Adventure games via Periscope Over the weekend I was having some fun with Periscope and having people join in while I played some old graphic text adventures. Remember graphic text adventures? They were text based adventure games but would show a picture above the text so you didn’t have to use your imagination as hard. You still have to type commands and read descriptions. Because of their slow pace I thought they would lend themselves well to a little bit of interaction while...

My rev B IBM PC 5150 A couple of months ago I moved my IBM PC into the living room thinking that with a more prominent location I would use it more often. It’s fun to try out ancient software, or use the PC to connect to the occasional surviving BBS. I also like tinkering trying to use the PC to access the modern internet, or at least see if I can. I definitely won't be playing YouTube videos on it, but I can read reddit, or search Google. Because of the nice keyboard and no...

A couple of months ago I purchased several relay boards and switching power supplies off eBay with the plan to re-use one of my original (256 megs of RAM and no mounting holes) Raspberry Pi model B computers as a sprinkler controller. The parts arrived and I set them aside expecting to have time to work on the project after the 4th of July. About two weeks before the 4th though I realized if I got the project assembled in time I could use the sprinkler controller as a fireworks controller. ...

I recently picked up a CoCoSDC board and after assembling it, the first thing I did was load it up with games. I quickly discovered though I wasn’t going to be doing any gaming without a joystick. I don’t own a Tandy CoCo compatible joystick, so I did what any normal person would, I figured out how to convert something I already had: an Atari 2600 joystick. Atari 2600 joysticks are absolutely horrible though, so it didn’t take very long for me to want to go back to my ninepin...

With it being BBS Week over on RetroBattlestations , many people are trying to get their retro computers online so they can connect to a BBS over the Internet. One reason for wanting to connect over the internet is because phone calls cost money, and for others (like me), we don't even have a phone line to use with a modem anymore. Some of the discussion has pointed to some specialized serial to Ethernet or serial to WiFi adapters. Those boxes can be over $300 so I thought I’d put...