Back home after an outstanding weekend of vintage computer and console goodness in Canberra. VCF Down Under '25 next year? Yes, this is from last night; I just couldn't be arsed posting until this morning
Vintage computing with an Australian accent.
Co-conspirator on the GrumpyOZRetro vintage computing and retrogaming podcast.
Tech, mainly retro / vintage stuff (but modern stuff may creep in from time to time). I also don't mind a bit of retrogaming.
On the rare occasions I stray off-topic, said posts will be marked with a "Not tech" CW. I encourage you to ignore those posts.
Makes the odd YouTube video now and then. Some more odd than others.
Back home after an outstanding weekend of vintage computer and console goodness in Canberra. VCF Down Under '25 next year? Yes, this is from last night; I just couldn't be arsed posting until this morning
I was going to share some photos from the Canberra Vintage Computer Expo, but Jeremy Barr-Hyde (not sure if he's on here) did a much better job. You can view his excellent photo album even if you don't do Crackbook https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.1128107744921680&type=3
Just a quickie in lieu of a full episode, on account of VCF Down Under / 2024 Canberra Vintage Computer Expo being only a couple of days away https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/grumpyozretro/episodes/GrumpyOzRetro-2024-Canberra-Vintage-Computer-Expo-Special-e2lc8cd
There's no release date yet, but I'm really looking forward to watching this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA4vp1v8eME
@nroach44 I was going to try and get one or both floppy drives up and running again at some stage, but not right now... I have 4 other machines I need to prep for Canberra and irl stuff to juggle too. I'll see how I go with servicing my drives in about a month or so.
Just preparing my Amstrad PPC640 for the 2024 Canberra Vintage Computer Exhibition / VCF Down Under, and it turned out that both floppy drives are cactus. Thankfully old mate Gotek saved the day. Crisis averted. https://vcfed.org/vcf-down-under/
It's only about 2 months overdue, but here's the latest episode of the GrumpyOZRetro podcast, featuring Johann from TheBasementChannel on YouTube https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/grumpyozretro/episodes/GrumpyOZRetro-Ep007---Johann-from-TheBasement-e2k0frp
No horrendous thumbnails, no clickbait titles... just consistently high quality videos packed with useful info. Great to see a YT channel of ExplaningComputers' calibre hit the 1M sub mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOK108FHZ_s
The real time to get retro hardware, if you get to pick, is the early 2000s when everyone's throwing out the good stuff they piled up in storage during the 90s so they can renovate or w/e. All the Pentiums, 3c509b NICs, floppy drives, and ribbon cables you can eat. Maybe the odd 68k Mac. Take 'em by the boxload, free or $1 at a surplus sale.
Now most of them have been destroyed, one way or another, and an AUI transceiver is $50 on ebay.
I had a buncha those around here, gosh darnit! *digging*
@48kRAM cheers! Will be sure to include your kind words in the next ep's Feedbag section.
No, I haven't disappeared. I've just moved house about 3 hours away from where I used to live, and said house is my biggest resto project to date.
Here's the latest episode of the GrumpyOzRetro pod. Not sure when the next one will drop, but hopefully the delay won't be quite as lengthy as that between episodes 5 and 6.
Available here, or wherever you get your pods.
I'm sure a few refugees from Retro Twitter remember the chatter around the Hope Dolphin a little while back. Looks like the dude who tweeted about it has made good on his promise to get it into a museum.
In case you missed the original tweets, the Hope Dolphin was an officially licenced BBC Micro clone made and sold in India. https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/69901/Hope-Dolphin/
I finally snuck under the velvet rope when the bouncers weren't looking. https://bsky.app/profile/ozretrocomp.bsky.social
I'm adding this to my list of future projects, only with an AgonLight2 and black 60% mechanical keyboard. Chris from ExplainingComputers builds a wedge case for the RPi 5 without a 3D printer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WphP4qpaM8
@48kRAM Cheers!
Getting into the @ozretrocomp Grumpy Oz Retro podcast. Thank you and Craig for making a retro podcast that's not hours long. Cheers! Really good stuff!
Having a family member who had a minor stroke at around the same age as Woz, it's scary but I've seen for myself that recovery is possible even in one's 70s. Get well soon. https://abcnews.go.com/International/apple-co-founder-steve-wozniak-minor-stroke-mexico/story?id=104767195
@vadergb ikr... it's mesmerising