Recent content by bsd64

I would choose option 3 as well. This world has been a poorer place since Heathkit stopped selling quality kits. At VCF East, I stopped and talked with the great Lee Hart. He had a really nice display there - and as everyone probably knows, he puts together some epic little computer kits. He...

I'm sure to get some opinions on this, and I respect very much other folks that might feel differently. But my history is with the old Ham Conventions, where you might get entry for a nominal 5 or 10 dollars. The price at the door for 3 days at VCF East was $80! What? Sure, that might be...

I think all the moderators must be at the VCF East ... This thread started out with the question "Can anyone recommend a good modern(ish) linux distribution for Pentium II class machines?", and has since tried to ascertain the definitive definition of "UNIX" before moving on to discuss the...

I would recommend taking a look at one of the old versions of SUSE Linux from that time period - for example, version 7.3 with the 2.4 kernel. They released a really slick boxed set that contained a manual, a nice installer (yast) and all the available software on CD, so you don't need a...

You might be interested in ordering the reproduction kit: piDP-10 I have the other kits - piDP-8/11, and they are well made. Having the front panel might make learning about the system that much more interesting! My 2 cents is that DEC assembly is more complex/varied compared to some other...

...how much information could be stored on a ... paper tape? The Data General Nova was a popular minicomputer in the '70s that could use a paper tape reader and paper tape punch. The paper tape was 1" wide, 8 bits across to make up a frame, and 10 frames to the inch. The writer operated at max...

Great design! I own the SC-131 from Cousins and it runs using only power from the usb port (it's listed to use 100mA without the SD card and up to 300mA with SD). It's a really nifty little computer. I feel the Z180 may be underappreciated for these retro-computing designs when compared the the...

I would argue that, for non-GUI systems, OpenBSD is actually very simple and elegant compared to modern Linux distros. The installer may be text based, but just asks a few simple questions and generally provides working defaults. The boot process is simple to understand with a few rc scripts...

I would recommend trying the original Unreal Tournament (UT99). Totally my opinion - but the game play was a lot better than UT2004. Used to have a blast playing that game!

I would highly recommend the RC-2014 if you are looking for a self-contained, simple kit to get started with. You can build it in an afternoon or so. It uses a z80 processor and is sold on Tindie. There is a large support group, and many enthusiasts have created their own add-in cards for the...

Seems to be a Cosmac Microtutor on ebay right now: https://www.ebay.com/itm/314760473927

Gaming on a PC compatible in the 90's was so much different from gaming in the 80's, my advice would be to just get the 90's machine or get two: For a decent 90's period-accurate experience I'd recommend a 486 DX2-66 w/8mb ram. The CPU came out in '92, so fits your timeline. Doom in '93, Doom...

First computer game was Gorf on the Vic 20... Classic! For console, it was Combat (Tank Game) for the Atari 2600. I think missile command was possibly the first arcade game. First online game was Trade Wars.

I believe he took down the original post for the unit with the keyboard and then relisted it. He may have adjusted the shipping cost. It shows available today with a shipping cost of $31US from MA to GA, so my original post should have included the shipping I suppose - $91 was the total for my...

Very interesting! Once they get the network working, perhaps someone will get one of these NOS units connected to it! For those that are interested in the NABU hardware - someone is selling "one thousand" of these NOS systems and network adapters right now on ebay... For those that build z80...