Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Jack Nutting, and Carrington Vanston

Host’s Topic: Choices of a New Generation

Host’s Topic: There has been much discussion lately among retro enthusiasts about introducing the “next generation” (i.e. our kids) to the computers and software of our youth. If the machines we love are going to live on after we die, it will have to be in the hands of people who never had them growing up, and therefore have no real nostalgia for them. My question is this: What were your parents nostalgic for, that they tried to instill in you a nostalgia for? Did it work?

Retro Computing News:

• ESA deems modding retro games for preservation is illegal
• Jimmy Maher on the “68000 wars”
  • 1st half
  • 2nd half
  • 3rd half
  • The Future Was Here
• Wander (1974), lost mainframe game found
  • Wander source code
  • Terry Winograd’s SHRDLU
• Kaboom! game released for Apple IIgs
• George at InfoAge/VCF East X
• VCF SE 3.0
• Steve Furber on Computerphile, designing the ARM
  • The Path toward ARM and BBC B

Vintage Computer Commercial:

• IBM 5100

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Retrory memory game

Auction Picks:

• Carrington: Stratos SE/30 Dual Slot PDS Adapter
• Jack: “Atari-style” USB joystick with blue LED lighting effects
• Paul: Apple-Vision Source
• Paul: Letter from Bruce Tognazzini
• Paul: Three-Dimensional Microcomputer Graphics
  • Scan of what appears to be this manual

Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X – link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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

Host’s Topic: Programming tools

One of the things we like to do with old computers is program them. With modern computers, running editors and emulators, we can do some things a lot more easily than we could when dealing directly with the classic machines. Do you have any favorite tools and tips for doing this sort of thing?

Retro Computing News:

• Apple2BuildPipeline
• WUDSN
• cc65
• OCM – Oldenburger Computer Museum
• The PiDP-8/I – Recreating the 1968 PDP-8/I
• Restoration of a PDP-11/04, running CAPS-11 operating system and BASIC, loading from cassette tape
  • video
• How to turn your whole car into a vintage driving game
• Matt Parker: The Imitation Archive – a teaser
  • talk announcement, with photo
• 8088MPH demo on IBM PC
• French Touch demos on Apple II
• Moleman 2 movie
• KansasFest 2015
• VCF East X
  • Guru Meditation team gets their Amigas ready
• VCF SE 3.0
• OzKfest
• ANTIC interviews Al Alcorn
• Turing Notebook
  • controversy over the UK granting of export licence
• Apple II Watch
• Designing an Apple II on an Arduino Uno

Vintage Computer Commercial:

• Alan Alda on typing and Atari

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Retro classic computer mug

Auction Picks:

• Earl: Electronika BK0010-01 PDP-11 compatible
• Earl: Microsoft FoxPro 2.6 for MS-DOS
• Jack: Vintage Retro Computer Bookends
• Michael: Atari belt buckle
• Michael: Atari cap
• Michael: Battlezone button
• Paul: Commodore Power Monitor
• Paul: IBM 5155
• Paul: Amdek Color-I

Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X – link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Panelists: Carrington Vanston (hosting), Paul Hagstrom, and Jack Nutting

Host’s Topic: Teaching Old Data New Tricks

Host’s Topic: What can/should/do you do with the data you find on newly acquired vintage computers?

Retro Computing News:

• The Magnavox Odyssey on What’s My Line?
• Jeff Minter v. zombie Atari re: Tempest
• Doctor Who, Prime Computer ads
• 12-minute Mandelbrot: fractals on an IBM 1401 mainframe
• Ready Player one picked up
• Chris Osborne assembles MC-10 128K RAM kit
• How One Man Invented the Console Adventure Game
• The Interface Experience: Forty Years of Personal Computing

Vintage Computer Commercial:

• Prime Computer

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Retrode 2 USB game cart adaptor

Auction Picks:

• Carrington: Bob Bishop’s Dung Beetles for Apple II (sealed)
• Carrington: TRS-80 Mega Bug cartridge for Tandy CoCo
• Jack: An incredibly clean and shiny Atari 800XL plus printer and disk drive
• Paul: Laser 200 set
• Paul: Coco 2 x2, box, cartridges
• Paul: Some cables, from clean sale, to be delivered someday

Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X – link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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

Host’s Topic: Printers, with Lasers

Host’s Topic: 30 years ago HP and Apple released their first Laser printers, both based on a Canon engine. When did you first use a laser printer instead of an impact or thermal printer? What was the drove you to use lasers, and how hard/easy were they to use?

• How Steve Jobs helped launch the desktop publishing revolution
• Senator Obama on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me

Retro Computing News:

• Warren Robinett (Adventure) and Howard Scott Warshaw (Yars Revenge) postmortems at GDC
• Kickstarter: Newly molded Commodore 64c cases from original molds
• Ancient Atari goodies from Videogame History Museum
• BBC Micro Bit
  • BBC Micro Bit and Colossus
  • the original BBC Micro
• Al Lowe, one Sierra history
• [Digitized VHS marketing tapes]
  • ComputerLand Business Computing System
  • Apple 1988 marketing video: The Mainstreet Workgroup
  • Apple 1988 marketing video: The Macintosh Advantage
  • Apple 1988 marketing video: Hambrecht & Quist
  • ComputerLand/Apple “Moving Up”

Vintage Computer Commercial:

• ComputerLand/Apple “Moving Up”

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• ZX Spectrum Keyboard

Auction Picks:

• Jack: Atari trackball controller “for parts”
• Michael: Witty Mouse
• Michael: Sinclair QL Tool Kit
• Michael: //c Playing Cards
• Paul: Broken Apple Cats

Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X – link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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

Host’s Topic: The gear left behind outweighs the needs of the few, or the one

There will come a time when whatever we have in our collection becomes somebody else’s responsibility. What should we be doing? Those of us collecting now have certainly all seen this happen, when we pick up piles of treasure from someone clearing out dearly departed grampa’s incomprehensible stuff from the attic, or from the lady down the street who did Apples in her garage. Is there a time to downsize? Information to write down for others? Are there organizations to contact for assistance, or should there be?

Retro Computing News:

• John Carmack teaches his kids programming on an Apple IIc
  • Like kung fu training in the primitive wilderness
• Cargo-Bot for iOS
• PDP8 emulator in progress for iPad (Codea/Lua)
• Sir Clive Sinclair unimpressed with modern computing
• The machines that defined British computing
• John Von Neumann documentary
• Inventive Britain stamp, Colossus
• IMAGEDISK
• 22DISK

Vintage Computer Commercial:

• 1981 Magnavox Odyssey2
• Dimension PBX computer at Wisconsin Telephone

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• 8080 Octal Code Card

Auction Picks:

• Carrington: The Journey Inside: The Computer Intel Education Kit
  • About The Journey Inside: The Computer kits
• Carrington: Complete Set of Apple II and Macintosh Technical Notes
• Carrington: Every Sinclair brand ZX81 software title
• Earl: Oak Technology VGA Monitor Adapter for XT/AT
• Paul: Best of Creative Computing vol. 1
  • May/June 1975 Creative Computing at archive.org
  • Dave Haynie and Amiga 2000

Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X – link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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

Host’s Topic: Radio Shack Memories

Radio Shack has filed for bankruptcy, and we take this opportunity to talk about times when their history and ours coincided.

Retro Computing News:

• Radio shack store closure list
• Adios Radio Shack photo(shop)
• The original 1978 source code of Microsoft BASIC for 6502
• Analysis of Microsoft BASIC source code
• 16 pieces of classic software whose code is now accessible
• Atari Christmas 1981 internal video
• WITCH-E project
  • RCR #39
  • Two tonne Witch computer gets reactivated
• Raspberry Pi 2
• PiPlay
• A2SERVER, etc.
• BBC: How much is a retro-computer worth?
• Commodore 65 sold for $22,862 on eBay
• DiscoRunner BASIC interpreter
• Underworld Ascendant
• Orion Trail
• Oregon Trail movie trailer
• KansasFest 2015
• Voltera circuit board printer
• OSH Park
• Snap Circuits
• Asteroids: Outpost

Vintage Computer Commercial:

• TRS Model III

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• New Radio Shack Robotics Starter Kit

Auction Picks:

• Carrington: Very white Apple IIc on eBay
• Carrington: Enchanter Trilogy for Apple II
• Carrington: Apple II wall mount, maybe, sorta
• Paul: Curated TRS-80 collection
• Paul: TRS-80 Model 4P, b/w screen
• Paul: TRS-80 Model 4P, green screen
• Paul: Model 100 bar code reader
• Earl: Radio Shack Tandy TRS-80 Model 1 Home Computer Includes Expansion Bay & Printer
• Ken: GoldenEye soap
• Jack: Vintage Radio Shack 150-in-1 electronics kit

Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X – link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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

Host’s Topic: Are we cheating cheaters?

Flash storage devices, Internet modems, multi-cartridges with entire software libraries, super RAM add-ons, LCD flat panels – what’s so retro about all that?

Retro Computing News:

• Alan Turing’s hidden manuscripts to be auctioned
• New CD by Tony Longworth “Have You Played Atari Today?”
• Loading BASIC onto an Altair from paper tape
• 6502 Home Computer – A homebuilt MOS 6502 based microcomputer system
• Bob Bishop’s computer — saved!
• Google’s “DeepMind” AI dominates old Atari games
• The untold story of the invention of the game cartridge
• Retrochallenge 2015/01
  • Michael Sternberg’s Structris port
  • MMPHOSIS and Apple II VBL
  • Bob Bishop, “Have an Apple Split” Softalk, Oct 1982
• TUAW closing
• OzKfest 2015
• Statisfaction, Apple II and football stats
• CoCoFest

Vintage Computer Commercial:

• John Cleese, comparing Compaq Portable II to a 22-pound fish

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Captain Jules’s Useless Box

Auction Picks:

• Carrington: Sealed Might & Magic II (B&W version) for Mac
• Carrington: Sealed Macwars for 128K Mac
• Paul: Macintosh Portable
• Michael: John Madden (American) Football for the Amiga
• Earl: Machine Language Monitor Cartridge for Commodore VIC-20
• Earl: Hasbro Think-a-Tron
• Ken: Virtual Boy
• Jack: Indus GT disk drive

Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X – link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Panelists: Michael Mulhern (hosting), Ken Gagne (eventually), Paul Hagstrom, Jack Nutting, and Carrington Vanston

Host’s Topic: Books!

Books! Do we need them for our retro addiction hobby? Are PDFs better, or do you prefer dead tree flesh? How do you store and use them? Can you have too many? (No! I need more books) Reprints, new editions, or are you after the 30+ year old originals? And what are the best places to get even more?

Retro Computing News:

• AmigaOS
• Commodore at the CES … thirty years ago
• Happy 40th Birthday 8080!
• MS-DOS games on archive.org
• Modern slim take on the original Mac design
  • Video of Curved Mac
• Dial-up Internet is Dead
  • Dial-up plans in the US
  • FoxValley plans
• Commodore Vegas Expo (CommVEX) v11, July 2015, Las Vegas
• You Are Now Earthbound convention in Tucson July 18–19
  • Buy Earthbound
• ANSI parallax scrolling
• Sinclair Spectrum Vega manufacturing site selected
  • Local news report on the selection
  • Spectrum Vega Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign
  • Tasword Two the movie
• Commodore 64, world record sales
• PAX East (featuring Ken’s “Reboot Your Roots” panel)
  • AGD Interactive versions of King’s Quest games
• Apple Graphics & Arcade Design book
• SIO2SD for Atari 8-bit

Vintage Computer Commercial:

• Microbee

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Red Shirt Eau de Toilette

Auction Picks:

• Carrington: MAC: Mechanical Analog Computer for flight simulation
• Carrington: Sealed NES Stadium Events
  • NES Stadium Events found at a yard sale
• Paul: Электроника БК (Electronica) BK-0010-01, PDP-11 compatible Russian home computer
• Paul: TRS-80 I/III/CoCo Plug’n Power controller
  • More complete, pricier controller auction
• Michael: Commodore C16
  • Another C16 auction in US
• Jack: Boy Scouts of America Computer-Knowledge badge

Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X – link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Panelists: Carrington Vanston (hosting), Ken Gagne, Paul Hagstrom, Michael Mulhern, and Jack Nutting

Host’s Topic: Retro Resolutions: Looking Forward To Looking Backward

Each new year brings a fresh opportunity to fail at something you love. Do you have any retro computing goals for the coming year? Projects to start, programs to write, events to attend, bugs to de-bug? What do you hope to have accomplished retro-wise by this time next year?

Retro Computing News:

• 6502 emulator written in LISP
• Port of Quake to an oscilloscope
• article about VALDOCS and Rising Star
• HP-25C/-21/-33c hardware emulation (kit/assembled)
  • Demo of HP-25C assembled kit
• RCSRI Restores a Cray:
  • Retro-Computing Society of Rhode Island
  • Cray restoration write-up
• RetroChallenge 2015/01
• C64 BASIC ROM dissassembled
• Luminaries we lost in 2014
• Atari Fit
• Photo Tour of Bletchly Park
• EEVBlog Lisa 2 teardown
• It Came from the Desert for Amiga
• Retro Shadowgate
• Doomed: The Embers of Amiga FPS (mini-documentary)
• HighRetroGamelord89

Vintage Computer Commercial:

• How to get your dad online … in 1994

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Floppy Disk Pillow

Auction Picks:

• Carrington: Captain Goodnight for Apple II
• Michael: Rocky Horror Show game for C64
• Paul: THINK Pad
• Paul: Olivetti P602
• Ken: ThunderChopper!
• Jack: Axlon “Andy” Robot
• Paul: Axlon Datalink terminal

Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X – link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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

Host’s Topic: Downsizing

You’ve got the downsizing bug. You used to have spare room and money. And now you don’t have either. What to do? How to prioritize? Where does it go? How did we get into this mess? Will you ever get to using X anyway?

Retro Computing News:

• Laser 128 had a 2-slot expansion chassis
• Isolated from 1999 to 2006 with only a 486
• Woz in Oz
• Apple-1 computer sale $365,000
• Assembly Lines
• Carte Blanche II coming
• Dr. Dobbs closing down
• Altair 8800 retrospective:
  • Developing the Concept of the Personal Computer
  • The Birth of the Microprocessor
  • PCs That Paved the Way for the Altair
• Softalk for the IBM PC

Vintage Computer Commercial:

• IBM PS/2 commercial with MAS*H cast

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• I.O. Silver for iOS (and soon for Android)

Auction Picks:

• Earl: IBM PS/2 Model 70
• Paul: No-slot clock
  • Alt: HP 9000/236
• Michael: Microbee

Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X – link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed