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#vintagecomputing

19 posts17 participants1 post today

Gotta love good ol' 1-bit pixel dithering (ordered, Floyd-Steinberg, etc.) 💚

𝙈𝙖𝙘𝙋𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙩 𝘼𝙧𝙩 𝙁𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙈𝙞𝙙-80𝙨 𝙎𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙇𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙨 𝙂𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩 𝙏𝙤𝙙𝙖𝙮

blog.decryption.net.au/posts/m

decryption's blog · MacPaint Art From The Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today40 years later and the art people painstaking made in MacPaint on their little Macs still amazes me.

We should launch a Europe-wide team effort to collectively acquire this incredible #Macintosh collection—and then thoughtfully distribute it across the continent, making sure it finds the right hands in every corner of Europe.

catawiki.com/en/l/96419202-app

CatawikiApple Vintage Mega Collection - Museum worthy - 80's - 00's - Macintosh - In original boxImportant note regarding the contents: Please note that not all boxes contain their devices. For example, the large box of empty iPhone (6/7/8) packaging, and the Macintosh SE boxes do not contain the computers themselves, but instead hold other Apple items. This applies similarly to other items such as the Performa Plus Display, Macintosh IIsi, Workgroup Server 6150, iMac G3 (tray-loading, blue), and Mac Pro. this has been clearly indicated in the photos. All other boxes do contain their original and matching devices. Current Storage Space Dimensions: The collection currently occupies a storage room of approximately 3.70 meters deep, 4.70 meters wide, and 3.00 meters high. This gives you an idea of the overall volume and scale of the collection. Please note: Everything visible in the photos is included in the sale, except for the storage shelves. Due to the age of the equipment, functionality cannot be guaranteed. However, all internal batteries have been professionally removed to prevent corrosion, helping preserve the hardware in excellent condition. Pickup & Logistics: Pickup is possible at the storage location in Beverwijk, the Netherlands. The collection is located on the second floor of a commercial building, accessible by a freight elevator (max. 1500 kg). The site features a loading dock suitable for trucks. Smaller vans (max height: 260 cm) can drive inside the building. Free transport carts are available for loading assistance.
Continued thread

@rasteri @TechTangents speaking of #storage: A main annoyance I found is that whilst there are #IDE -> #SATA adaptors that can just be plonk'd directly onto the mainboard, they are always either single-port or these weird "bidirectional" ones which means instead of a jumper/switch to say what side is the drive have two SATA ports and can only use one at the time.

  • There seems to be no IDE -> 2x SATA ports with like "master"/"slave" ports for SATA devices.

I know why these adaptors exist, so that there needs to be no manual printed (silkscreen explains everything) and only 1 part be made regardless if IDE-> SATA or SATA->IDE.

Still doesn't make it less annoying.

  • Maybe someone wants to take a look at the "stupider" IDE->SATA Adaptors and consider designing an IDE -> Dual-SATA adaptor?

I guess @rasteri and other #PC104 users can now get the beloved #ISA-#USB #Flashdrive card with native PC104 pinout to stack on boards.

  • Not that this is much of an engineering feat, as PC/104 is just a different form factor of ISA, but still nifty for #legacy / #industrial setups that may want to have more flexibility re: data storage.

I wounder if anyone got those ISA-USB controllers to work on #Linux distros tho.

  • Obviously they're slow (according to @TechTangents in the realm of a 1x CD-ROM drive) and not bootable, but still useful for systems without native USB ports.

I sadly don't have any system with ISA or PC/104 at hand (gotta build one i.e. #tiny486) so I can't test it anyway, but maybe a future revision of the #WeeCee may benefit from such an option (which I think also has the potential to be a good "bridge machine" for people dealing with legacy / industrial systems...

over the years i've become more interested in game/software ephemera than the software itself.

for example, few people under 20 have grown up with a local computer store or brick & mortar store that sells boxed games. biking over to the computer store to line up, pay cash, and buy a game you've been saving for months has become an alien experience.

a few days ago i bought some old PC boxed games from a guy that had them in storage for decades. of all of them, i was the least excited about Millionaire. it looked like the kind of lazy portware that probably started its life as a text simulation on the Apple II and made its way to every godforsaken architecture.

tucked away on the last page of the manual was an absolute treasure: the original VISA transaction record for the day the game was bought, for $52.88, on July 20, 1985 at the Real Canadian Superstore in Edmonton, AB, Canada. This is before Canada had the goods and services tax (GST), and when Alberta was abbreviated to Alta.

the owner stapled it on to the warranty registration card, just in case he had to return it or RMA it some day.

Superstore #1572 is still there, in the north end. while i knew they had always sold video games, i had no idea that they sold IBM XT software way back in 1985.

(for anyone not in Canada, Superstore is a national discount grocery chain.)

even better, no one under the age of 30 will have seen these credit card transaction records. they were made using a "credit card imprinter" - a sliding mechanism that pressed the card number through several layers of invoice and carbon copy paper. The invoice papers were usually two or three layered - a white and pink copy for the business, and a yellow copy went to the customer.