Yeah it makes sense - and even now that isn’t an issue, I feel like the ability to “program” your edits is still a great interface for productivity.
Finally got around to play around with Greaseweazle, and wish I had done it a long time ago! Greaseweazle is a tool to read and write raw data from many different systems. Want to read a CoCo disk, or write a new Amiga disk? I haven't tried it, but it supposedly can even deal with 8" disks (if you have the drive and interface) as well. My hardware setup was kind of a mess (as you can see from the picture!) but I'll be cleaning that up over time with a smaller power supply and some kind of enclosure. Below are some pictures of it in use:
I used it to archive my first piece of software, one I had posted about earlier - a Star Trek themed organizer software named Stardate. Find it over at the Internet Archive.
If you have been on the fence about getting a Greaseweazle, I'd highly recommend it. I feel like the ability to read and write disks from many different retro systems will be very valuable going forward, not to mention the ability to perform real preservation.
This is a great question with no definitive answer 🙂 There are a number of ways of looking at it, though the ultimate answer is whatever each person considers retro. A few general ways to look at it include:
whatever was around when you were a kid. Of course, this depends wildly on who you are asking - for me this would include the Tandy Color Computer / Commodore 64 era through 486 PCs (or so.) For other people this could be a little older or much newer of course.
Some fixed definition like (anything before the year 2000 or no PCs etc.) I’m not a huge fan of this personally as it leaves some people out.
Any computer old enough that a single person could fully understand it’s workings and diagnose/repair problems etc. This generally includes 8 and some 16 bit systems. I’ve increasingly come to prefer this view because beyond nostalgia it also helps define something that I believe is a significant benefit to these systems.
It’s a lot easier to get into then it used to be! Most BBS systems support connecting over the internet using the telnet protocol. Some of them you can connect to right off their web page.
You can find everything you need over at the telnet bbs guide:
https://www.telnetbbsguide.com
There are BBS listings there, as well as a handy guide:
That does look like a happy Mac! I used to help support machines a lot like this for the teachers at my high school, kept me from having to do as much school work lol.
Wow I wish I would have known about this in time to order the hardcover, that looks like a beautiful book. I've grabbed the electronic version, but I really hope there will be a reprint as well.
Gotta mention AGD Interactive and the free Sierra games remakes with many improvements!
Wow that looks amazing! Where is that at?
Will do, I just got the greaseweazel, power supply and microcontroller I just need to find a compatible drive (and figure out how to actually use greaseweazel lol.) Of all the retro things I have, I can't believe I don't have a working 3.5" drive lol.
I recently found this Star Trek Stardate calendar and address book software for Windows 3.1 - between this and the After Dark Trek screensaver I should be able to decorate my computer desktop like a true early 90's Trek fan! I can't find this anywhere on the Internet Archive etc, so I'm currently putting together a greaseweazle setup so that I can get this backed up and archived.
Also check out shopgoodwill.com - it takes a while to find good searches (for this I like "vintage computer") but there are often systems and parts on there. Right now I don't see a 486 (though there often is) but I do see an Aptiva, XT clone, a couple of 386 laptops etc. You can also sometimes find parts, like if you do a search for "graphics card", though you'll have to go through the results yourself to find a good VLB card. Another good search for components is to go to the Computer Components category and search for "vintage".
Prices are all over the place, just depends if someone ends up bidding against you. Even when that happens I don't mind quite as much on there though since I figure at least the money is going to charity.
I hope you do another post just on that Roland MT-32 - I’m still looking for one of those myself they were absolutely amazing.
This has come up a lot in the past, and the best I’ve been able to come up with is that what is “retro” varies with every retro enthusiast. A couple of definitions that I’ve heard:
I remember that well. We used DESQView to run our BBS as well. It was only a single line system, but DESQView let us do other things on the computer without taking down the board.
Has anyone played with TriDOS? https://github.com/prokushev/tridos - it doesn’t look nearly as featured, but has the advantage of being open-source and I thought might be interesting for a project I have in mind.