Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Tim Colegrove, Blake Patterson, and Carrington Vanston

Topic: The BYTE Shop

We chat with Tim Colegrove, who has just opened The BYTE Shop, a computer history museum and electronics repair shop in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. We discuss his collection, his journey, plans, and hopes for bringing history and inspiration to those who visit.

Topic/Feedback Links:

• The BYTE Shop Jamaica Plain [Boston], MA
• The original Defender source code (Eugene Jarvis) (GitHub)

Retro Computing News:

• BuGS v2.0.1 (Apple IIgs game) Released
• Use the Print Shop online
• Alternative History: what if Apple had partnered with Xerox in the 1980s

Vintage Computer commercial:

• Defender (Atari)
• Atari 1040ST: Myth

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Classic Apple Hardware calendar

Auction Picks:

• Blake:
  • COMMODORE 64 / 128 Wifi Modem
  • NEC PC M580 teletex terminal
  • See also: @foone’s discussion of the NEC PC M580
• Carrington:
  • Fortran board game
  • See also: Fortran board game at Computer History Museum
  • See also: Fortran board game at Board Game Geek
• Paul:
  • Maccessories swivel
  • Apple DuoDisk
  • Taxan TV tuner

Feedback/Discussion:

• @rcrpodcast on Twitter
• Vintage Computer Forum
• RCR Podcast on Facebook
• Throwback Network
• Throwback Network on Facebook

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

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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

Topic: Commodore 1541GS

We continue yet again a conversation about computers as they arrived in schools, but also spend some time marveling at a Commodore 1541 drive that also produces music and video.

Topic/Feedback Links:

• Handheld 64 (Gameboy-sized C64, Hackaday)
• PCBs to build your Handheld 64
• Color covers for your Handheld 64
• Mattias’ Patreon (creator of Handheld 64, Tube64, etc.)
• Tube64
• Modular64

Retro Computing News:

• Over 40 Years Ago, It Was Possible To Download Video Games Over The Radio
• Freespin: A C64 demo without the C64 (YouTube)
• Freespin project page
• Fresspin video explanation
• Bradley the Parts Seller (Vice)
• Interview: Brad Koda of Best Electronics (ANTIC: The Atari 8-bit Podcast)
• The Wild Spread of Drug Wars
• KansasFest 2021 schedule

Vintage Computer commercial:

• Commodore mouse

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Floppytable

Auction Picks:

• Carrington:
  • Famous red powerbook
  • Beehive B100 terminal
• Earl:
  • Ashton Tate MultiMate Word Processing
• Paul:
  • Happy Forth of July (Handic Forth cartridge, C64)
  • After Dark for Windows
  • Amiga 500 RGB to HDMI adapter
  • General Magic DataRover 840
  • Another General Magic DataRover 840
  • See also: What Magic Cap should have been all along (DataRover 840 review)
  • See also: Data Rover 840 at Buxton connection
  • See also: General Magic (The Movie)
  • Blue SCSI
  • See also: Places to get Blue SCSI
  • See also: Blue SCSI on GitHub
• Quinn:
  • Amiga 3000 prototype
  • Amiga PC XT Sidecar

Feedback/Discussion:

• @rcrpodcast on Twitter
• Vintage Computer Forum
• RCR Podcast on Facebook
• Throwback Network
• Throwback Network on Facebook

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

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Quinn Dunki, and Carrington Vanston

Topic: 18-bit Space Computers

We continue a conversation about computers in school, but also mention an 18-bit space computer along the way.

Topic/Feedback Links:

• Crosscountry Canada
• Quazar’s history of the Sam Coupé
• ICON computer (old-computers.com)
• ICON computer (wikipedia)
• Reddit thread about ICON
• Growin’ Up 80s, talking about ICON (podcast)

Retro Computing News:

• NASA struggles to fix Hubble Space Telescope’s 1980s computer
• Multi-platform floppy
• A2IO
• Reactive Micro announces licensed CFFA3000
• ASCIIdent
• Mockingboard 4c+
• List of Mockingboard software
• Vince Weaver’s ZX Spectrum (PT3) tracker for Mockingboard

Vintage Computer commercial:

• IBM PS/2

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Sam Coupé shirt

Auction Picks:

• Carrington: Entex MAC from 1980
  • See also: Entex at Electronic Plastic
  • Bungie for charity
  • RIP PCjr button
• Paul: TI 99/4a in box
  • See also: TI 99/4a turns 40
  • Tapuino in case for C64/VIC20/PET
  • Quadram Quadlink
  • IXO telecomputing system TC-102

Feedback/Discussion:

• @rcrpodcast on Twitter
• Vintage Computer Forum
• RCR Podcast on Facebook
• Throwback Network
• Throwback Network on Facebook

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

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Michael Mulhern, Jack Nutting, Blake Patterson, and Carrington Vanston

Topic: Lasers Smoking in the PET Room

We start a conversation about computers in school. For many of us, computers were only just becoming available in our school years, so we consider the access this provided (limited though it often was).

Topic/Feedback Links:

• My earliest memories of microcomputing
• Remembering an Atari lab in Hampton, VA
• BBC Archive: Infocom feature (1986)
• P.R.E.S.T.A.B.A. ported to the MC-10
• MC-10 emulator (pick PRESTAVB cassette and type RUN)

Retro Computing News:

• AmigaOS 3.2 for all Classic Amigas released
• Creating Chinese computer fonts
• The Little Book of Sound Chips (Volume 1)
• Hibernated 1. The Director’s Cut.
• #ponyinformation
• Hibernated 1 (physical, SAM Coupé version)
• SAM Coupé on eBay
• SAM Coupé overview (YouTube, Re:Enthused)
• SD card and Ethernet adapter for the SAM Coupé
• Quazar (home of SAM Revival magazine )
• Review of SAM Revival magazines (YouTube, TJ Ferreira)
• Sim Coupé
• World of SAM
• SAM Coupé Champion Collection
• No Quarter, episode 78: Sorry Charlie.

Vintage Computer commercials:

• Miracle Workers, season 3 trailer
• PRIME Computer

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Radio Shack shirt

Auction Picks:

• Blake: Mac 128K, probably
• Carrington: iCEBOX
  • See also: Hybrid Net Appliance Hits Market
• Michael: Guns of Fort Defiance
• Paul: Prince of Persia for the SAM Coupé

Closing notes:

• Roberta and Ken Williams making first game together in over 20 years
• People’s Republic of Interactive Fiction
• Michael’s scans at archive.org
• Scan Tailor Advanced

Feedback/Discussion:

• @rcrpodcast on Twitter
• Vintage Computer Forum
• RCR Podcast on Facebook
• Throwback Network
• Throwback Network on Facebook

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

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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

Topic: Playing in the MUD

Multi User Dungeons brought a social aspect to computer RPGs, some with opportunities to do creative world building. We talk a bit about our experiences with these, and some about their background.

Topic/Feedback Links:

• LambdaMOO at 50 Years of Text Games
• Out of the MUD: The Origins of the MMORPG
• Text-Based VR: Explore the Pioneering World of MUSHes
• Osborne 3
• Morrow Pivot
• Zenith Z-171
• Osborne Vixen
• Memories of Bob Spencer
• “Computer Games” music video by Mi-Sex
• Rabbit RX83
• NEWPRINT/80
• World Turtle Day

Retro Computing News:

• Past and Future Turtles
• TurtleSpaces
• MITS/Pertec/iCOM FD 3202
• MITS/Pertec/iCOM FD 3712
• MITS/Pertec/iCOM FD 3802
• Teletext preservation by accident

Vintage Computer commercials:

• Austext
• Ceefax demonstration

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Ceefax mug

Auction Picks:

• Carrington: CORE9 universal remote
  • See also: About the CL9 Core controller
• Earl: Osborne 1
• Paul: Jupiter Ace 4000
  • New Micro-Professors I
  • Chatbot
  • Relax
  • See also: Dalek Relaxation Tape
  • Max Machine

Closing notes:

• People’s Republic of Interactive Fiction
• Z80 Playground

Feedback/Discussion:

• @rcrpodcast on Twitter
• Vintage Computer Forum
• RCR Podcast on Facebook
• Throwback Network
• Throwback Network on Facebook

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

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Blake Patterson, and Carrington Vanston

Topic: This sandwich tastes suspiciously like a ZX Spectrum

Another topic-free episode, this one discussing the smuggling of Spectrums, satirical adventure games, BBS simulations, IBM clocks, CoCo paint programs, and various other tangents.

Retro Computing News:

• Full Motion, Double High-Res Video Playback on the Apple IIe
• 1988: P.R.E.S.T.A.V.B.A.
• 50 Years of Text Games
• Gaming the Iron Curtain
• RetroBridgeBBS (GitHub)
• RetroBridgeBBS (Hackaday write-up)

Vintage Computer commercials:

• Hayes modem
• US Robotics 56k modem

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Cryptex USB stick

Auction Picks:

• Blake: Colorware COCO MAX HI-RES PACK input module Tandy TRS-80
  • Capstone Home Alone the Computerized Coloring Book
• Carrington: 600 page 1980s Computer Chip Handbookc
• Paul: Two Sanyo VM 4509s
  • Early IBM real time clock
  • Coleco Adam power supply
  • See also: Making an internal Adam PSU
  • Some Osbornes and some disks you can’t have
  • NEC PC8201a set

Closing notes:

• PunyInform

Feedback/Discussion:

• @rcrpodcast on Twitter
• Vintage Computer Forum
• RCR Podcast on Facebook
• Throwback Network
• Throwback Network on Facebook

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

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Quinn Dunki, and Carrington Vanston

Topic: Retro Development

Writing new software on old computers. How is it different now, would you go back to how it was done then? What did you use then?

Topic/Feedback Links:

• Arcade Machine (Broderbund, Atari & Apple)
• Graphics Magician (Penguin, Apple, C64, Atari)
• Nox Archaist
• SKALD
• PunyInform
• 8bit-Unity
• Amiga Addict magazine
• BBC Micro Live (magnets vs. floppy disks)
• Bits and Bytes
• BBC Computer Literacy Project
• Texture Archaeology
• American Vandal
• Brick

Retro Computing News:

• How to paint a TRS-80 Model III case
• Retro365
• Modern Mac on retro display




• Lost CompuServe, GEnie, and The Source game discovered in Copyright Office
• Castlequest compiles!
• Castlequest source
• Robert Noyce, 60 years ago, granted patent for integrated circuit
• Mockingboard 4c+

Vintage Computer commercial:

• Amstrad 8256 (1985)

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Crackers: The Gold Rush (book)

Auction Picks:

• Carrington: Apple “Leading The Way” internal cassette
  • See also: Leading the Way (Apple video)
• Paul: Perfect gift for the Mac enthusiast who you don’t like very much (video adapters)
  • Times Two, more disk space via magic
  • ZX80, ZX81, TS1000 lot
  • TS2068 RGB->HDMI
  • Requires: RGB->HDMI
  • Early CAPTCHA (“HUMAN” pin)
  • Amstrad PCW 8256 sort of
  • Amstrad PCW 8512 potentially
  • John Romero’s shareware pillows

Feedback/Discussion:

• @rcrpodcast on Twitter
• Vintage Computer Forum
• RCR Podcast on Facebook
• Throwback Network
• Throwback Network on Facebook

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

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

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

Topic: Period Peripherals

When you use retro computers, do you also use retro peripherals? That is, do you stick with appropriately vintage keyboards, monitors, and mice? Does mixing and matching vintage computers with new peripherals ruin the experience or aesthetic? Or do the (supposed) benefits of modern keyboards and displays outweigh the heresy?

Retro Computing News:

• B-Roll footage from inside a 1982 Sears store
• Halt and Catch Fire Syllabus

Vintage Computer commercial:

• Mattel Electronics Baseball

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Throwboy shirts

Auction Picks:

• Carrington: The Chip Shop Basicode tape
  • See also: Example broadcast of The Chip Shop’s “takeaway service”
• Paul: Broken Baseball
  • Mac security brackets
  • Learn WordPerfect VHS tapes
  • New TRS-80 game
  • eMate-inspired RPi case
  • eMate 300

Closing notes:

• TRS-8-Bit

Feedback/Discussion:

• @rcrpodcast on Twitter
• Vintage Computer Forum
• RCR Podcast on Facebook
• Throwback Network
• Throwback Network on Facebook

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

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Jack Nutting, and Blake Patterson

Topic: Something, Something, Retrocompute

No topic this time, really, just various news items and eBay auctions. Accelerators, printers, a new Atari 2600 game, Microsoft history, a strangely familiar host’s gift idea.

Retro Computing News:

• A2turbo Card
• Mockingboard-T (Mockingboard clone with tube amp)
• Audacity Games (Circus Convoy, for Atari 2600)
• Circus Convoy trailer
• Plex launches Arcade with Atari games
• Yellowstone 3.5 Inch Drive Support!

Vintage Computer commercial:

• IBM AS/400

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Atari 130XE spiral notebook

Auction Picks:

• Blake: Practical Peripherals SwitchPort //c
  • iMac Timex alarm clock
  • Video: iMac Timex alarm clock
• Paul: GTE XT300 (link now dead)
  • See also: Computerworld Ad for GTE XT300
  • See also: Retro scan of the week, Feb 25 2007
  • See also: The DAK Catalog
  • Forethought PowerPoint manual
  • See also: Version Museum
  • See also: GUIdebook Gallery

Feedback/Discussion:

• @rcrpodcast on Twitter
• Vintage Computer Forum
• RCR Podcast on Facebook
• Throwback Network
• Throwback Network on Facebook

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

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Panelists: Paul Hagstrom (hosting), Earl Evans, and Blake Patterson

Topic: Video Out, Volume One: A-Ap

Techniques for getting video out of an old computer. Particularly, it turns out, if it is an Amiga. Part one of several, no doubt.

Topic/Feedback links:

• Testing, cleaning and tuning up a small IBM VGA monitor
• CoCoVGA
• RetroTINK
• ZX-HD
• PLAdvanced+ PLA replacement
• JCM III encoder
• LEGO NES
• Retro Rewind
• 99% Invisible episode on the last moments of The Sims Online
• Atari monitor with a disk drive in it
• The Amiga Show

Retro Computing News:

• Amiga A1100
• Build A Brand New ZX Spectrum From New Parts
• Building a new C64 in 2020
• Altair 8800 Built from New Equipment in 2018
• BMC64 and family, VICE on bare metal RasPi

Vintage Computer commercial:

• Commodore 128 1985 commercial

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

• Retrocomputing masks

Auction Picks:

• Blake: Old Apple Macintosh Lot And IBM
  • TI Hexbus PCM Prototype Card
• Earl: California Computer Systems (CCS) S-100 Computer
• Paul: SuperPET
  • Apple II circuit board making kit
  • Brøderbund Arcade Machine
  • Homemade IIe Card cable
  • Flip N File

Feedback/Discussion:

• @rcrpodcast on Twitter
• Vintage Computer Forum
• RCR Podcast on Facebook
• Throwback Network
• Throwback Network on Facebook

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

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed