All posts by The RCR Crew

RCR Episode 115: The great acquisitions of 2015

Panelists: Jack Nutting (hosting), Earl Evans, Paul Hagstrom, and Michael Mulhern

Host’s Topic: The great acquisitions of 2015

Looking back on 2015, what was your favorite retrocomputing acquisition?

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RCR Episode 114: Internet of dumb things

Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting) and Jack Nutting (not hosting)

Host’s Topic: Internet of Dumb Things

Are our 8-bit programming skills going to be relevant again? In this upcoming Internet of Things world, underpowered is back. The IoT and the return of 8-bit computing

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RCR Episode 113: Let’s sum it up

Panelists: Earl Evans (hosting), Ken Gagne, Paul Hagstrom, and Michael Mulhern

Host’s Topic: Let’s sum it up

Your non-retro enthusiast friend asks “why do you collect, play with or learn about old computers? Fifty words or less! Well, after that challenge, I’m sure we’ll find some more words. But can we give the “elevator speech” on what the hobby is about?

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RCR Episode 112: How has the retro scene changed in five years?

Panelists: David Greelish (hosting), Earl Evans, Paul Hagstrom, and Michael Mulhern

Host’s Topic: How has the retro scene changed in five years?

How have things changed for us personally, in the communities? What hasn’t changed? What should have changed?

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RCR Episode 111: 3D printing

Panelists: Michael Mulhern (hosting), Paul Hagstrom (vice hosting), and Charles Mangin (not hosting)

Host’s Topic: 3D Printing

Perhaps your keyboard broke, or you’re missing a drive door. Perhaps you have a Raspberry Pi without a retrocomputer-shaped enclosure. Is 3D printing the answer? If so, where do you start?

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RCR Episode 110: Lottery

Panelists: Earl Evans (hosting), Paul Hagstrom, Michael Mulhurn, Jack Nutting, and Carrington Vanston

Host’s Topic: Lottery

You won the lottery! Now, money is no object. You can pick one – just one – vintage computer system with all the fixings. Which one do you add to your collection, and why?

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RCR Episode 109: User Groups

Panelists: Michael Mulhurn (hosting), Ken Gagne, Paul Hagstrom, and Jack Nutting

Host’s Topic: User Groups – Are they still Important to the Retro Enthusiasts Experience?

In this age of the internet, are face-to-face User Group Meetings as important as they used to be? Do you go (or try to go) to regular User Group Meetings?

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RCR Episode 108: Funding retrocomputing projects

Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Ken Gagne, and Jack Nutting

Host’s Topic: Funding retrocomputing projects

When you get a new idea for something related to retrocomputing (new electronics, new cases, coffee table books)—and it’s a great idea—but you can’t fund it all yourself, what are the options? Thinking back on such projects, what seems to you like it’s been most successful? What would you try (or never try again)?

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RCR Episode 107: The end of retrocomputing

Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), and Earl Evans

Host’s Topic: The end of retrocomputing

We here on the speaking end of these microphones have a pretty similar timelines with computers, having been young and eager when computers were just entering the “personal” era. No doubt a part of the current interest in re-exploring that time is nostalgia. Will people who were 10 in 2003 (Bart Simpson aside) play around with old Dell Windows boxes when the mid 2030s roll around? Did people who were 10 in 1920 seek out old standing mixers to play with in the 1960s? The time we focus on is generally the point when the technology was new and changing and finding itself, isn’t that going to be the time “retrocomputing” will always focus on? What for you lies outside the bounds of the hobby interest—too new, too widely available, too closed, too …? to “feel like” retrocomputing? It’s not about who can play or what anyone calls it, but what personally is the endpoint of your own interest?

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RCR Episode 106: Second chances

Panelists: Earl Evans (hosting), Ken Gagne, Paul Hagstrom, and Carrington Vanston

Host’s Topic: Second chances

If we had a time machine – What do you wish you’d done “back in the day” in the computing world, and is there a chance you can catch up and do it now in the retrocomputing hobby?

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