History of Personal Computing

This is the podcast where we take an informal look at personal computing history through the lens of eBay auctions. It’s sort of like Antiques Roadshow, but all about antique personal computers. On today’s show, we’re continuing our coverage of the second phase of portables, the earliest laptops. We’re covering the Cambridge Computer Z88 and […]

This is the podcast where we take an informal look at personal computing history through the lens of eBay auctions. It’s sort of like Antiques Roadshow, but all about antique personal computers. On today’s show, we’re continuing our coverage of the second phase of portables, the earliest laptops. We’re covering the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model […]

On this show, we’re still covering the second phase of portables, the earliest laptops, continuing with the Epson HX-20 and the Grid Compass. Links mentioned in this episode: Book: When Computing Got Personal: A history of the desktop computer David’s recent eBay purchase: VINTAGE INTEGRATED COMPUTER SYSTEM MICROCOMPUTER TRAINING Microprocessor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epson_HX-20 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_Compass Auctions Jeff EPSON […]

Welcome to a special interview segment of the History of Personal Computing podcast! In this episode, David and Jeff are speaking to Bob Applegate from Corsham Technologies. Bob has designed and sells modern, compatible (to original hardware) reproductions of both the 6800 & 6809 versions of the SWTPC SS-50 microcomputer. He also sells custom upgrade boards for […]

On this episode, we conclude our look at the first half of the second tier of personal computing… the luggables. We’re going to cover the Compaq Portable, the Commodore SX-64 and perhaps other misc. models. Links mentioned in this episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compaq_Portable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_SX-64 Auctions Jeff COMMODORE SX-64 VINTAGE COMPUTER WORKING CONDITION COMPAQ PORTABLE II 2 COMPUTER […]

On today’s show, we talk about the Vintage Computer Festival shows of the last few weeks. Plus, VCF East is where David and Jeff actually met in person for the first time. Links mentioned in this show: David’s new job Pictures from VCF East XI 2016 VCF East XI Wrap-Up Sights and Sounds of the Vintage […]

Welcome to a special interview segment of the History of Personal Computing podcast! In this episode, David and Jeff are speaking to Oscar Vermeulen from Obsolescence Guaranteed and creator of the PiDP-8/I, a modern replica of the 1968 PDP-8/I computer. On Oscar’s web page he explains: “Project goal: to create a faithful but low-cost replica of the […]

On today’s show, we begin our official look at the beginning of the second tier of personal computing… portable computers! We kick off by covering the first portables, the “luggables”, covering both the Osborne 1 and Otrona Attache. Links mention in this episode: Seven Microprocessors That Powered the PC Revolution Auctions picked for this episode: […]

On today’s show, we’re continuing and finalizing our coverage of the 32-bit GUI computers. On our last show, we covered the somewhat boring, beige Compaq Deskpro 386, other 386 based computers, and touched on the Windows/386 operating system. Today, we’re talking about the NeXT computer! Links mention in this episode: Slow down your Apple IIc […]

On today’s show, we’re continuing our coverage of the 32-bit GUI computers. We’ve covered some exciting and colorful 32-bit computing platforms. But in this episode, we go a little more boring and beige by covering the Compaq Deskpro 386, other 386 based computers, and touching on the Windows/386 operating system. Links mention in this episode: […]