If you've messed around in the Commodore 64 world for even a short time, you've probably discovered that it's theoretically possible to hook up a Commodore 1541 5.25" floppy disk drive to a PC. Most of the information you come across though either talks about a specialized circuit board, or using a computer with a parallel port. While I do have plenty of older computers that have the nifty parallel port that can be used as GPIO, I was more interested in interfacing the drive...

Another retro computer I've been messing with is an Atari 800. It has been neglected for a long time and looks like it was left in some areas with some moisture. For the most part it works, but it has no color output. I got the Atari 800 field service manual and it talks about a SALT II diagnostic cartridge. Now that I have working EPROM burner, figured I could make one. There's an existing design for a PCB that would accept a 2764 or 27128 but none for sale. I could probably etch my...

Last night while I was fiddling with the newest addition to my collection of retro computers, my Commodore 64, I was having problems with the video output on the DIN connector. Everything I had found on the internet said that the Commodore 64, the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, and the Atari 800 all used the same pins for composite video and audio. Just to be sure though I did a lot of searching and tracked down all the various pinouts and organized them into one cheat sheet. I also threw in the...

This is the second part of a previous article about getting Linux installed onto an old Mac. You can read the first part here . Inspired by the upcoming #RetroComputerWeek I had tinkered around and got my Apple IIgs connected to Dropbox. It worked but I started wondering if I could find a better way. The method I used was rather roundabout and required far too many computers. About a month ago I rescued a couple of PowerMac 7200 computers from destruction. I thought that if I could get Linux...

A real live functional PowerMac 7200/75 This is the first part about getting Linux installed onto an old Mac. You can read the second part here . What started out as something that I thought would take an hour or two tops has turned into a major challenge! I had this idea that I would put Linux on an ancient PowerMac 7200. After doing some searching to see if current distros supported such an ancient thing, it appeared that Debian does. However I'm not beginning to wonder if...