retrocomputing

This original Dazzle hails from the brief few years where it actually made sense to put an MPEG-1 encoder inside of a parallel port device. But even with its printer-adjacent connections, the LAV-1000 is surprisingly capable! Let's set it up, record VHS and PS2 video footage, and use Windows 98 to edit the resulting video and image files.

This is the same SDF that runs the instance that this community is on. Here is more info from the newsletter:

As SDF celebrates its 38th year we thank you for your continued support and we are grateful to have you as part of our community.

While SDF has a long history, we've always focused on building upon the UNIX platform to facilitate and implement your new ideas. Notably, much of that has focused on expanding our Fediverse offerings, but many of you have expressed interest in looking at the past: particularly retrocomputing.

SDF Vintage Systems has spawned a new charitable non-profit organization:

The Interim Computer Museum, located South of Seattle in Tukwila Washington!

https://icm.museum/

The Interim Computer Museum features self hosted and SDF co-located, membersupported, vintage systems of which 26 are accessible remotely.

Remote guest access to our vintage systems is free to all and you are welcome to try the machines out at https://connect.sdf.org/ or 'ssh menu@tty.sdf.org'. If there's a system you'd like to see, let us know!

Additionally ICM has begun work in the area of machine restoration and software preservation with a group of volunteer engineers. This work is being documented in a status blog with live streaming for knowledge and data sharing.

If you'd like to support our efforts, please visit https://icm.museum/ to read about the museum and see membership/sponsorship opportunities. Donations to the ICM are fully tax deductible and in many cases can be matched with an employer such as Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft and Boeing.

We're looking for volunteer remote sysadmins as well as those who would like to participate in regional Vintage Computer Festivals. If you have an interest in doing this, please get in touch.

We hope that you find this news especially exciting. When we started the SDF Vintage Systems program we had hoped to be able to open a brick and mortar museum and we are very happy that this has come to fruition. With your help, we can bring it to self-sustainability and continue to let it grow.

Sincerely,

Stephen Jones (smj), SDF.ORG / ICM.MUSEUM

In a recent main channel video I fixed a broken Atari 800XL but found it had some keyboard issues. Let's try to address those issues by washing the keyboard.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32153416

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31859186

It's time for another Atari 8-bit computer repair. I can't quite call it a repair-a-thon as there are only two of these, but it's been fun learning a lot about how these Atari machines work. This one is giving us the dreaded black screen -- so let's figure out what's keeping it from working.

During Apple’s late-90s struggles with profitability, it made a few overtures toward licensing its software to other computer manufacturers, while at the same time trying to modernize its operating…