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 readingHayes is best known for modems and for establishing the ubiquitous AT command set as the standard for all modems that followed. Their external modems, made of aluminum, fronted with jewel-like LED status lights were the top shelf of modems. As a kid, Hayes modems were a status symbol. Hayes also made other hardware products like the Chronograph, Transet, and InterBridge all with the same footprint designed to stack on one another– the “Hayes Stack” was a brief marketing campaign.
While you may be familiar with Smartcom, the series of terminal programs for their Smartmodems, you may be surprised to learn that Hayes also created a database application.
What follows is my journey over several months in 2021 in researching, salvaging, repairing, and archiving an unknown piece of computing history.
Continue readingI collect and use a variety of vintage pen plotters. My favorite type are the gantry style which are typically made by Roland. The DXY series of plotters were made to sit on top of a table, either laying flat or at an angle using the provided triangle wedges or built in kick stand.
Continue readingAlternate title: I want to print from an emulated Mac on a pocket computer to my ImageWriter II over AppleTalk.
I’ve had a PocketCHIP for several years now. I picked it up right after the Kickstarter campaign was finished sometime in 2016/2017. It’s a great little Linux-based handheld device that combines a lot in one package (touch display, keyboard, storage, battery, sound, USB port, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc.). The novelty wore off and I stowed it away in a box. The company Next Thing Co. went out of business shortly thereafter in March 2018.
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.
(This was originally a Twitter thread from December 2, 2014)
Did you know the American Timex Sinclair 2068 is largely a clone of the popular ZX Spectrum from England? Well, the hardware is but the ROM is different enough to keep ZX Spectrum titles from working. Which is a bummer because there are hundreds of titles for the ZX Spectrum and only a handful for the Timex Sinclair 2068.
However, it is possible to replace the ROM in a TS2068 so it’s more compatible with ZX titles, making a “ZX2068.” And you can make it switchable so you can go back to the stock ROM. And no drilling holes for a switch! Sound interesting? Read on!
(This was originally posted to Twitter on February 3, 2015.)
February 3, 2015
Today, I’m going to tackle this new-to-me Commodore SX-64 computer. I bought it cheaply from a seller that said it wasn’t working. It has a few faults that we’ll take a look, including the keyboard which has a few unresponsive keys.
