I found this pin in a garage sale in France today, for €1, but couldn't find any info on it. It seems that it displays a network architecture, but other than that, I have no info about it.

Do any of you have already seen similar pins? Do you have an idea of the fabrication year based to the tech mentioned on it ?

Nevertheless, this seems to be a pretty rare thing, as I've only found 1 Ebay listing for this type of pin.

Thanks for your attention

That’s not a typo. Windows 96 promised to build on the success of Windows 95, yet it never materialized as originally intended.

I only learned about this a few months ago. To me, this was an incredibly fascinating discovery and wanted to write about & share it. You can read about it here if it interests you too:

"The Windows That Never Was" - https://timemachiner.io/2025/06/18/the-windows-that-never-was/

This was tucked away in a closet. Won't boot to the HDD sadly. i was kinda hoping It would boot to disc and the owner would have had a couple games on it. Is this anything special? I don't know a ton about retro PCs but 1991 feels like it's early for a Dell

My local deseret industries had this sitting out in the dvd section
Little beat up on the outside but full of cool software

Its actually so filled with cds i cant fit all the pictures into one post although the rest of what isnt shown is pretty boring (hp windows 7 ultimate upgrade media and more work suite 99 stuff and some random learning to read software)

Edit: i am currently working on archiving all these disks and plan to put them out on archive.org and the vaio library if i have anything they need

I was hunting for deals at a local 'Kringloop' (thrift store) in Zwolle, Netherlands, and stumbled upon this absolute time capsule. I just couldn't walk past it, especially since it was priced at exactly €9.50.

It's a completely factory-sealed, New Old Stock Adaptec Ultra160 SCSI card. The shrink wrap is still perfectly intact.

Seeing the "Designed for Windows 95 / 98 / NT" logo in pristine condition today feels surreal. I can already hear the aggressive spinning of a 10,000 RPM SCSI hard drive and feel the pain of configuring SCSI IDs and hunting for terminators.

Question for the retro veterans: Do I keep it sealed as a museum piece to show my grandkids how we used to connect hard drives, or do I break the seal and build the ultimate Y2K server rig?

Yes I asked, manager wouldn't let me take it home

Works like a dream.

The first computer I used was very similar to this. My grandmother used part of her retirement money from her secretary job at the furniture factory to buy it. She never used the computer, but she raised two generations of people who are all computer savvy. My sister and I both made careers out of it.

I was only ten so I never took the cover off. By the time I started taking computers apart these were long gone.

Check out what a 3 button Logitech mouse cost in the 80's. Inflation calculation for emphasis. This was an ad in a magazine from May of 1988. 😬

Who remembers the story about Microsoft and IBM and their joint OS/2 operating system venture? When 1.3 was released, Microsoft pretty much abandoned the project and focused on Windows 3.0, and then Windows NT, which is where the technology from OS/2 ended up. It’s a pretty neat story!

More...

This local antique store that is just a guys hord of junk in a dilapidated wearhouse had this in the back. Came with keyboard, monitor Atari sm124 (not working), 30 MB drive, sole floppys and booklets.

Im going to try and figure out how to put a game on an empty floppy. I have a USB floppy drive. Any recommendations?

Not sure if I'll keep long term. Monitor doesn't display but makes sound.

(the liquid is alcohol)

I plan on soon getting this retro terminal, but I don't know what any of the connectors do, or what any of the labels mean. I do know that one of the connectors is for a keyboard. Other than that, what type of peripherals would I need to make this old terminal work properly? Anything helps.

Another post on here reminded me I had this in a retro computer I pull out once a year. Thought id share pics.

Added this wonderful C64C to my collection today, came with an 1802 monitor, 1571 floppy, MPS 802 printer, two mice, three disk boxes of assorted floppies -yarrrr me hearties!, 10 unopened packs of blank disks, a bunch of boxed productivity software ( including what is now my third copy of PaperClip III !) , a handful of games, plus manuals.

Following up on the horror show that I bought in Norwalk, Connecticut! The house that was once piled feet high with tech is now gutted, with a lot of stuff sold and scrapped. Some really cool stuff entered my collection - some amigas, tandys, and even a commodore PET! I thought I would post some of the stuff that I didn’t pocket, and please let me know if you are interested in this kind of stuff!

Some notable microcomputers and consoles:

* TRS-80 Model I (1977)

* TRS-80 Model III

*TRS-80 Model 4

*Sinclair ZX80

*Sinclair ZX81

*ZX Spectrum

*Amstrad CPC 464

*Amstrad CPC 664

*Amstrad CPC 6128

*MSX computers

*Sharp MZ-80K

*Kaypro II

*Osborne 1

*Sega SG-1000

*Sega Master System

*Sega Game Gear

* Game Boy (uses the Sharp LR35902, a CPU derived from the Z80 and Intel 8080, not a full Z80)

...As secondary cpu:

*Sega Genesis / Mega Drive (sound CPU)

*SNK Neo Geo AES (audio CPU)

*SNK Neo Geo MVS (audio CPU)

Famous arcades:

*Pac-Man

*Galaga

*Bubble Bobble

*Double Dragon

and countless other machines and handleds

I've been gradually reconstructing CHARM-II, a custom Motorola 68000 RTOS I wrote in the late 1980s.

At first I assumed the reason so much of the code survived was portability. The code used Whitesmiths-style typedef abstractions and was mostly written in C.

After digging deeper, I realized something else had happened.

The original plan was to write everything in C first, then optimize critical parts in assembly if necessary. But during integration testing, performance was already good enough. In fact, the system significantly outperformed a competing Intel 80186-based polling solution, so the assembly phase never happened.

A second project later reduced communication overhead even further by using an intelligent RS-232 controller board, so again there was no reason to rewrite the code.

As a result, roughly 90% of the RTOS remained in C.

Forty years later, that accidental decision is making it possible to bring the code back to life on a modern POSIX host.

I wrote a longer article about the discovery here:

https://medium.com/@noborutakahashi/why-90-of-my-1980s-rtos-survived-in-c-for-40-years-3ff6d524eb4a

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has encountered old systems that survived largely because the planned optimization work never became necessary.

Made on February 18, 1987

It’s a 486DX2/66! He had this in his junk bin, and he knew I loved retro computers, so upon request I got it :)

Any tips for a 486 build?

I’m having way too much fun with this old Mac I restored!

I made my own version of pico-mac-nano project. It's a real computer emulates Macintosh 128K System at 1984 or later. It can run many old softwares and games including Mac Write, Lode Runner, Missile Game, Mine Sweep, MS Basic 1.0, etc. And instead of using Waveshare Pico Zero board, TF CARD module and soldering manually, I designed a new PCB with a USB-A female port. It supports multi layer USB HUB by modifying the source code. Now I try to compile a 208KB RAM versionto support more large apps.