That is all.
Update: Decided to start soldering. Finished chapter 2, steps through 5, of the Mimeo assembly and bring up guide (PDF).
Now that is all for today. Tomorrow’s plan: install twelve 16-pin sockets in row A, and we’ll see how I feel about doing row B’s fourteen 16-pin sockets. It’ll be a total of 42 sockets to finish chapter 2, step 6, although I’m definitely not doing all 42 sockets tomorrow.
Just thought I’d throw a quick post up… I’m going to be starting a Mimeo build very soon. (For those unfamiliar with the Mimeo, it is a (rather faithful) clone of the original Apple-1, Apple’s first computer. I got to use the real thing at KansasFest 2013, thanks to Chris from Chicago, and caught the bug.)
What all have I bought so far…
What I still need to buy…
I’ll be posting more status updates as I make progress along the path to owning a computer 1976-style.
The other day, I saw that Bard’s Tale for Android had an Apple IIGS emulator hiding in it. Given that the game was $2.99, and I have an HP TouchPad running Android handy, I decided to grab it, just to see what was going on with the emulator.
Here’s my initial analysis, in the form of a YouTube video (sorry for the poor quality):
Bard’s Tale (Android) embedded Apple IIGS emulator – YouTube
So, now that I had identified what the emulator actually was, I decided to go for a deeper look. Continue reading “Bard’s Tale for Android IIGS emulator analysis… and then some”
This is a thought that I’ve actually had for a while now, but I thought I’d put it in a blog entry.
There’s plenty of signs, in my opinion, that within 5 years, there will be no more Mac OS, or it will be a niche OS for developers and such. Instead, iOS will be Apple’s main platform. And, Apple’s target market will embrace this change.
So, you’re asking, what evidence do I have for this happening? Read after the break, and you’ll see my evidence. Some of this is sourced from rumors, but some isn’t. It’s not in any particular order, either – just because I have it listed earlier doesn’t mean it’s more important. Continue reading “Mac OS is the new Apple II, iOS is the new Mac OS”
Recently, revolts in Tunisia and Egypt have caused the governments of those nations to shut off access to the Internet, to try to prevent protest groups from communicating.
Also, various politicians in the US have been proposing an “Internet kill switch” that would disable access to the Internet, if our infrastructure is threatened. Of course, there’s no checks and balances on that…
In addition, major ISPs in Canada are forcing smaller ISPs into a nasty “usage based billing” scheme that threatens to ruin the Internet for Canada. Of course, US ISPs are seeing if they can get away with it.
So, in light of that, I think it’d be a good idea to set up infrastructure to work around any potential shutdowns or restrictions – both by the government and by ISPs. Continue reading “Communications networks, Tunisia, Egypt, Lieberman, UBB, and you.”
So, I just got my latest acquisition, an IBM PC Server 500 System/390, running.
Added some retrocomputing stuff to my “collection,” so thought I’d post about it.
We’ll start with the smallest machine and work our way up. I bought a replacement eMate 300 (mine died in a fall, and I literally cannot find where the component came off the motherboard to replace it,) but this one has the RAM/flash upgrade – faster, and has a useful amount of storage.
Next up is an upgrade to my IIGS – a ZipGSX, this one with all of the card upgrades, and running at 10 MHz with 32 kiB cache. I’ve got parts on the way to make that either 12 or 12.5 MHz and 64 kiB cache, though. Having an accelerator makes a world of difference with performance – things happen on the desktop almost instantly, GNO/ME works significantly faster, Spectrum becomes much more practical for telnet use, etc., etc., etc.
Finally, something I’ve been thinking about getting for a while, and has been in the works for a couple months… I posted a request on P370-L asking if anyone would be willing to sell a Personal/370 Adapter/A, which was IBM’s first “mainframe-on-a-card” for PCs. Pretty quickly, I got an e-mail offering a PC Server 500 System/390 8641-MYC, which runs a much more modern version of that card (compatible with ESA/390 software, whereas the Personal/370 is only compatible with 370/XA,) for cost of shipping.
It arrived yesterday, and it looks like I’ve got a project on my hands, bringing it up. Some of the MCA cards came loose in shipping, and need to be reseated. Here’s the specs on what I’ve got, though:
Pentium 90 (all PC Server 500s have this,) 32 MiB of RAM
Dual SCSI RAID controllers (each with two channels)
Dual LANStreamer (not gonna be that useful, I don’t have Token Ring)
Two ethernet cards (that will be useful)
Some XGA card, I think
System/390 processor card
96 MiB S/390 RAM card (the most for this configuration)
14 hard drives totalling 159.3 GB
Yeah, this will be a fun one to set up. I plan on running VM on it, and maybe playing with the other IBM mainframe OSes as well.
So, I guess it’d be a good idea to blog about my first time at KansasFest, an annual Apple II convention held at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, MO.
(For the benefit of any readers of this blog that don’t know… I have absolutely no problem with the Apple that made the Apple II, and as I grew up with an Apple //c and a couple Apple II clones, I kinda have to be a fan of that Apple. 😉 The Apple that I have a problem with is Apple, Inc.)
Due to the length of this post, I’ll use the intro feature, so everything else is after the break. Continue reading “KansasFest 2010: ACTION RETROCOMPUTING CONFERENCE”
Today, we’ll have a more historical look at Apple’s evil actions.
In 1977, Apple released the Apple ][, the refinement of Steve Wozniak’s engineering into a more complete computer. This machine and its wide family of descendants were extremely popular for many uses, and were used in many schools across the US.
Prior to the 1980s, computers in the hobbyist market, what Apple knew, tended to last for a couple years on the market, and then were pushed out by the latest and greatest. Backwards compatibility wasn’t understood. So, Apple figured that by 1980, they would be dead in the water if they stuck with the Apple ][, hence a project to create both a short-term and a long-term successor, aimed at the business market.
These machines were the Apple /// and Lisa, both colossal failures in the marketplace, for different reasons. However, Apple decided to actively neglect the Apple ][ while developing the Apple /// – despite the Apple ][ Plus racking up massive profits for them, and funding all of the projects meant to kill it.
That’s not what’s evil, that’s just them not knowing better.
The Mac was eventually the ultimate successor to the Apple II line, although it had to push the wildly popular Apple II out of the way first. So, again, Apple started neglecting the Apple II, not giving it upgrades or promotion that it deserved.
Here’s where it got evil. Apple, knowing they were trying to kill the Apple II, started releasing the Apple II Guide. This was a series of guides listing all sorts of information about the Apple II, with statements that Apple had no plans to cancel the Apple II, to reassure customers. Problem is, they did that in the 1992 edition, right before cancelling all Apple II projects (and knowing they were going to do it.)
Way to abandon your loyal customers, Apple.
I’ll admit that I wasn’t around for this, but I’ve read a lot about it. If I’ve gotten some of my facts wrong, please comment, and I’ll correct it.
No specific source for today.
I’m probably going to piss a few people off with this, but it’s something that’s been rattling around in my head for a while, and I wanted to get it posted somewhere. This might not even make much sense. 😉 Also, please note that I’m not knocking your favorite OS when I classify it as a zombie OS.
So, what is a zombie OS? A zombie OS is an OS that “should have” died, but has been kept alive and at least somewhat up to date by its community. Or, maybe it really did die, but its community has brought it back. (By “should have” died, I don’t mean that the OS deserved to die, just that the situation that it was in meant that it would have died if it weren’t for the community.) Either way, it’s now “undead,” if you will.
Most zombie OSes are now considered hobby OSes – OSes that most people play with for fun, and then reboot into a more mainstream OS (or switch to a more mainstream computer) for daily work. That said, there are often many die-hard users that use such an OS as their primary OS. At one time, most of these OSes were commercially sold, but their developer has abandoned the OS, or has gone out of business. That doesn’t mean that there’s not a new owner commercially selling it to the hobby market – in fact, in many cases, that is the case.
Why use a zombie OS? Quite a few reasons. For starters, nostalgia – you may have used the OS before, you liked it, so why not play around with it nowadays? That happens with a lot of dead OSes, too – OSes that have truly been abandoned, and the community around it exists solely to have fun with stuff they used years ago. Alternately, maybe you’ve always been using it, it fits your needs the best, or it has some features that you really like, so why stop now? Or, maybe you’re interested in using alternatives to the mainstream OSes, and as zombie OSes were usually well supported in their past, there’s usually more support available for them than for OSes that began as hobby OSes.
So, what is there to know about them? Continue reading “Zombie OSes – OSes that aren’t dead, but they aren’t the most alive, either”