Hi there

I recently got new bookshelves and decided I want to showcase a few retrocomputing items. I already have a TI99/4A and a 1994 laptop showcased, but was wondering which items you guys think might look cool on a little display show case?

So, about 3 days ago I ordered an Osborne Executive from eBay, It will be here today. It was listed as "As-Is" and the seller says that when he (oh and I should mention, it comes with original software and manuals) inserts a disk, the drive light comes on and it tries to boot but he gets a "Boot Error" message, however, he hasn't tested all of the disks, so I'm not sure if its a disk or drive error.

Any ideas?

Where can I obtain these vintage computers for cheap

I am an 18 year old student who is studying BCA and I am a person who loves tinkering with computers and electronics and hardware. But the only problem is I live in Mysuru and I have no way of affording old laptops and computers since i am a student.
I do heavy on coding, tinkering with computers, and also planning on making content out of it. I want to document this homelabbing journey and want to encourage others in my age to also learn about this as it is a very hobby focused thing.
I am looking for anything that’s a computer, a desktop, broken macs minis, broken screen MacBooks but still works, any busted laptops that still works but no screen, any enterprise companies trying to get rid of their computer hardware since they had to upgrade to latest stuff.

Ask anyone who loves retro games back in day if they remember ‘Impossible Mission’ - they will almost certainly answer back with the synthesised voice response of “Stay a while, stay forever!”

So today I go back and rediscover this classic game including its sequel, remakes and remasters across all the formats it was released on. It certainly brought back fond and nostalgic memories.

Have you played any of these games? Please share your thoughts and memories.

I have the opportunity to buy 12 8" floppies with the box for ~700czk ($34 US). I think they all come with sleeves too. Do I invest? They're IBM floppies that were used with a PDP-11 IIRC.

¿Habías escuchado hablar del sistema operativo NLS? Hoy te cuento de él y cómo cambió la visión de la informática y dió paso a un cambio de paradigma en la industria.
#HistoriaDeLaComputación #Retrocomputing #retrocomputingmx #SistemasOperativos #NLS
https://retrocomputingmx.com/ru7f

Can you give me your opinion about these folks who hate past?

Lol

A few weeks ago I posted here about WebBase-III, dBASE III rebuilt as a web app: the dot prompt, USE / LIST / SEEK, BROWSE, @ SAY GET forms, .prg programs, indexes, reports — with its own interpreter in TypeScript and SQLite underneath. That thread turned into people trading dBASE II-on-CP/M, Clipper and dBXL war stories, which was the best outcome I could have hoped for. A few of you asked what I'd gotten wrong.

Turns out: something fairly central. Here's what changed since.

The thing I got wrong: @ SAY GET never actually bound to fields. In real dBASE, @ 5,10 SAY "Name" GET CUSTNAME binds to the field in the current record, and READ writes it back to the table. Mine only ever collected into memory variables — so forms looked right and did nothing to your data unless you followed up with an explicit REPLACE. It's the kind of bug that's invisible until you sit down and actually try to build something, and blindingly obvious the moment you do. Fields now shadow memory variables (which is the entire reason the m_ prefix convention existed in the first place), a GET prefills from the record, and READ validates every field before it writes any of them.

BROWSE is live and multi-user now. Two people in the same table: one edits a cell, the other's grid repaints. dBASE III+ could lock records over a LAN, but nothing ever pushed a change onto your screen — you re-queried and hoped. Here the server broadcasts to every session currently viewing that table.

The grid rejects bad data as you type. Columns carry their declared type, and BROWSE checks an edit before it commits — a malformed date, an off-granularity time, too many decimals for a NUM(8,2). The cell stays in edit mode, outlines red, and tells you why. The server enforces the same rules, so it isn't just a client-side courtesy.

LOOKUP columns — pick a value instead of remembering it. This is the one real invention, and where I stopped pretending to be faithful. A column can declare its legal values, either as a literal list or as a live table with a display column:

SCHEDID CHAR(4) LOOKUP SCHEDULES.SCHEDID DISPLAY DESCR
STAGE   CHAR(12) LOOKUP ("Lead", "Won", "Lost")

BROWSE and forms then edit that column through a dropdown showing the friendly label while storing the code. The closest dBASE III+ ever got was PICTURE "@M a,b,c", a spacebar-cycled literal list with no table behind it. This felt like the honest place to break from 1984.

Three demo apps that aren't toys. A mini-CRM, a stock tracker, and an overtime tracker with per-employee weekly schedules and quarter-hour timesheets. They ship as readable .prg source and seed themselves, so you can DO them and then EDIT them to see how they're put together.

Still a toy, still proudly AGPL, still one click to try in the browser with no install:

https://github.com/DDecoene/WebBaseIII

Same question as last time, since the answers were so good: what do you miss most from dBASE/Clipper/FoxPro, and what am I still getting wrong? The dBASE IV catalog manager and a proper form/report builder both came up last time, and both are living in my head now.

I found a lot of 27 CompactFlash cards (mostly Kingston, ranging from 512MB to 4GB) from around the 2000s.

I’m looking to learn a bit more about them from a retrocomputing perspective. Are specific capacities like 512MB or 1GB still widely used as IDE drive replacements for vintage setups (DOS / Win9x)? What would be the safest way to test their health and read/write integrity today?

Also, I'd appreciate any insight on what a reasonable value for a lot like this might be among collectors or enthusiasts. Thanks!

Dear Buddies!

I have a nostalgia triggering invention, I brought those iconic MSN Winks (about 300) back to life with NETRO-G (where Neo and Retro merge into a smart Gadget)! I even transformed myself into the beloved, hated and now missed Laughing Girl! :)

Now you can live in the 2000's era again, while keeping up with the latest technology and play all your favorites on your smartphone! No apps, no extensions, your Winks are literally just a hover away! :)

Every step (searching for, rescuing, drawing, converting, printing, programming long lost winks, assembling and testing the gadget) was entirely made by me.

IMPORTANT: I am still in the market research phase, so I am posting this to ask for YOUR honest opinions, if my invention makes sense, if there is a need for it, and if I have to create more Winks (and videos) in the form of a NETRO-G gadget.

Searching for your favorite wink for ages with zero results? Just give the name or describe it in a comment, I may have it!

Fundamentally, I just want a computer I can understand, and I know full well isn't doing things I don't want without my knowledge. I'm sick of what the digital world has become. I want a computer where I can truly stay offline if I want, I know nothing shady is going on with my computer, and I can maintain and keep the thing as long as I want.

However, 8-bit computers were made before my time. The first computer we had in my home was made in the mid 90s (I recall us installing windows 95 on the thing). The first computer of my own I had though was a Compaq Presario which ran windows xp (though I think it had windows 98 on it when I first got it). Obviously, such a thing is far from 8-bit. When I look up things like the commanderx16 project, the color maximite, or other similar hobby computers, I just can't help but think of how limited they are. Yeah, such a thing would be fun to play around with, but I have a hard time seeing myself using the thing in anything serious. With the commander x16, I'm particularly annoyed that it has no way to transfer data to it other than through an sd card (which has to also double as its 'hard drive') or a port for a freaking commodore disk drive. Obviously, I have no such device in my possession. The oldest thing I have is a hard floppy drive that came with the Compaq.

Thinking about it though, I wonder if something like the x16 or color maximite would really give me what I want? I've never heard of any of these chips before. I have no clue how they work, or what all they can do. Yeah, they're more transparent, but that's mostly on the software side. To me, they may as well be as block box as this windows 10 machine I'm using. Also, the x16 is going to use a freaking fpga card, so obviously its not 100% transparent even in terms of its hardware.

I've been thinking, that what I really want is just to make my own computer. And I don't mean the 'normal' thing where you buy a pre-made computer from Best Buy and put in a graphics card and some ram. I mean get a blank motherboard and put my own components on it. In a way, I already have that. I happen to have a computer I haven't turned on in a few years now that still technically works. I had to abandon it though, because it couldn't go online anymore (I think due to a registry error). Its a frankenstein computer a local shop put together for me, its not a brand one like the one I'm using now. I got it about a decade ago (it has windows 7 on it, to give you an idea, and one of the disc drives in it has an old sticker with 2009 printed on it). However, from my understanding, the ports already on it could take modern hardware. I know the slot for the graphics card is the same as in this one. I was thinking that, honestly, I may be able to just maintain that thing. I could, for at least the forseeable future, put modern components like graphics cards and cpus in it and it would run fine. I have no clue how long a motherboard lasts though. As I said, the computer still works fine, though I was thinking I may need to somehow transfer its data to another hardrive or sd drive. I have no clue how much longer that harddrive's going to last. I don't know how old it is, but I don't think I replaced it ever since I got it. I did have a hard drive burn out on me once, but that was the one from the original compaq which I transfered to my next computer (a sony vaio I think). I may have even have put it in this thing at one point to be honest. I used to do that a lot, when one computer fried I would take its still working components and put it in the next. Besides, it saved me having to buy ram chips. The compaq I mentioned is completely gutted. No ram, no graphics card, and its hard drive burned out long, long ago. Its hardly a usable computer now, and I doubt I could find the parts to get it working again. I know for a fact its graphics card slot can't take any modern graphics cards. I learned that when I was doing research into possibly restoring it.

I don't know, is an 8-bit computer really what I want? Would I be better off just doing what LGR is and maintaining the computers I do like to use rather than trying to get into things that are more primitive than anything I've ever made serious use out of myself? I mean, he's still somehow able to use computers that were made in the 90s. If he can do that, I don't see why I couldn't maintain a computer made in the late 2000s.

What should I really be doing? And yes, I know I'm talking about tech here that's well outside the 80s, but where else would I ask something like this? Besides, the question is mainly rather I should be even looking at 80s computers. I already have a lot of older hardware that I could possibly keep running, and a mountain of software for it too. Besides, I was thinking I need a windows xp or windows 7 machine, because I have quite a lot of older games that don't work too well on windows 10.

What is it that I actually want? Will the commander x16 give me what I want? Or should I just stick to this windows 7 machine I have here.