Hey lovely Mastodon folk. I've just released an HP-35, HP-45, HP-80 simulator called HP-1973 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the HP-45 calculator. (Free) standalone versions for Mac and WIndows (no need for any Python installation or knowledge) & Python source for Linux. It's been a coding marathon, so it'd mean a lot to me if you could boost this post, so it gets in front of the right people. Download here: https://sarahkmarr.com/retrohp1973.html Enjoy. #retrocomputing#calculators#python#coding#rpn
@gsuberland Thank you. It went through a lot of iterations but the overall 'look' didn't change much. I wanted something that echoed the look of the originals, with a general 1973 aesthetic (although I slipped some later references into the themes).
@polpo I know... it was beautiful turning off the overhead lights and sitting in the center of that room, with the flickering of the lights on each of the hundreds of modems around me speaking to one person's adventure out on the wider Internet.
@vga256 I'm glad I got some photos to remember that time by. It's so neat that so many other folks are chiming in with memories of similar setups from back then. :)
p.s. If you're into retro computing, highly recommend following the PeerTube channel @reenthused
It publishes lots of in-depth videos about retro computers and retro consoles from all around the world, including obscure ones. You can browse all the videos at https://diode.zone/a/reenthused/videos
This is the best photo of magnetic core memory I've ever taken. IBM, early 60s. Shot with a microscope lens mounted on a 35mm B&W digital camera. No post! (I got into the habit of never doing any post-processing while documenting historic artifacts for the museum. Photoshop not allowed!) #retrocomputing#photography#rcsri
I used this shot for the cover of my book of images from our museum:
@davefischer I have been told that a machine for weaving these memory panels was never successfully completed, and that all core storage panels were woven by hand, mostly by children in far-east sweatshops.
As you know, the toroids in some of the later panels are tiny and the density is extremely high, so it's startling that it is even possible to assemble them by hand.
This is your friendly reminder that I make and sell delightful miniature retrocomputers like TRS-80s, Osborne Ones, and the occasional big friends like Connection Machines and Crays.
I'm a retired nerd who's living the dream. Well, if your dream is working in your garage on tiny art machines. 😺 ⚙️ #retrocomputing#miniatures#trs80#cray#shamelessSelfPromotion https://store.transmutable.com/
@travisfw The Cray and Connection Machines are large enough to fit SBCs (e.g. a full sized Pi) but I ship the smaller ones with Adafruit ESP32 QTPy boards running CircuitPython. There may be wee linux-capable boards that fit but I haven't explored them.
v0.3 of Heffalump (a Mastodon client for PalmOS) is out now! This release (finally) adds the ability to view your own past toots, as well as replies (to both your own and others' toots).
@Forbearance@knickish oh. I had not appreciated the significance of the "conduit" (my palm has been in a box for years and I knew some of the later models did have WiFi so just assumed!)
I finished dumping 99.99% of a very old, damaged, backup CDROM that was previously unreadable. It took 3 days and I was super excited to find what old data I put on it. The disc had UDF sessions, because that was common at the time for just Adding Files non-rewritable media.
So I mount that shit in my Windows 98SE box, and lo and behold, this is all that was on it.
I would be absolutely upset if it wasn't so fucking funny
I think I now own the coolest wall clock I could imagine haha. Leaving it in its box till I move in a couple weeks. After I get settled I’ll decide where to put it. Not quite #retrocomputing but I think it counts. 😀
@thomholwerda@foone I wish I had kept my Sharp Zaurus SL-5500, it was a Linux PDA with a slide out keyboard and a QT-based interface called Qtopia. One of the most interesting PDAs I owned!
I also had a HP Jornada that ran PocketPC 2000, and a Tandy Zoomer (Casio Z-7000) which was an 8086-based handheld that ran GEOS on top of a MS-DOS clone!
@thomasfuchs I remember using a huge 2-bay Bernoulli Drive underneath a horizontal-format IBM PC-AT for a summer job in the mid 80s. It was slightly bigger than the CPU box.
Over its 48 year life, the Z80 found its way into inumerable devices.
It's perhaps most famous for being the CPU used in the ZX Spectrum, but could also be found as a sound co-processor in the Sega Mega Drive and SNK's Neo Geo arcade boards, among others.
I remember finding one inside my first HP inkjet printer back in the late 90's, and my parent's Sony Trinitron CRT, handling the on-screen menus (and teletext).
@carlosefr
That was the CPU for CP/M,
the business personal computer OS before there was MS-DOS.
For that compatibility there were Z80 cards for the Apple][e
It's #NationalSuperheroDay and I have made at least 100 superhero costumes over the past 15 years + I could share any of them, but I've had the same favorite superhero since I was 4 years old. She used to lead the Avengers, you know. Captain Marvel herself, Monica Rambeau 🖤🤍 💫 #CaptainMarvel#Photon#Spectrum#MonicaRambeau#cosplay
@billgoats My cat would lay on top of my 17″ CRT, and sometimes chase the cursor. When I replaced it with 15″ LCD, she once tried jumping on it from the front and was very confused when there was no more screen.
Mastodon for Apple II, version 1.14.0, is released! It provides a big performance improvement on the serial bandwidth, all the way to 115,200bps. This is especially visible for loading images! https://www.colino.net/wordpress/en/mastodon-for-apple-ii/
Wirth managed to do what few people in academic CS can/want to do today by implementing his own hardware, OS, compilers, GUI and applications and even designing his own hardware description language in several iterations (#Modula and the #Lilith, #Oberon and the #Ceres and later his RISC5 FPGA systems) and he used the systems in teaching and research at #ETHZ. Today, academic CS often prioritizes teaching of phenomena and coping with commercial HW/SW instead of building from first principles 🙁.
