Howdy from Dallas, TX

[rlerner]

I haven't done a great deal of "Retro" or "Vintage" computing since those machines weren't vintage, started off on an 8088 XT (I think it was the legendary IBM 5150 which is another thing I wish I never tossed).

I've partially built a 6502 emulator even though the most I've done with them (and cousins) were NES and Atari.

I have a TI/99 silver edition or whatever laying around with a bunch of tapes. I still want to record those to WAV or figure out a good way to back them up but that's a pretty low priority overall.

What brought me here was the fact I have a big pile of old IDE disks with games and other software I wrote ~30 years ago hanging around the freespace of these CHS drives and I'd like to get that code back, if the drives let me, and put it up on GitHub or similar to preserve things I did when I was a child and early adult.

These days I work in information security, in particular application security. It's a cool field, but does leave me wishing I had some further EE or CS experience on a more "vintage fundamental" level

 

[BillGee]

What brought me here was the fact I have a big pile of old IDE disks with games and other software I wrote ~30 years ago hanging around the freespace of these CHS drives and I'd like to get that code back, if the drives let me, and put it up on GitHub or similar to preserve things I did when I was a child and early adult.

Look for an external drive enclosure which can connect a classic hard drive to a modern computer via USB. They used to be common; I do not know about now. Try looking at the Micro Center in Richardson. Fry's used to carry them, but they are long gone.

Did you know that Dallas is a bit of a hot spot for vintage computing?

Some of the locals include:

* David Murray, known as the the8bitguy on YouTube
* Mike Douglas, known as deramp5113 on YouTube
* Dave who owns and runs the OSIWeb site
* Stephen, known as TexasNerdHouse on YouTube

There are some others. My apologies if I did not mention you.

Though the TI 99/4 was developed out west in Lubbock, TI is headquartered here and their people transfer often.

Tandy developed the TRS-80 and the Color Computer; they were headquartered in Fort Worth.

The Ferguson Big Board was developed by a small company in Garland; it was licensed by Xerox and sold as the 820.

Many of us meet at a quarterly North Texas Retrocomputing event at the Dallas Makerspace in Carrollton. The next one is Apr 22 - https://calendar.dallasmakerspace.org/events/view/19341

There is talk of a VCF here in June of this year.

 

[rlerner]

Thanks for the welcome BillGee!

I have some IDE to USB dongles (not full enclosures) that won't see the older disks, I did put up a thread and got some good suggestions, but sadly I was unable to source the card listed there. I ended up buying a 386 which should be competent enough to run some "modern" software while still being able to bridge the gap to these older disks (I hope).

I know David Murray, not personally but through his channel. I was originally planning on reaching out to buy a machine from him directly but ended up going the eBay route, I'm sure he gets hit up all the time for stuff like that. The other three I don't know off hand, doesn't mean I haven't seen their content tho.

I actually drive past the TI plant up in Plano (I think) pretty often, still a pretty impressive facility, and me being like a lot of the rest of DFW (a transplant) it's cool seeing it after using TI products (chips, TI-99, calculators) all my life.

I was thinking about going to that event actually, I'm not to the level y'all are here. I see folks making posts about their "Broken computer" and I click it thinking maybe I can help, and dude is sharing shots of oscilloscope readouts of different chips. That's not me (wish it was)!

 

[tradde]

Welcome to the forums. I did not know that there were so many Texas vintage computers people not so far from me in Katy, Tx. Good to know. Excellent to hear they might have a VCF closer than the one up East. I always enjoyed that one.

 

[rlerner]

I think I've seen a few of your posts around and noticed Katy, TX. I used to know a guy from there so it stood out

 

[channelmaniac]

Hello rlerner...

I run Arcadecomponents and do a lot of repairs on vintage computers and arcade game PCBs. I'm over in Highland Village and hoping you're already out on the DFW Retro Computer Group on Facebook.

You can also sometimes find me at Dallas Makerspace hanging out in Vector or Electronics.

Excellent to hear they might have a VCF closer than the one up

There's no might about it. We signed the venue! June 23rd-25th, 2023. Davidson Gundy Alumni Center at UT Dallas.

 

[channelmaniac]

These days I work in information security

I'm semi-retired these days doing my own business, but spent 3 weeks shy of 20 years at Cisco in security products.

 

[rlerner]

Hello rlerner...

I run Arcadecomponents and do a lot of repairs on vintage computers and arcade game PCBs. I'm over in Highland Village and hoping you're already out on the DFW Retro Computer Group on Facebook.

You can also sometimes find me at Dallas Makerspace hanging out in Vector or Electronics.

There's no might about it. We signed the venue! June 23rd-25th, 2023. Davidson Gundy Alumni Center at UT Dallas.

Nah, I left Facebook ~5 or so years ago, at least on LinkedIn I can still troll people who are posting for vanity, Facebook was just a mess -- plus those people knew where I live

That's really awesome to hear about that going down, I hope I can attend! BTW: I love the "DFW Metromess" in your location, sums it up well.

I'm semi-retired these days doing my own business, but spent 3 weeks shy of 20 years at Cisco in security products.

So we'd get along pretty well then!