vintage

Everyone has a wire box -- that container you toss random wires, plugs and other tech junk into. It's generally all the useless stuff that you just can't bring yourself to get rid of just yet. Being in "the biz," my wire box is actually a set of four interlocking plastic storage containers, which had become a serious closet hazard, to put it mildly. Here's how I spent part of my MLK weekend -- the dreaded annual wire box cleanup.

Just a quick heads-up--

Because of the current tough economic times, the non-profit Alameda County Computer Resource Center (ACCRC) is auctioning off its collection of vintage computers, video-game systems, calculators, and other collectible electronics to fund its other operations, which include job-training programs and refurbishing more modern PCs, which it donates to schools, other non-profits, and disadvantaged individuals.

The ACCRC auction is being managed by the Vintage Computer Festival organization in multiple rounds. The second set of systems being auctioned is online now, with a deadline of noon (PST) on Jan. 5; more will follow. VCF proprietor Sellam Ismail says … Read more

The year was 1983--the last De Loreans were produced, the final episode of M.A.S.H. aired with more than 125 million viewers tuning in to watch, the "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign debuted, Jaws went 3D (don't know why), and the A-Team released so much ammunition without ever hitting anyone--Oh, What a Feeling!

This time portal has been initiated because I've dug something up from my closet. Not a skeleton, but a working 1983 original Game & Watch Nintendo Popeye tabletop system. For those who don't know how the Nintendo tabletop models worked, … Read more

Longing for a stylish way to create more storage in your tiny kitchen? Borrow a solution from one of the tiniest food-prep areas known to man: the airplane kitchen. Thanks to trendy travel retailer Flight 001, you can get your hands on a vintage airline food cart for use as a dry bar, serving vessel, or kitchen storage.

The carts were actually used on planes, so they come complete with small dents and scratches. Fortunately, Flight 001 has prettied up the exterior with a number of groovy finishes to appeal to your modern sensibilities. Inside you'll find a retractable … Read more

Yep...that TRS-80. The one from Radio Shack. You know, from the '80s. The one you spent countless hours learning how to talk to in the most intimate terms then known to computer science. Well, TechRepublic dives right in with its screwdriver, in a gallery excerpted on CNET News.com: "Cracking open the TRS-80"

Get out your handkerchiefs, computer scientists of a certain age--this one's a tearjerker!

I had a great time over the weekend at the 10th Vintage Computer Festival, which took place in the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.

In addition to the exhibits of vintage computers--including the largest collection of Radio Shack Pocket Computers I've ever seen--and the marketplace, where I managed to avoid buying any slide rules, Vectrix video games, or Cray supercomputer circuit boards--there were several notable presentations.

On Saturday, Tim McNerney spoke about his work to reimplement the Intel 4004 microprocessor, which led to a 130x-scale working model of the chip composed of individual transistors on a large … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--For an industry that's just 30 years old, personal computing has a lot of history.

Here at the Computer History Museum, just a stone's throw from the Microsoft campus in Silicon Valley, PC industry veterans, tech enthusiasts, and even a few kids came out for the annual Vintage Computer Festival.

The event is highlighted by seminars and panels on topics like "Deconstructing the Intel 4004" and "The Disk Drive Industry Family Tree," but the real payoff is the Exhibit Hall, in which hobbyists display their dusty, yellowed sets of two-decades-old computers, … Read more

I've been to a lot of computer conferences over the last 30 years-- my first was the mainframe-oriented National Computer Conference in 1979, and I've probably been to 250 more since then-- but one of my favorites is also the smallest: the Vintage Computer Festival, hosted by Sellam Ismail.

Over the years at these conferences (a collection of my badges as of 1998 or so is shown here), and in my own life, I've seen and used an awful lot of computer hardware.

I'm surprised that some kinds of systems that were very popular in the … Read more

For a while, there seemed to be no end to the incredible shrinking of cell phones. The tinier your handset, the cooler you probably thought you looked around 2001 or so. But the trend has slowed, thankfully, and in some circles, there's a backlash against handsets that required toddler-size hands and heads to talk comfortably.

Take the Yubz retro handset, for instance. It's the same design from many millions of dial and push-button telephones in the 1970s and '80s, before cordless became king. The earpiece would fit snugly between your ear and shoulder as you walked several feet … Read more