The Retrobits Podcast

Welcome to Show 037! This week's Topic: The ARPANET!

Topics and links discussed in the podcast...

Electronics that act like a physical disk drive - awesome idea. Check it out at the Semi-Virtual Diskette site! It's Vegas, Baby! And Commodore fun! The Commodore Vegas Expo (CommVex) 2.0 will be held on July 29 and 30, 2006... An Internet Pioneer Ponders the Next Revolution - an interview with Robert Taylor on nytimes.com! Here's a tribute to J C R Licklider, including a link to a PDF of two of his seminal papers on man-computer synergy that inspired the Internet. Wikipedia articles on the ARPANET and Licklider - always a great place to start. And here's an online history of the Internet, including it's ARPANET heritage, on the Internet Society website.

Be sure to send any comments, questions or feedback to [email protected].

For online discussions on Retrobits Podcast topics, check out the Retrobits Podcast forum on the PETSCII Forums page!

Our Theme Song is "Sweet" from the "Re-Think" album by Galigan.

Thanks for listening!

- Earl

Welcome to Show 036! This week's Topic: The Dot Matrix Printer!

Topics and links discussed in the podcast...

Old Skool Arcade, Modern Day Fun - In Portland, my home town! Check out the Ground Kontrol site... Need to fix up your Commodore computer? Have a look at Ray Carlsen's homepage! More TI 99/4A links - a Yahoo! group, and the TI 99ers online User's Group! A Wikipedia article on the Dot Matrix Printer...

Be sure to send any comments, questions or feedback to [email protected].

For online discussions on Retrobits Podcast topics, check out the Retrobits Podcast forum on the PETSCII Forums page!

Our Theme Song is "Sweet" from the "Re-Think" album by Galigan.

Thanks for listening!

- Earl

Welcome to Show 035! This week's Topic: The Texas Instruments 99/4A Microcomputer!

Topics and links discussed in the podcast...

Use your old DOS PC as a Commodore hard drive. How? With 64HDD... A 21st century recreation of a 1960s educational computer toy? Now, that's retro! Check out the DigiComp I v 2.0 from Minds-On Toys. If you're like me, and you think an Altair looked cooler than your modern-day LAN party case, have a look at the AltairPC project at Briel Computers. Commodore 64 native code, cooked on a SuperCPU C64 or PC. Interested? Check out Slang, recently updated! Wikipedia article on the TI 99/4A - great info, as always. Another of my favorite sites, Old Computers Dot Com, with their coverage of the 99/4A. Check out the forums. An early 80s review of the 99/4A, from Creative Computing, on the Atari Magazines site. Cool! Want to see some photos of the 99/4A, and it's various stuff? Here's a Flickr site that will get you hooked up. The TI 99/4A Tech Pages - bits, bytes, schematics, pinouts - it's all here! There are several emulators for the 99/4A, including the Win994a simulator. The excitement continues with an annual fair in Chicago - couldn't find a main site, but there are videos of the event for your viewing enjoyment.

Be sure to send any comments, questions or feedback to [email protected].

For online discussions on Retrobits Podcast topics, check out the Retrobits Podcast forum on the PETSCII Forums page!

Our Theme Song is "Sweet" from the "Re-Think" album by Galigan.

Thanks for listening!

- Earl

Welcome to Show 034! This week's Topic: Retro Du Jour!

Topics and links discussed in the podcast...

Have a look at The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers, The Source for Video and Computer Game History since 1997! Peter Naur wins ACM'S Turing Award for his work on ALGOL 60 (Wikipedia Link). If you've got time, they've got videos - extensive Computer History Museum footage at Google Video! Lots of topics, great information. C64 HQ - Welcome to the world of C64 nostalgia. Check out the Interview section and Audio/Video links, talked about on the show.

Be sure to send any comments, questions or feedback to [email protected].

For online discussions on Retrobits Podcast topics, check out the Retrobits Podcast forum on the PETSCII Forums page!

Our Theme Song is "Sweet" from the "Re-Think" album by Galigan.

Thanks for listening!

- Earl

Welcome to Show 033! This week's topic: The Commodore 64 Demo Scene Part II!

Topics and links discussed in the podcast...

The Music Animation Machine, software originally produced on an Atari 800! Lots of Atari info this week - have a look at the website for the documentary, Once Upon Atari. And, check out the Tech Roundup episode with a look at the Game On video game exhibit! Bo Zimmerman's site has an extensive archive of NTSC demos for the C64. The C64 Scene Database has lots of info and demo scene releases. Have a look at Driven Online, a main focal point of the ongoing C64 NTSC demo scene!

Be sure to send any comments, questions or feedback to [email protected].

For online discussions on Retrobits Podcast topics, check out the Retrobits Podcast forum on the PETSCII Forums page!

Our Theme Song is "Sweet" from the "Re-Think" album by Galigan.

Thanks for listening!

- Earl

Welcome to Show 032! This week's topic: The Commodore 64 Demo Scene Part I!

Topics and links discussed in the podcast...

PDP-10 lives! Of course, we had no doubt. Check out PDP Planet, the portal into Paul Allen's collection of DEC systems! If you get an account on the PDP-10, you'll need documentation, which you can find at the Manuals for DEC 36-bit Computers site. This site links to bitsavers.org, an extensive and impressive preservation site for systems documentation and software. A lost interview with ENIAC co-inventor J. Presper Eckert, can be found on the computerworld.com site. Jeri Ellsworth, creator of the C64 DTV and other interesting hardware, gives a talk at Stanford University on the Google Video link. (Note that the video will begin playing immediately on the linked page.) Bo Zimmerman's site has an extensive archive of NTSC demos for the C64. The C64 Scene Database has lots of info and demo scene releases. Have a look at Driven Online, a main focal point of the ongoing C64 NTSC demo scene!

Be sure to send any comments, questions or feedback to [email protected].

For online discussions on Retrobits Podcast topics, check out the Retrobits Podcast forum on the PETSCII Forums page!

Our Theme Song is "Sweet" from the "Re-Think" album by Galigan.

Thanks for listening!

- Earl

Welcome to Show 031! This week's Topic: A book review - Fire In The Valley, The Collector's Edition

Topics and links discussed in the podcast...

8 bit parallel processing? Leave it to the Apple II enthusiasts! Have a look at the AppleCrate! Yes, you can build your own computer. And I mean from scratch. Check out the Magic-1 Homebrew CPU, and be sure to look at the "my other projects" page as well. It's The Woz! In person, on video, at an event hosted by the Computer History Museum. (When you click on the link, the video will start streaming right away.) Atari is apparently not doing so well financially, according to this article. It's kind of sad to see it in dire straits yet again. Ralph Baer, developer of Pong and Simon, will be honored at a White House ceremony this month. The Computer Museums and Retrocomputing Culture webring has some links that I will have to take a look at! Official Website for Fire In The Valley...

Be sure to send any comments, questions or feedback to [email protected].

For online discussions on Retrobits Podcast topics, check out the Retrobits Podcast forum on the PETSCII Forums page!

Our Theme Song is "Sweet" from the "Re-Think" album by Galigan.

Thanks for listening!

- Earl

Welcome to Show 030! This week's Topic: The IBM Personal Computer, Part II!

Topics and links discussed in the podcast...

A binary wristwatch, eh? That's a "bit" unique! Here's an article on SID music and music makers from Cyclic Defrost. Want to see a video of an original IBM 5150 rendering full screen video with color graphics and sound? And they said it couldn't be done... Here are Wikipedia articles on the IBM PC, and the CGA color graphics adapter.

Be sure to send any comments, questions or feedback to [email protected].

For online discussions on Retrobits Podcast topics, check out the Retrobits Podcast forum on the PETSCII Forums page!

Our Theme Song is "Sweet" from the "Re-Think" album by Galigan.

Thanks for listening!

- Earl

Welcome to Show 029! This week's Topic: The IBM Personal Computer, Part I.

Thanks to my son, Joshua, for helping me out with this week's podcast!

Topics and links discussed in the podcast...

Digital Retro - a book with info and pictures about a wide variety of retro computers. Check it out! Is your favorite in there? Some of mine are... A non retro link? Sure, why not? The BoltTalk podcast and blog covers the San Diego Chargers, a US professional football team. And, the host listens to Retrobits... The London-based Science Museum announces a £1 million partnership with Nintendo. Excellent! The IT Crowd from Channel 4 in the UK - funny, and retrocomputing aware! More fun stuff on the Byte Cellar vintage computing blog...Amigas in FPGA, Sharp X68000, and more! As usual, great entry on Wikipedia for the topic of the week, the IBM PC! Check out some of the corresponding links also!

Be sure to send any comments, questions or feedback to [email protected].

For online discussions on Retrobits Podcast topics, check out the Retrobits Podcast forum on the PETSCII Forums page!

Our Theme Song is "Sweet" from the "Re-Think" album by Galigan.

Thanks for listening!

- Earl

Welcome to Show 028! This week's Topic: Random Bits and Bytes!

Topics and links discussed in the podcast...

Always wanted to use a Cray? Give it a try! Check out the Commodore Article Index - lots of interesting reading! The NorthWest Classic Games Enthusiasts Expo 2006 - how about that, a retro event up my way! (Seattle, WA) Ads from old computers - they're fun to look at! Have a look at some at the Computer History site. GameBase 64 - an online effort to preserve Commodore 64 software. Excellent!

Be sure to send any comments, questions or feedback to [email protected].

For online discussions on Retrobits Podcast topics, check out the Retrobits Podcast forum on the PETSCII Forums page!

Our Theme Song is "Sweet" from the "Re-Think" album by Galigan.

Thanks for listening!

- Earl