, status posts, and other announcements that are just plain fun. If you like supporting retro-goodness and my content, please consider signing up. www.patreon.com/VintageAppar...

At long last, here's my run through for "Hackers" - the 1994 movie about the 'hacker' community and all the stuff those crazy kids were doing. Enjoy!

I wanted to use an old Logtech controller I had lying around, but it was a hot mess. Lets clean it up. youtu.be/mg4nmMzlkDM

Here's a quick short about the emulator I used in the Franklin Ace video.

youtube.com/shorts/guea-... Bit of a short about Apple's close call with Bankruptcy

Happy Zero Cool day!

The OLPC XO-1 Laptop was a fascinating part of computing history. Here I take some time to give a little history on the project, and show my laptops in action. youtu.be/1W1ePAHSqNw

Here's a quick view of the Handspring Visor, the first 'spinoff' Palm device from 1998!

Decided to take some downtime and do a video on one of the old school games I used to love playing. Air Traffic Controller, from 1985. Turns out I'm not as good as it as I remember!

This is amazingly cool. It's a full S100 emulator, cards, runtime, Z80 executables, CP/M and everything. You can swap cards in and out, program it - it's like having your own CP/M S-100 box right in your browser. grantmestrength.github.io/S100/

AT&T Unix PC from 1984! This machine was so cool. Unix on the desktop in 1984. Graphic display, mouse, built in telephony. But it failed as a platform. What went wrong? I take a deep dive into the machine and it's architecture, then break down why it was ultimately a commercial failure.

Noice! Recent donation to the makerspace. Complete with 16k RAM pack!

I'm all for keeping things up to date, but Discords release cadence is pretty nutty, particularly since you're given no choice to NOT upgrade. "FINE, I'll download, dpkg install, and try again..."

Some cool stuff from this weekend's VCF East. The Retro Tech Foundation (h😞t tps://www.retrotechfoundation.org/ ) had a booth recreating a picture of Steve Jobs at one of the assembly spaces for the Apple 1. Everything was reproduced down to the finest details. You could sit for a picture!

First full day at VCF East 2026 went great. Met tons of awesome people and got to have good conversations about my UnixPC, Pro 380, and Kaypros. We had a really rough start to the show with several machines going offline, but that's the fun of old computers.

Well this is dispappointing. This is a DECmate III. I was hoping to bring it to VCF East this weekend, but the cover / handle failed miserably, and the whole casing shattered. I have other machines, but I had hoped to display this guy. Sigh.

Working on contact sheets for giveaway stickers at VCF. And this is perfectly describing my experiences. (to be clear, i'm actually doing it in google docs, but it sure feels this way). #microsoftword #layout

It's going to be one of those weeks. Do I open 'er up or no. (update: after a half hour of warming up, it's now just jittery. I have 3 of these monitors, 2 have serious cataracts and need cleaning. I may bring the others so I can have SOME image running)

I'm sorry - $23,000 for a 10" model of a 1969 computer?

Woohoo. All back together and booting cleanly! This machine will be ready to go to VCF East 2026. I have one more to set up and test, but this guy is back to healthy. Hurrah!

The secondary story about this was Osborne made a HUGE error. They announced the next generation prematurely, which caused everyone to pause ordering the current one. This is referred to as "The Osborne Effect". The pause in sales severely damaged their cash flow.

Furthering the discussion of the UnixPC, here's a quick video of the problems I ran into and the current state of the project. The machine's still in pieces on my workbench, but it is running! www.youtube.com/shorts/Tv4-7...

ITS ALLIIIVVVE! So turns out the internal powersupply on the 3b1 has a Problem [tm] and can't power the MFM emulator properly. I can debug this further later, but I piggybacked a PC power supply to power the MFM board, and was able to bring the whole machine up. ONWARD!

Project update. Got the beaglebone booted again, and my disk images are STILL THERE. Holy cow I was scared of that. I have the full MFM image of the Unix 3.51 installation that the 3b1 needs in file form (and backed up now). Next to figure out why this wasn't booting from scratch. Baby steps!

Tonight's project. Dusting off the UnixPC aka 3b1 aka 7300 to hopefully bring it to VCF. Unfortunately, it's not booting. Looks like hte image on the MFM emulator board (which is driven by a Beaglebone black) may be horked. I've pulled it all out and I'm going to try and debug it.

“Computing in the year 2029” as depicted in Unix World Magazine, in 1985. I too wish to shoot rainbows out of my... honestly don't know how to complete that sentence here.

If this screen looks familiar, I bet I know where a chunk of your GPA in college went.

I thought this was common knowledge, but everyone I poitn this out to goes "Wait, really? I had no idea!" So here ya go, something that you can show off to friends at your next social event. youtube.com/shorts/FFkVp...

People wonder why things like Craigslist are dying and Facebook Marketplace is taking over the world. This motorcycle spammer has been active on CL for literally decades, and CL does nothing to stop it. The site is ancient. This is what happens when indifference sets in.

Checking in on my next video. Ya'll loved the War Games vid, right? Well, next one just hit the first big milestone as all audio and video is loaded into the timeline and synced. It's 2hrs 45 minutes long in raw form, I expect it'll be half that when done. Stay tuned!!!

Saw this on /r/trs80 - what a perfect beautiful TRS80 Model 1 setup. Kinda the dream configuration from 1979... www.reddit.com/r/trs80/comm...

In one of my recent videos, I noted I had a Visual Commuter 'laptop' (really a portable) computer that I'd never seen before. I just found an ad for one on FBMP, nearby - I'm half tempted to get it just so I have one machine and one for spare parts. Seeing two of these rare birds is fascinating!

So, not so vintage, but fun anyway. I have a linux laptop many folks have seen in my videos - a 6th gen X1 Carbon I really like - but it has a bad CMOS battery in it. Finally sitting down to replace it tonight.

So, if you're a vintage computer nerd, and a bit of a collector, and maybe a bit of a pack rat, what does. your storage unit look like? Lets take a look... youtu.be/4trzVGXnMS4

Just picked up this fully functional Data General / One via a Facebook Marketplace. It's in amazing condition for 41 years old, with OEM case, printer, powersupplies, and cables. The DG/One was the first battery powered fully PC compatible computer on the market.

Man I am not looking forward to this project. Gives me the heebie jeebies. This are referred to as 'crt cataracts'. When the glue on the face of the CRT breaks down and gets gooey. It's fixable, but involves a heat gun, a wire, and a lot of patience. All on a 50 year old CRT. Aieeee.

Lets take a look at a TI calculator from 1985 that could also run BASIC! www.youtube.com/shorts/Uo3-R...

Retrocomputing merry christmas! Happy holidays to all you vintage computing nerds.

This really is such an amazing story. The fact that they got it running again is fantastic. This sort of archival work is so important right now as all the gains of the last 50 years are, well, aging out. www.theregister.com/2025/12/23/u...

Here's an update on the next big video - available on my Patreon... www.patreon.com/posts/next-v...

I dug this 1" CompactFlash2 drive out of my media bag and decided to see if it still works...

Very important to keep your reference documentation on hand and up to date. As relevant today as it was when it was printed.

I'm thinking of pulling this Franklin out and doing some more fiddling with it. It really was my favorite 'old sk00l' machine. I spent a lot of time writing code and playing games on my Ace 1000 back in the day. What do you think I should do with it? youtu.be/JGCXEFWXs-8?...

After a long hard day at work it’s always good to go out and spend some time at the local bar with your close friends, the Williamses. Joust. Robotron. Sinistar… all the greats. Chillin at Freeplay, Worcester, MA.

Someone on Reddit was asking about AT&T computers, and I mentioned I have my lovely 3b1 right next to me. So here's a picture of it! At some point I'll do a full video on it - it's been modded to use a solid state drive, but other than that, runs just like it did in 1985. Just faster.

This is cool! The USMint will be releasing a dollar coin in 2026 that has the Cray-1 Supercomputer on it! The Cray-1! "Wisconsin’s coin honors the Cray-1 Supercomputer, one of the world’s fastest and most successful computers of the late 1970s and early '80s." www.yahoo.com/news/article...

Oh yeah. If you're going to work with old home computers, ya gotta have a nice old tv to work with. Thanks to a friend up at the makerspace, this is now mine. Now I just need an RF modulator ("A what?") #tv #vintagecomputing #videogames #crt

Your morning retro tastiness.

Can someone explain to me why the Bluesky app on iPad looks like this when in landscape mode? I feel like I’m running an iPhone emulator. Nothing like using up literally 1/3 of the screen. Can’t even be bothered with multiple columns?

Here’s a little excerpt from my visit to VCF East earlier this year. The KENBAK-1 is considered by some to he the worlds first “personal computer”. I’d never seen one before! The world's.first home computer from 1971? The KENBAK-1 youtube.com/shorts/q8Aig...

Vintage Computing Nerd looks at WAR GAMES youtu.be/p-B1clodRJ4 This video was like 3.5 months in the making and is easily one of my more ambitious. Fighting the rights engine in YT wasn’t helping either. But finally it’s cleared to share. Enjoy!