ASCII To Mainframe

April 8, 2025 by Al Williams 11 Comments

IBM mainframes are known for very unusual terminals. But IBM made many different things, including the IBM 3151 ASCII terminal, which uses a cartridge to emulate a VT220 terminal. [Norbert Keher] has one and explains in great detail how to connect it to a mainframe.

It had the 3151 personality cartridge for emulating multiple IBM and DEC terminals. However, the terminal would not start until he unplugged it. The old CRT was burned in with messages from an IBM 3745, which helped him work out some of the configuration.

Continue reading “ASCII To Mainframe” →

The Computers Of EPCOT

April 8, 2025 by Al Williams 8 Comments

Even if you aren’t a Disney fan, you probably know about EPCOT — Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow — a Disney attraction that promised a glimpse of the future. [ErnieTech] takes a glimpse at the UNIVAC computer that ran the operation in the 1980s. A lot of schools had UNIVAC 1100-series computers back in those days, so while you don’t hear as much about them as, say, IBM 360s, there are hordes of people who have used the 1100s, even if they don’t remember it.

EPCOT opened in 1982, and the UNIVAC not only ran the attraction but was also visible as part of the exhibit’s ambiance. They even used the Pepper’s Ghost illusion to superimpose a little man on top of the equipment.

Continue reading “The Computers Of EPCOT” →

The 1980s Computer, French Style

April 7, 2025 by Jenny List 10 Comments

Should you travel around Europe, you may notice that things in France are ever so slightly different. Not necessarily better or worse, simply that the French prefer to plough their own furrow rather than importing cultural tends from their neighbors.

In the 1980s this was evident in their home computers, because as well as a Minitel terminal in your house, you could have an all-French machine plugged into your TV. [Retro Krazy] has just such a machine — it’s a Matra Hachette Alice 32, and its red plastic case hides hardware any of us would have been proud to own back in the day.

At first sight it appears superficially similar to a Sinclair Spectrum, with its BASIC keywords next to the keys. But under that slightly calculator style AZERTY keyboard is an entirely different architecture, a Motorola 6803. The first Alice computer was a clone of a Radio Shack model, and while this one has no compatibility with its predecessor it retains some silicon choices. On the back are a series of DIN sockets, one for a SCART adapter, and more for serial connectivity and a cassette deck. The overall impression is of a well-engineered machine, even if that red color is a little garish.

The Alice hasn’t appeared here on its own before, but we have taken a look at French retrocomputers here in the past.

Continue reading “The 1980s Computer, French Style” →

Reverse Engineering The IBM PC110, One PCB At A Time

April 6, 2025 by Tom Nardi 10 Comments

There’s a dedicated group of users out there that aren’t ready to let their beloved IBM PC110 go to that Great Big Data Center in the Sky. Unfortunately, between the limited available technical information and rarity of replacement parts, repairing the diminutive palmtops can be tricky.

Which is why [Ahmad Byagowi] has started a project that aims to not only collect all the available schematics and datasheets that pertain to the machine, but to reverse engineer all of the computer’s original circuit boards. Working from optical and x-ray scans, the project has already recreated the motherboard, power supply, modem, keyboard, and RAM module PCBs in KiCad.

Just last week the project released production-ready Gerbers for all the boards, but considering there have been 45+ commits to the repository since then, we’re going to assume they weren’t quite finalized. Of course, with a project of this magnitude, you’d expect it to take a few revisions to get everything right. (Hell, we’ve managed to screw up board layouts that had fewer than a dozen components on them.)

If you’d like to lend a hand, [Ahmad] says he could use the help. Beyond checking the boards for problems and reporting issues, he’s also on the hunt for any datasheets or other documentation that can be found for the PC110 or its components. It looks like there’s still schematic work that needs to be done as well, so if your idea of zen is figuring out how ~30 year old computers were wired up internally, this might be the perfect summer project for you.

Interestingly, our very own [Arya Voronova] has been working on creating a drop-in replacement motherboard for the Sony Vaio P using KiCad and imported board images. That hobbyists are now able to do this kind of work using free and open source tools is a reminder of just how far things have come in the last few years.

Thanks to [adistuder] for the tip.

An Amstrad PCW Receives A Bit Of Love

April 6, 2025 by Jenny List 6 Comments

If Clive Sinclair’s genius in consumer electronics was in using ingenious hacks to make cheaper parts do greater things, then his Amstrad competitor Alan Sugar’s was in selling decade-old technology to consumers as new and exciting. His PCW series of computers are a great example, 1970s CP/M machines smartly marketed for late 1980s home offices. They were a popular choice at the time, and [Retro Recipes] has one. In a video filmed in period standard definition he’s taking us through a repair to its Gotek drive, and then a RAM upgrade.

The repair and upgrade are fairly straightforward, the former being a failed OLED screen on the drive and the latter being the installation of a bank of DIP memory chips. The interest lies in how they cost-minimised a CP/M machine as a consumer product. The board relies heavily on custom chips as you might expect, and there’s a brief glimpse of one of those unusual 3″ floppy drives. The power supply is part of the monitor board as was often the case with Amstrad machines, and the whole thing is about as simple as it can be. The full video can be found below the break.

We’re guessing that particularly in the UK there will be plenty of PCWs still languishing in dusty attics, but surprisingly given their popularity at the time we see less of them that might be expected. There has been a significantly upgraded model on these pages though.

Continue reading “An Amstrad PCW Receives A Bit Of Love” →

Celebrating 30 Years Of Windows 95 At VCF

April 6, 2025 by Adam Fabio 78 Comments

It’s been 30 years since Windows 95 launched. [Ms-Dos5] and [Commodore Z] are celebrating with an epic exhibit at Vintage Computer Festival East 2025. They had no fewer than nine computers — all period-correct machines running versions of Windows 95. The pictures don’t do it justice, so if you are near Wall, NJ, on Sunday, April 5, 2025, definitely go check out this and the rest of the exhibits at VCF.

An exhibit like this isn’t thrown together overnight. [Commodore Z] and [Ms-Dos5] worked for months to assemble the right mix of desktops, laptops, and peripherals to showcase Windows 95. Many of the computers are networked as well – which was no easy task.

One particular Thinkpad 760e required pliers and force to remove a stuck PCMCIA modem card. After a struggle that was ultimately destructive to the card, the pair determined it was stuck due to a sticker that had effectively glued the card into the laptop. As the sticker finally gave up, the card popped itself out of the laptop.

Continue reading “Celebrating 30 Years Of Windows 95 At VCF” →

Ben Eater Vs. Microsoft BASIC

April 5, 2025 by Elliot Williams 12 Comments

[Ben Eater]’s breadboard 6502 computer is no stranger to these parts, so it was a bit of a surprise that when [Mark] wrote in asking us if we’d covered [Ben]’s getting MS BASIC running on the breadboard, that our answer was “no”. Well, that changes today!

This is a three-part video series, documenting how [Ben Eater] ports a 1977 version of MS BASIC to his 6502-based computer. The first video is all about just getting the BASIC up and working. It’s full of detail about how MS BASIC adapts to different architectures on the inside, and [Ben] essentially defines his own along the way.

Once he has BASIC working, the next two videos are about making it work not just with the serial terminal that he has attached, but also with the LCD display peripheral he has plugged into the breadboard. BASIC fans will not be surprised to see that it’s all about using POKE. But that ends up being to slow, so he extends it out with his own LCDPRINT command written in assembly.

Now that he can write a character to the LCD, he wants to be able to pass it a string: LCDPRINT “Hello world”. But that requires his command to be able to parse a string, and this has him diving down the rabbit hole into how MS BASIC parses strings, handles evals, and so on. If you want to know how MS BASIC works on the inside, this is the video for you. This video makes a lot of use of wozmon, which seems an almost ideal tool for this kind of low-level poking around.

All of this is done in [Ben]’s very well rehearsed, accessible, but pulling-no-punches style. Get ready to nerd out. All three of the videos are embedded just below the break.

While it’s not the Altair BASIC that Bill himself was writing about last week, it’s probably a direct descendent, and reading about the Altair version was what spurred [Mark Stevens] to send us the tip. Thanks!

Continue reading “Ben Eater Vs. Microsoft BASIC” →