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Putting Your Retro Computer On the Line
04 Feb | 14With 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...
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'rappin R2D2
29 Dec | 13Some time in the early part of last year, Disney released a small papercraft R2D2 . After printing out a few in the office, I printed out a gigantic one that was life size . Once that one had been assembled I had decided that it was so cool that I was going to adapt the design and at Christmas someone was going to get a present wrapped like R2D2. In order to save time I simplified the shape of R2D2, making the body and legs simple rectangular boxes. I had to make my own boxes to get the scale...
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Netbooting without a network interface
10 Nov | 13I remember the first time I discovered the option in a PC BIOS to boot from LAN. I was very excited because to me it meant that I could finally do something with a PC that I had been doing with NeXT computers for a long time. Of course the first time I tried it I was immediately disappointed. It turned out that the built-in BIOS on computers had no idea how to talk to a random network interface card that had been installed in a slot. I did a little research and found out that you had to install...
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Is this the '90s? $300 for an ethernet card?
24 Oct | 13At work an old HP LaserJet P2035N printer just had the fuser go out. Quickest solution was to replace it with a new printer rather than hunt down repair parts and go through the trouble of swapping them in. Looking at the price of the same printer, it's currently at close to $500. However there's what seems to be the same printer for under $200, but it's a P2035. Notice the missing N in the model number? Parallel card in P2035 The P2035 printer was ordered, and when it arrived...
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To the BBC!
14 Sep | 13A computer that I remember hearing about a lot, but had never seen, was the BBC Micro. It was a near mythical computer that "people in the know" would talk about. I really didn't know much about it, but it sounded very interesting to me. I always wanted one and now I finally have one. My BBC Micro My BBC Micro model B is the real deal, not a US conversion. Of course that presents a couple of problems. The first is the power standard is different, it wants 220/240V at 50hz,...
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