The Taylor and Amy Show

The Avon Computer Goth Challenge

November 2, 2023 by 9 Comments

Hot off the heels of their musical debut 6502 song the good folk at the Taylor and Amy Show are at it again. This time instead of assaulting our auditory senses, they play with our perception of color all while keeping the spirit of retro computing alive.

To back up a bit, I had the pleasure of witnessing the discovery of the Avon Beauty Vision Computer while at the Vintage Computer Festival Mid-West (VCFMW) this past September. We had visited the home of our friend [Jim W] from VCFMW who nonchalantly pulled down from the shelf the reddest computer I have ever seen.

A crowd quickly gathered at this newfound treat, designed and built before the invention of the Blue LED, was fallen upon and the process of prying out its secrets began. I was not privy to the negotiations, but I did notice a brightly colored red suitcase being exfiltrated by highly trained operatives later that night.

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Vintage Computer Festival Southwest: Bil And Al’s Excellent Adventure

June 30, 2023 by 12 Comments

There was a time when seeing an actual computer was a big deal. They were in air-conditioned rooms with raised floors and locked doors. Even at a university, you were likely only to get access to a keypunch machine or a terminal. Then small computers came out, but computer stores were few and far between. Now you can go to any local store that sells electronics and put your hands on hardware that would have been black magic in those days. But the computers back then were also much easier to understand completely. Look at your main computer today. Do you know all the assembly language instructions for it? Can you access the GPU and the MMU? Could you build your own memory for it? Sure, you don’t have to do those things, but it was fun knowing that you could. That seemed to be the overwhelming sentiment among the attendees we spoke to at the Vintage Computer Festival last weekend: We like computers that we can completely understand and troubleshoot.

If you weren’t one of the 900 or so attendees, we can help. Check out our video summary, dive into even more interviews with Bil Herd and guests on our YouTube channel, or just keep reading. The festival happens at several locations throughout the year, but this was the first time one has been in the Southwest for about ten years!

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Hackaday Podcast 222: VCF East Special Edition

June 9, 2023 by No comments

Editor in Chief Elliot Williams is spending the week communing with nature, which under normal circumstances would mean no podcast — after all, he’s the one who puts each episode together. But since your weekend would obviously be ruined without a dose of lo-fi Hackaday beats to kick things off, Managing Editor Tom Nardi made a valiant attempt to go it alone and produce…something.

This shortened episode will briefly go over the news, including updates about Hackaday’s various ongoing contests and the recent unearthly conditions in the US Northeast due to the Canadian wildfires, before diving into the results of last week’s What’s that Sound challenge. Listeners will then be treated to a special Quick Hacks segment from Jenny List, before settling in for the main event: a pair of fascinating interviews recorded during the 2023 Vintage Computer Festival East in Wall, NJ.

Check out the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Feel free to download the MP3 directly for safe keeping.

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VCF East 2023: Retro Luminaries Take The Stage

April 23, 2023 by 4 Comments

Our friend [Fran Blanche] recently recorded what it was like to participate in an energetic round table at the recently held Vintage Computer Festival (VCF) East. Fran joined well known personalities [Jeri Ellsworth], [Adrian Black] of Adrian’s Digital Basement, and Usagi Electric creator [Dave Lovett] with yours truly moderating.

The table-less roundtable discussed the pros and cons of streaming about retro and tech, and what its like to hang yourself out there in video format. Goals and motives differed widely from speaker to speaker and there was some good-natured ribbing about who makes money vs. who simply gets away with spending less.

Most of all fun was had by the speakers as they interacted with each other, and with the audience — and that comfort came across to the standing room only crowd of avid retro-enthusiasts who only told us good things about what they saw and heard that night.

One thing we did note was that every speaker actually knew what microphones were and how to use them.

Want to learn more about the 2023 Vintage Computer Festival East? You can start by checking out our previous coverage, and don’t miss the first in a series of fascinating interviews recorded by the Hackaday crew as they explored this phenomenal retrocomputing event.

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Eico Signal Generator Gets A Repair

June 23, 2020 by 5 Comments

The Eico model 377 was a pretty common audio signal generator. [The Radio Mechanic] picked one up from 1956 that was in reasonably good shape, and shares a teardown and repair of the unit that you can see in the video below. The device could produce sine and square waves using a few tubes.

The unit was a bit different inside than expected because there were several versions made that shared the same model number. The bottom of the case had some goo in it, which is never a good sign. Unsurprisingly, the culprit was an old capacitor.

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Why You (Probably) Won’t Be Building A Replica Amiga Anytime Soon

June 16, 2020 by 68 Comments

Early in 2019, it  became apparent that the retro-industrial complex had reached new highs of innovation and productivity. It was now possible to create entirely new Commdore 64s from scratch, thanks to the combined efforts of a series of disparate projects. It seems as if the best selling computer of all time may indeed live forever.

Naturally, this raises questions as to the C64’s proud successor, the Amiga. Due to a variety of reasons, it’s less likely we’ll see scratch-build Amiga 500s popping out of the woodwork anytime soon. Let’s look at what it would take, and maybe, just maybe, in a few years you’ll be firing up Lotus II (or, ideally, Jaguar XJ220: The Game) on your brand new rig running Workbench 1.3. Continue reading “Why You (Probably) Won’t Be Building A Replica Amiga Anytime Soon” →