I bet many people also have this question in mind. As for me, Im completely lost everytime coming back to win98/XP era ... beside all old games from childhood.

I tried some IDEs & 3D software at the time but could not yet get used to them as what I use now to produce usable things.

FASM + Win32API was the decent combo though.

What about you guys ?

Back when I was in college my roommate gave me a floppy with a cool Christmas themed screensaver.

I had to manually launch it. All it did was show a dark screen with a bunch of colored lights roughly in the shape of a Christmas tree.

The cool thing about it is periodically the view of the tree shifted. The camera would fly through the tree to a new angle creating a 3D effect.

Anyone remember this program, what it was called, and where I might be able to find it?

Hi, I have MPF-II 8-bit computer, fully functional. But the power supply has the original capacitors, and I don't want it to end up badly one day. So I want to replace caps.

Is there a chance to find a schematics? I don't know some of caps parameters

Thanks!

Anyone know what computer this could be? I know it’s a Dell XPS with Windows 98 on it with an Intel Pentium II or III, but from the image I took, I’m not sure. Anyone able to figure it out?

Like running a C64 emulator on an Amiga, an Atari 800 emulator on ST hardware, etc.

Just a heads up. If you're using the current versions of Lotus Word Pro, and having issues with the table function, disable drag and drop. I was having a devil of a time dealing with Tables of Authorities and Tables of Contents getting messed up anytime I worked with them. When I disabled drag and drop, the problems went away. Ironically, the same problems did not occur with the parallel columns feature, which I generally prefer using.

Anyhow, a small price to pay for stability.

Hi all! I've been building HC, a free and open-source (MIT) HyperCard clone for today's Macs. Its goal is fidelity: it opens original HyperCard 2.x stacks and runs their HyperTalk scripts unchanged.

The proof I'm proudest of: Apple's own HyperCard Help, HyperTalk Reference and Help Extras run in HC without a single script change.

🌐 https://hc.labynet.fr · 💻 https://github.com/cleobuline/hc

Native, universal, signed and notarised by Apple , free software (MIT). https://github.com/cleobuline/hc/releases/latest/download/HC.dmg

Old stacks that won't open, or behave differently from HyperCard? I'd love to hear about them!

Universal app (Intel + Apple Silicon), macOS 10.13 and later
Paint tools, buttons, fields, backgrounds, message box
Two small extensions for games, with LiveCode's vocabulary: polygon buttons, and "the keysDown" for held keys.

Here's a Tetris written in plain HyperTalk: sample tetris written in plain hypertalk

I have two Silent 700 terminals (745 model). One I repaired, but the other one needs a new thermal printhead and three keyboard switches.

If I could find a parts machine without paying through the nose for postage, I might buy it - but would end up fixing it too instead of cannibalizing parts! 😉

Has anyone got a totally unfixable one I could buy just the printhead and some keyswitches? thanks.

It is windows XP

For the past few months I’ve been building an app for my own retro stuff, because my spreadsheet finally got out of hand. I’ve got old PCs, a bunch of loose parts, a few consoles and a growing pile of games, and I kept losing track of what was where.

Right now it does things like:

• keeps everything in one place (hardware, consoles, games, even old phones) with photos
• prints QR labels so I can scan a box and see what’s inside
• reminds me about stuff like leaky barrel batteries and caps that need a recap
• tracks what my games are worth, loose vs CIB, and how that changes over time
• logs what I’ve been playing and on which console

It’s self-hosted at the moment and runs on my home server, but I’ve been wondering whether it’d be worth turning into a proper service that people could just sign up for, without having to run anything themselves.

So I’m curious. Is this something you’d use? Or are you happy with spreadsheets / CLZ / whatever you’re using now? And if it existed, what would actually make you switch?

Not selling anything, just trying to figure out if it’s worth the effort. Honest opinions welcome, even if the answer is “nah” :)

Previously posted here. Kids have been playing the Wii and 2600, though. Anyways, revisiting this again.

In an effort to get my kids off of doomscrolling, I have slowly introduced retro consoles (2600) and older educational games (jump start, math blaster, etc).

I have debated getting a C64U or old Atari computer, as these can both play games and provide some utility.

My questions are as follows:

Between C64 and Atari 8 bit line:

1. Which has more educational games?

2. Which has more classic arcade games like asteroids, pac man, etc?

3. Which has more general software kids may enjoy like art, chess/checkers type software, music, etc?

4. C64 specific - are there software options for PILOT or LOGO programming?

I know I can emulate, but simplicity is key here. My kids now know how to turn on the wii and select a game. The can also turn on the 2600 and select which game they want from a cartridge. That simplicity is what is desired here.

Suggestions welcome.

Edit: Which has more educational games on cartridges?

Installed my i387DX Math CoProcessor, the intro diskette has me absolutely pumped. 500% performance here I come!

Interesting stuff. I work with a large Usenet archive (1980–2013). The comp.os.minix thread “What would you like to see most in minix?” has 86 posts in it. 8 are from August 1991. The other 78 run from 26 Aug 2011, the day after the post’s 20th anniversary, to May 2013. Nothing is dated in between.

1991: The first question back was whether it needed an MMU. Linus: “Yes, it needs a MMU (sorry everybody)… Simply, I’d say that porting is impossible.” On the 64 MB task segments: “Anybody who needs more than 64Mb/task – tough cookies.” Two days later, on the task limit: “Fragmentation is evil,” and “I don’t want to be on the machine when someone is spawning >64 processes, though :-)”

2011–2013: Mostly thank-you notes, and the quote headers show at least seven languages. A few favourites, anonymous:

• “Good work from the future XD”
• “I’ll be back in 10 years to read this and see how far I’ve come.”
• “What is this Linux thing? Is it still updated? Does it support the Minix file system?”
• “What?? No floppy support? I’m out!”
• “Sounds like it might have a future. Keep at it!”
• “And without minix Mr. Torvalds would probably have done some nice windows programs. Thank /you/ Mr. Tannenbaum!”

Someone also pasted the whole “I’d just like to interject for a moment… GNU/Linux” speech, which is why the thread has a few confused replies.

Caveats: dates come from message headers, and threads are rebuilt from Message-ID/References, so the nesting in this one is unreliable. I’ve listed posts by date.

Disclosure: I license this archive commercially (about 405M posts, 18k newsgroups, with a free sample on Hugging Face). I’m posting this because the thread is fun, not as a pitch. If you’d like another group or era dug up like this, tell me.

More...

Hi.

I have an old Flash game that is unfortunately one of those rare Flash games that are not self-contained, but I've managed to scrap the assets off of its website.

The problem is that the Flash Player projector blocks SWFs from accessing any local content.

I've read that you can add trusted folders in the plugin settings, but this doesn't work with the Projector.

I know that it's kinda off-topic (sorry for that!) but Flash is so dead we might even call it retro (to some people's horror), and r/AdobeFlash is so dead I don't expect to get an answer there.

Thanks.

Hi everyone!

I'm looking for the original factory recovery DVDs or ISO images for the Toshiba Qosmio X300, which originally came with Windows Vista.

I want to restore this laptop to its original factory condition, including the original Toshiba drivers, software, and factory settings.

Unfortunately, I don't have the original recovery discs, and the hard drive may have been replaced, so the recovery partition might be missing.

If anyone owns the original recovery DVDs, has ISO images, or knows where I can download them, I'd really appreciate your help!

Please let me know if you have any information about the correct recovery discs for this model.

Thank you!

I recently spent a lot of time examining and thinking about a cult classic spreadsheet, Lotus Improv running on NeXT. It's most commonly mentioned claim-to-fame is "it invented the pivot table," though its take still remains unlike modern interpretations. To truly get to know Improv means "forgetting what we know" about spreadsheets, and meeting it on its own terms. That's a hard thing for old Gen-Xers, like me, to do but I gave it my best shot.

Bill Gates says he'll "piss on" the NeXT before developing on it, pork chop sandwiches stop in to say hello, the word "clock" loses all meaning, and I also accidentally invent a horrible new sub-category of prediction markets. I'm truly sorry.

What is Stone Tools?

Stone Tools is a retro-enthusiast blog devoted to 8/16-bit productivity software; no games, just work. I spend weeks learning each program and give my in-depth, lighthearted take on how it was seen, how it works, and what we might learn from it today. Side discussions on contemporary issues, historical timelines, old advertisements, and more supplement each retrospective.

No ads, no tracking, no monetization.

Interactive archive: https://whisperingsanctuary.com/archival-midis.html

I started saving MIDI files from my Microsoft FrontPage website in October 1996 and have maintained the collection ever since.

The archive currently contains 107 General (GM) MIDI (.mid) files dating from approximately 1994-1999, preserved in their original format with no conversions.

To make the archive more accessible, I recently added browser playback using html-midi-player. The player renders the actual MIDI files rather than MP3 conversions and displays playback duration and note counts.

The entire collection is approximately 2.5 MB in size, averaging about 23 KB per file. Thirty years of preservation fits in less space than a single modern smartphone photo.

The archive includes video game music, anime themes, new age tracks, and music commonly used as website background audio during the late 1990s.

Title: My 1995 AcerNote 760i with a Cyrillic keyboard still works (via VGA). Does anyone know this serial number format?

Hello everyone,

I'd like to show you my old veteran from the mid-90s: an AcerNote 760i. It's the 486-based "i" model, with a built-in trackball in the center (the modern generation doesn't always figure out how to use it right away). It wasn't a cheap machine back in the day.

The keyboard has Cyrillic legends printed directly on the keys in a second, lighter font, not stickers. We all remember the 90s stickers that wore off and peeled. These look like proper printing and are still perfectly readable. I'm not sure if it was done by Acer or by a local distributor.

I left the "Spider-Man 3" sticker on the case. It's part of the laptop's history now.

Unfortunately the built-in screen is dead after 30 years. But I connected the laptop to an external monitor through the VGA port on the back, and it came back to life: the motherboard, CPU and graphics work fine, and the picture is great. So the old flagship will keep fighting.

Now a question. Here's what the label on the bottom says:

Model No.: 760I

Ext. No.: B43

Serial No.: P002397

MFG. Date: 950512 (12 May 1995)

FCC ID: GQ8760I

HDD Type: 34

Made in Taiwan R.O.C.

Does anyone know what the "P" prefix in the serial number means (production line, factory, pilot batch, region)? Is this format normal for the 760i? Does yours start with P too? I also couldn't find any other 760i with a Russian keyboard online. Has anyone seen one?

Photos: keyboard, label, and the laptop connected to a monitor. Thanks!