@Tubsta @JoeRess @thelinuxEXP @osnews oh. That's wonderful. 😕

For #MARCHintosh this year I’m launching https://infinitemac.org. It features runnable versions of almost every classic System Software/Mac OS release, from 1984’s System 1.0 to 2000’s Mac OS 9.0.4.

This involved porting another emulator to the web (Mini vMac), tracking down 35 install disks, and the usual fighting with file systems. The blog post at https://blog.persistent.info/2023/03/infinitemac-dot-org.html has more details.

@vga256 Some interesting Sierra stuff you might dig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J43QLh59qFg

@pleia2 glad to have made a covert! Englebart's work is truly amazing and influential.

@acegopher nope. 1st edition 😎

@greatquux I found one for a reasonable price... It was still pricey... But it could have been moreso.

@aka_pugs very nice! Took me a few years to catch up.

Something very special arrived today!

@vertigo @tobyjaffey @b0rk that is a good point and a good source. I guess I more meant that we have more details on the development cycle of the 8080 compared to the 8086. But I could also just be misremembering since it's been a minute since I've done much Intel research.

@tobyjaffey @b0rk This would be the other place to look:
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_History/Intel_8008/Intel_8008_1.oral_history.2006.102657982.pdf
It's an oral history on the development of the 8008. Once again, I'd have to brush up on it, but I think that document might have an answer.

@tobyjaffey @b0rk ...so the underwhelming answer, I think, is just that CTC wanted 8-bit bytes for their fancy terminal. I haven't read the manual for the 2200 in a while, but I'm guessing that the 8-bit thing was to support ASCII character encoding, but I could be wrong.

@tobyjaffey @b0rk I've been summoned! I'm also a little perplexed by the standardization on 8-bit bytes in the x86 architecture specifically. Since the 8086 was initially a stop-gap project we don't have super super good details on it's development history. That said, I think the place to look is the 8008. That chip was designed as part of a contract for CTC, which was a terminal company. The 8008 would have powered the Datapoint 2200. That machine called for 8-bit bytes:
https://history-computer.com/Library/2200_Reference_Manual.pdf

Please consider making a donation of any size to the effort. Tony’s collection must be preserved, and the items he was loaned must be returned to their original enthusiast.

This effort is where the rubber meets the road in terms of preservation and community enrichment.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-kansasfest-rescue-tonys-apple-ii-legacy

@easternborder don't remind me 😓

I got a drive to use for backups a while back and it's just become my main working drive. I gotta get an actual backup setup worked out...

@easternborder that really sucks, dude. Hopefully it's just a part and not the whole drive that's bad.

@easternborder external hard drive also have little interface boards for connecting the drive up over USB. If it's not reporting a disk size or other info that board could have died.

Heyo, @adventofcomputing my external HDD's showing up like this and loads so slow, it crashes my file explorer. Oh, and says it needs a format - but if I format then podcast is royally screwed as this happened as I was about to make a backup. Any ideas? This is the case of 'I don't care how fucky or expensive the solution, I NEED that data'

@easternborder have you tried it on another computer? If the hard drive has its own power supply that could have died. Um... My windows experience is lacking, so I might not be super helpful here.

@thomasfuchs I'm interested for sure! At least in old manuals and books if you got em.

It's a slightly well kept secret, but I do have a shoq discord server.
https://discord.gg/GpFNu3DTU2