This blog post is a repair thread from social media that began on February 24, 2018.
February 24, 2018
So, this happened. My latest retro delivery. Any guesses?
It is, yet, another plotter. An HP 7585B wide format plotter with a 36” wide paper path.
Unfortunately it failed the first power on test and now it smells bad. So it’s been taken to bits to find the culprit.
Continue readingIn November 2021, I posted a short video on Twitter of my Roland DXY 1150 pen plotter drawing a generative wobbly circle design on top of a 5.25″ floppy disk. A few people responded that they would buy one of the floppies. This got me thinking about the medium of a floppy disk that I was using.
(This was originally a Twitter thread from May 7, 2019.)
May 7, 2019
New addition: Datavue 25 portable lunchbox PC. Keyboard stows on front, two 3.5 floppy drives, 13 pounds.
(This was originally a Twitter thread from January 24, 2022.)
January 24, 2022
Many of you know that I have an affinity for the Hayes Chronograph. I have several of them, I made a WiFi controller to set the time automatically, and I’ve repaired several of them. Here’s another page in the repair chapter.
(This was originally a Twitter thread from June 14, 2020.)
June 14, 2020
Say “Hello, World” to my new Zenith ZL-1 MinisPort laptop from 1989 with an 8088 running 8Mhz, 1MB RAM, and a backlit LCD display. Weighs just under 6 pounds.
On July 10, 2021, I visited the Computer Museum at System Source in Baltimore MD as part of the Vintage Computer Federation (VCF) Repair Workshop. I also visited the museum in 2020.
Warning: Image heavy page ahead!
On Feb 15, 2020, I visited the Computer Museum at System Source in Baltimore, MD as part of a VCF Federation Repair Workshop weekend. The museum there is mind blowing. Want to see some pictures?
Warning: Image heavy page ahead!
(This was originally a Twitter thread from November 6, 2017.)
November 6, 2017
A huge box has just arrived! And inside are lots and lots of packing peanuts. Wait, wait, there’s something else in here. It looks like it’s from the future.
Say 10 PRINT”HELLO WORLD” to the Commodore PET 2001 from 1977, one of the “trinity” personal computers. Big thanks to @FozzTexx!
(This was originally a Twitter thread from November 15, 2019.)
November 15, 2019
Say 10 PRINT “Hello, World!” to my new Radio Shack TRS-80 PC-2 pocket computer with printer cassette docking interface. Has BASIC and “2640-character program and data memory”— so a little over 2.5K of RAM. Many thanks to @FloppyDays, it’s all in tip-top shape!
Did you know there were typewriters that used ball point pens to draw not just text but also graphics? I’ve collected several of these over the years. Read on to discover a world that you didn’t know existed.
