Behind RadioShack’s Cheapest Computer

June 30, 2025 by Bryan Cockfield 9 Comments

In the 1980s, there was a truly staggering amount of choice for a consumer looking to purchase a home computer. On the high end, something like an Apple Lisa, a business-class IBM PC, or a workstation from Sun Microsystems could easily range from $6,000 to $20,000 (not adjusted for inflation). For the time, these mind-blowing prices might have been worth the cost, but for those not willing to mortgage their homes for their computing needs, there were also some entry-level options. One of these was the Sinclair ZX-80, which was priced at an astounding $100, which caused RadioShack to have a bit of a panic and release this version of the TRS-80 computer to compete with it.

As [David] explains in his deep dive into this somewhat obscure machine, the TRS-80 MC-10 was a commercial failure, although not for want of features. It had a color display, a chicklet keyboard, and 4K of RAM, which were all things that the ZX-80 lacked.

Unfortunately, it also had a number of drawbacks compared to some of its other contemporaries that made consumers turn away. Other offerings by Commodore, Atari, Texas Instruments, and even RadioShack themselves were only marginally more expensive and had many more features, including larger memory and better storage and peripheral options, so most people chose these options instead.

The TRS-80 MC-10 is largely a relic of the saturated 80s home computer market. It’s drop in price to below $50, and the price competition between other PC manufacturers at the time was part of the reason for the video game crash of the 1980s, and even led to Steve Jobs getting fired from Apple. There’s not a huge retro scene for these machines either, although there is at least one game developer you can see in the video below from [Spriteworx]. If you want to experiment with some of the standard TRS-80 software, there are emulators that have everything you need.

Thanks to [Stephen] for the tip!

Behind The Bally Home Computer System

June 28, 2025 by Bryan Cockfield 8 Comments

Although we might all fundamentally recognize that gaming consoles are just specialized computers, we generally treat them, culturally and physically, differently than we do desktops or laptops. But there was a time in the not-too-distant past where the line between home computer and video game console was a lot more blurred than it is today. Even before Microsoft entered the scene, companies like Atari and Commodore were building both types of computer, often with overlapping hardware and capabilities. But they weren’t the only games in town. This video takes a look at the Bally Home Computer System, which was a predecessor of many of the more recognized computers and gaming systems of the 80s.

At the time, Bally as a company was much more widely known in the pinball industry, but they seemed to have a bit of foresight that the computers used in arcades would eventually transition to the home in some way. The premise of this console was to essentially start out as a video game system that could expand into a much more full-featured computer with add-ons. In addition to game cartridges it came with a BASIC interpreter cartridge which could be used for programming. It was also based on the Z80 microprocessor which was used in other popular PCs of the time, so in theory it could have been a commercial success but it was never able to find itself at the top of the PC pack.

Although it maintains a bit of a cult following, it’s a limited system even by the standards of the day, as the video’s creator [Vintage Geek] demonstrates. The controllers are fairly cumbersome, and programming in BASIC is extremely tedious without a full keyboard available. But it did make clever use of the technology at the time even if it was never a commercial success. Its graphics capabilities were ahead of other competing systems and would inspire subsequent designs in later systems. It’s also not the last time that a video game system that was a commercial failure would develop a following lasting far longer than anyone would have predicted.

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Invisible PC Doubles As Heated Seat

May 28, 2025 by Tyler August 20 Comments

Some people really want a minimalist setup for their computing. In spite of his potentially worrisome housing situation, this was a priority for the man behind [Basically Homeless]: clean lines on the desk. Where does the PC go? You could get an all-in-one, sure, but those use laptop hardware and he wanted the good stuff. So he decided to hide the PC in the one place no one would ever think to look: inside his chair. (Youtube video, embedded below.)

This chair has very respectable specs: a Ryzen 7 9800XD, 64GB of ram and a RTX 4060 GPU, but you’d never know it. The secret is using 50 mm aluminum standoffs between the wooden base of the seat and the chair hardware to create room for low-profile everything. (The GPU is obviously lying sideways and connected with a PCIe riser cable, but even still, it needed a low-profile GPU.) This assemblage is further hidden 3D printed case that makes the fancy chair donated from [Basically Homeless]’s sponsor look basically stock, except for the cables coming out of it. It’s a very niche project, but if you happen to have the right chair, he does provide STLs on the free tier of his Patreon.

This is the first time we’ve seen a chair PC, but desk PCs are something we’ve covered more than once, so there’s obviously a demand to hide the electronics. It remains to be seen if hiding a PC in a chair will catch on, but if nothing else [Basically Homeless] will have a nice heated seat for winter. To bring this project to the next level of minimalism, we might suggest chording keyboards in the armrests, and perhaps a VR headset instead of a monitor.

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Remembering More Memory: XMS And A Real Hack

May 15, 2025 by Al Williams 28 Comments

Last time we talked about how the original PC has a limit of 640 kB for your programs and 1 MB in total. But of course those restrictions chafed. People demanded more memory, and there were workarounds to provide it.

However, the workarounds were made to primarily work with the old 8088 CPU. Expanded memory (EMS) swapped pages of memory into page frames that lived above the 640 kB line (but below 1 MB). The system would work with newer CPUs, but those newer CPUs could already address more memory. That led to new standards, workarounds, and even a classic hack.

XMS

If you had an 80286 or above, you might be better off using extended memory (XMS). This took advantage of the fact that the CPU could address more memory. You didn’t need a special board to load 4MB of RAM into an 80286-based PC. You just couldn’t get to with MSDOS. In particular, the memory above 1 MB was — in theory — inaccessible to real-mode programs like MSDOS.

Well, that’s not strictly true in two cases. One, you’ll see in a minute. The other case is because of the overlapping memory segments on an 8088, or in real mode on later processors. Address FFFF:000F was the top of the 1 MB range.

PCs with more than 20 bits of address space ran into problems since some programs “knew” that memory access above that would wrap around. That is FFFF:0010, on an 8088, is the same as 0000:0000. They would block A20, the 21st address bit, by default. However, you could turn that block off in software, although exactly how that worked varied by the type of motherboard — yet another complication.

XMS allowed MSDOS programs to allocate and free blocks of memory that were above the 1 MB line and map them into that special area above FFFF:0010, the so-called high memory area (HMA). Continue reading “Remembering More Memory: XMS And A Real Hack” →

Jellybean Mac Hides Modern PC

May 7, 2025 by Tyler August 19 Comments

The iMac G3 is an absolute icon of industrial design, as (or perhaps more) era-defining than the Mac Classic before it. In the modern day, if your old iMac even boots, well, you can’t do much with it. [Rick Norcross] got a hold of a dead (hopefully irreparable) specimen, and stuffed a modern PC inside of it.

From the outside, it’s suprizingly hard to tell. Of course the CRT had to go, replaced with a 15″ ELO panel that fits well after being de-bezeled. (If its resolution is only 1024 x 768, well, it’s also only 15″, and that pixel density matches the case.) An M-ATX motherboard squeezes right in, above a modular PSU. Cooling comes from a 140 mm case fan placed under the original handle. Of course you can’t have an old Mac without a startup chime, and [Rick] obliges by including an Adafruit FX board wired to the internal speakers, set to chime on power-up while the PC components are booting.

These sorts of mods have proven controversial in the past– certainly there’s good reason to want to preserve aging hardware–but perhaps with this generation of iMac it won’t raise the same ire as when someone guts a Mac Classic. We’ve seen the same treatment given to a G4 iMac, but somehow the lamp doesn’t quite have the same place in our hearts as the redoubtable jellybean.

Printable Pegboard PC Shows Off The RGB

May 1, 2025 by Tyler August 19 Comments

Sometimes it seems odd that we would spend hundreds (or thousands) on PC components that demand oodles of airflow, and stick them in a little box, out of sight. The fine folks at Corsair apparently agree, because they’ve released files for an open-frame pegboard PC case on Printables.

According to the write-up on their blog, these prints have held up just fine with ordinary PLA– apparently there’s enough airflow around the parts that heat sagging isn’t the issue we would have suspected. ATX and ITX motherboards are both supported, along with a few power supply form factors. If your printer is smaller, the ATX mount is per-sectioned for your convenience. Their GPU brackets can accommodate beefy dual- and triple-slot models. It’s all there, if you want to unbox and show off your PC build like the work of engineering art it truly is.

Of course, these files weren’t released from the kindness of Corsair’s corporate heart– they’re meant to be used with fancy pegboard desks the company also sells. Still to their credit, they did release the files under a CC4.0-Attribution-ShareAlike license. That means there’s nothing stopping an enterprising hacker from remixing this design for the ubiquitous SKÅDIS or any other perfboard should they so desire.

We’ve covered artful open-cases before here on Hackaday, but if you prefer to hide the expensive bits from dust and cats, this mid-century box might be more your style. If you’d rather no one know you own a computer at all, you can always do the exact opposite of this build, and hide everything inside the desk.

Vintage Stereo Stack Becomes Neat PC Case

April 30, 2025 by Lewin Day 8 Comments

Vintage hi-fi gear has a look and feel all its own. [ThunderOwl] happened to be playing in this space, turning a heavily-modified Technics stereo stack into an awesome neo-retro PC case. Meet the “TechnicsPC!”

You have to hunt across BlueSky for the goodies, but it’s well worth it. The main build concerned throwing a PC into an old Technics receiver, along with a pair of LCD displays and a bunch of buttons for control. If the big screens weren’t enough of a tell that you’re looking at an anachronism, the USB ports just below the power switch will tip you off. A later addition saw a former Technics tuner module stripped out and refitted with card readers and a DVD/CD drive. Perhaps the most era-appropriate addition, though, is the scrolling LED display on top. Stuffed inside another tuner module, it’s a super 90s touch that somehow just works.

These days, off-the-shelf computers are so fancy and glowy that DIY casemodding has fallen away from the public consciousness. And yet, every so often, we see a magnificent build like this one that reminds us just how creative modders can really be. Video after the break.

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