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I'm reading the technical reference and I see two things that scare me on a supposed PC compatible: It says you may only use the serial port through the BIOS functions. It does not have an 8259 peripheral interrupt controller chip So this tells me that most PC software which touches the...

I'm trying to resurrect a basket-case PC compatible that I've had for ages. It's a 486 but this is more of a general hardware question. The motherboard has a soldered rechargeable battery on it which has long since stopped working. It has a 4 pin connector for an external battery. (In the...

mTCP NetDrive is a DOS device driver that allows you to access a remote disk image hosted by another machine as though it was a local device with an assigned drive letter. The remote disk image can be a floppy disk image or a hard drive image. Use it to: Add temporary extra space to a DOS...

For those of you looking for an 8 bit Ethernet card, check out this NE2000 based card that works in an 8 bit slot: https://www.tindie.com/products/weird/isa-8-bit-ethernet-controller/ The price is more than the occasional steal you will find in the bargain bin at a swap meet, but it's a newly...

I'd like to upgrade a small number of machines from an 8088 to a V20. I'd rather find CPUs from people I trust who have them sitting on a shelf for 20 years instead of rolling the dice with recycled CPUs on eBay ... Does anybody have some that they want to part with? Or have a good source for...

It's that time again! I'm getting ready to roll up a few bug fixes into a new release so please send me your bug reports and wish list items. (I'll also be going through the older wish list items too.) The next release will have the following: Telnet: RLE graphics support Telnet: A...

Before GIFs in 1987 the most popular "online" graphics standard was RLE, which allowed for 256x192 pixel black and white images that were safe to transfer over 7 bit dial-up links. Compuserve used RLE for things like weather maps, but users also contributed their own art. A lot of this leaked...

If you have found a possible bug in mTCP I'd like to hear about it now before the next release. Please post here for general wish list items, and for possible bugs please email me directly. So far the next release will have: TCP flow control fixes for even better compatibility and behavior on...

Somebody asked me about ARCNET performance problems with mTCP, and I went down the rabbit hole. They are using the ARCETHER packet driver as mTCP is only designed for Ethernet. With smaller packet sizes it works fine but the performance is bad. With larger packet sizes and buffers it runs...

Just a heads up - if you post a "Want to buy" request here and somebody with a low posting count refers you to an email address that is not a user here, run the other way and consider reporting it by posting a public update to your request. Somebody here recently was looking for an item, and...

A friend introduced me to the Wiha Chip Lifter, which is basically a small prybar that seems to allow more control when removing chips from sockets. I've also discovered the dental picks are useful for scraping corrosion and manipulating flexible copper contacts in tight locations. Are there...

This weekend enjoy two different VCF events! VCF East (our flagship event!) will take place on Saturday and Sunday between 9:00AM and 6:00PM Eastern Daylight Time. This year it is a hybrid event - in addition to streaming the event some exhibitors will be on site at the InfoAge Science...

We have an off-topic area for discussion of newer machines and tech that are not vintage. There is also a quite a bit of very off-topic chatter, and we acknowledge and allow it because this is a community. However, I've had to just outright delete a few threads that have "gone off the rails."...

VCF West is a virtual event this year, so while we'll miss seeing people and machines in person, it is a lot easier for remote people to participate and see what is going on. Join us next Saturday, August 1st online! The schedule is posted at http://vcfed.org/wp/vcf-west-event-schedule/ and...

Years ago I posted the video for this. I've finally gotten around to posting the accompanying diskette images and PDFs of the booklets: http://www.brutman.com/PCjr/pcjr_sales_training.html Go learn to engage customers at an IBM Product Center like it's 1984 again! -Mike

We reordered t-shirts after selling out of some of the more popular sizes. Don't take a chance on us running out again - order yours today! (Ok, hyperbole aside, these are some great shirts and buying one helps support the organization that makes this web site possible.) The shirts are...

VCF events might be cancelled or postponed this year to support social distancing, but don't be socially distant from this t-shirt! The shirts are custom made for us by A Nova Print, a great small business in Portland, Oregon. Two colors are available: Classic CRT Green and Classic CRT...

Come join us March 21st and March 22nd in Seattle at VCF PNW 2020! Look forward to: 24 Exhibits featuring big-iron, classic 8 bitters, replicas, and even new machines! 6 Presentations including Bil Herd and Joe Decuir, IEEE Fellow! Take part in our very first Vintage Computer Typing Contest...

The short story: a new version of mTCP is available at http://www.brutman.com/mTCP/ The longer story ... While the pace of releases has slowed in the past few years, rest assured that I am still actively fixing bugs and making improvements. This release improves flow control for TCP...

I came across this today and rescued it: However, documentation seems to be very hard to find. I have found some manuals for earlier modems from the same company, but not anything for this modem. By chance there was a paper note inside of the cover that gave me the magic sequence to get into...