My first computer of my own 1986

Digital Paleontology: The study of extinct computing systems through the examination of surviving hardware, source code, documentation, and the recollections of their creators.

I am amazed at times at what I uncover in digging through a box in the basement. Here I have this fossil: IBM's DOS 3.3 Technical Reference. This is in a 3-ring binder and about 2 inches thick (single-sided 20 lb. paper).

I developed a product (for my own company) in the 1980s. It was an ISA card for the PC that served as a RAM disk (battery-backed SRAM). And uniquely, a z80 (64180) processor on that card shared that same RAM file space. That z80 processor ran an extended form of BASIC that I wrote. The card would interface with external devices through a serial port, collect data, and format that into files. We had a whole library of BASIC Data Interpreter routines.

From the PC's perspective files would simply appear. Those were processed by laboratory software and removed. Generally there were multiple cards in a PC. I think it was a unique approach considering the time frame.

Anyway, This was a key reference in developing the PC side drivers needed for this. It was also critical in making sure that the FAT formatting of that RAM disk was 100% proper.

One of the best late VLB motherboards, with Rev. 2.1 supporting more CPU voltage options than Rev. 2.0.

An interesting detail about the Intel DX4-100 Write-Back: Wikipedia originally listed its release as October 1994, but I couldn't find any contemporary evidence supporting that date.

I started a discussion on Vogons back in 2022. We compared Intel documentation, BIOS support, CPU date codes and contemporary sources. Eventually, in February 2025, another forum member corrected Wikipedia's release year to 1995.

The exact release date is still uncertain, but late 1995 seems likely.

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=86260

You take refuge in a book published when you graduated high school and microprocessors were groovy.

Hi everyone!
I recently came across this old MCI NP-913 portable computer, apparently from the early 1990s.
Surprisingly, it still powers on and the display works! It currently shows a “Drive not ready” error and asks for a boot diskette.
I haven’t been able to find much information about this particular model.
Does anyone know anything about its history, specifications, rarity, or potential collector value?
I’d love to learn more about it. Thanks!

Hello, fellow computer enthusiasts on Reddit.

I'm just an ordinary Korean guy who majored in computer science.

I've already posted two articles on Reddit using the ES40 emulator.

Today, I'm posting a third article as a follow-up.

I was really curious whether it would be possible to run x86 StarCraft on a DEC Alpha system through binary translation.

As with my previous experiments, I invested a lot of time in this, and I ended up staying up all night again.

It's 5:39 AM here in South Korea.

After a lot of trial and error and struggling with various issues, I finally did it.

The Windows environment on a DEC Alpha system is much more finicky than a typical Windows environment.

It's quite tricky to work with.

Nevertheless, I'm very happy that I succeeded.

I think this might be the first publicly documented case of successfully running x86 StarCraft on the ES40 emulator.

I'm really looking forward to seeing your reactions.

I'd appreciate lots of comments and upvotes!

Depending on the response, I'll consider making a video based on my experiences so far.

Thank you

My 486 DX4 setup with a VLB graphics card and three ISA sound cards.

Top to bottom:

• Hercules PowerDynamite 2MB VLB (Tseng ET4000/W32p)
• Gravis Ultrasound 3.74 1MB ISA
• Roland RAP-10 ISA
• Creative Sound Blaster Pro 2.0 ISA

The three sound cards provide Gravis Ultrasound, Sound Blaster, and General MIDI compatibility for DOS games.

I vividly remember 12-year-old me and my nerdy friends being so excited for the release of Triumph of the Nerds on PBS in 1996, and I've watched it over a dozen of times in the years since. It is one of my all-time favorite documentaries. It's actually the key biggest inspiration for the project I am currently doing of interviews.

His column in InfoWorld was a go-to for many people in Silicon Valley for many years.

I read that he lost two of his sons before his passing, one as an infant in 2002 who passed away in his arms, and another just earlier this year at age 21. It's hard to imagine that grief.

I never had the privilege of meeting Mark personally, but he left a big impact on me and countless others through his work.

RIP

Which industry commonly used this. Anyone?

I spent hundreds of hours typing in basic programs from books just like these when I was about 14. Big wave of nostalgia seeing this.

I recently got this 30 pound brick from an estate sale. There are no identifying markings on the outside for a company, except for a useless serial number that comes up with nothing when searching it, and "LCD Portable Computer".

• The motherboard has no name on it, only the model number: ECS-386/32.

• Some of the cards in it have names, the hard drive/floppy controller is by Western Digital, the video card is some Hercules clone I think, and the bottom one is just a serial/parallel port card.

• The hard drive is 43mb from Seagate and sadly does not work.

• The floppy drive is from Mitsubishi and does work.

• The screen is terrible and i can barely see a thing even when messing with the contrast knob.

If anyone knows anything about this please let me know, i was able to find some variants of it by reverse image searching it, but no real documentation about it anywhere.

The battery was soldered to the motherboard, so I ordered an external battery holder that I will solder onto the motherboard terminals. It posted for a while, but now it does not. (Probably the battery). It didn't come with an HDD, but I will eventually buy a maxtor 7540av off of eBay or something similar. The original owner also upgraded the CPU to a 75mhz Intel overdrive. It also still has its stock 8mb ram. The CD (and probably floppy) drives were both dead, so I will replace them.

It does say "Laser" on it, but I have never found any documentation for it. Would like to know the DIP switch settings.

I was thinking about my first Dell P75, and I think I had a #9 GXE graphics card. Does anyone still have one of these? I later replaced it with a Matrox card (Millennium G200 I think)

Quality isn’t the best on these screenshots but hopefully someone will be familiar with the model of these computers from Terminator 2 (1991).

So, my brother found this for an incredible price delivered, so I knew I had to get it. It does not currently work (as far as I know) but I'm hoping to get it working in the near future. The screen should be an absolute treat as it is green monochrome monitor, and I believe I have the correct key coming to replace the missing one (well, 2 but still) key. :D

These machines were often found in UK schools in the early 1980s. This 380z does power on into a COS (Cassette Operating System) prompt though I've not tested it further as yet.

Nervous about switching it on as i haven't checked yet if the original tantalum capacitors have been replaced and dont want to risk blowing them. Also got to think about how to restore the disk drives, though Ive got a gotek and might use that instead.

Any of y’all use an Acorn? I used one in 1984 or so for typing class. I remember it had a text to voice feature.

I bought this server in a hurry back in 2014 because I wanted a physical machine to prepare for my Solaris 11 certification.

Then I discovered that the V100 wasn’t supported. Excellent planning on my part 😂

So I did a fresh Solaris 10 installation instead. Eventually the project stalled, the server went into the cellar, and there it stayed for over a decade. I rediscovered it while moving recently.

Sun hardware was already familiar territory for me. My background is in infrastructure and Unix administration, and I’d previously worked with Netra X1s, including installing NetBSD on them. Very similar-looking little boxes, although the X1 didn’t have the CD drive. Finding this V100 again brought back quite a few memories.

I opened it up and took these photos. Two Seagate IDE drives, four populated memory slots, and that enormous Sun logo on the lid. I still love the way these machines look.

One thing that concerns me is the group of capacitors next to the CPU heatsink. Some look slightly domed to me, although the lighting makes it hard to tell. For anyone familiar with these boards: do they look suspicious? Would you check or replace them before attempting to bring it back into service?

And what would you actually do with a V100 today?

Keep the Solaris 10 installation and rebuild a little period-correct Unix lab? Try a current BSD? Give it some small, completely unnecessary job just for the pleasure of seeing it work?

Or has it earned a place in a museum?

Anyone here still running one—or remembering when these were machines you looked after at work?

A typical cheap 90s Baby AT case: beige, LED display, turbo button, and those wonderfully bright 90s color. Built a DX4-100 VLB system inside, complete with a Sony CDU-55E 2x IDE CD-ROM from late 1994.

I got a computer labeled Mercury 3000 and a computer labeled DSi 286 and two printers both of which function compact disc reader and 8 is what looks like a modem and two keyboards, neither of the computers seem to function properly, as in I have only gotten both of them to turn on once, and then give up on life. Even the printer covered in dirt that was sitting in a wet box for around 30-40 years still works, but the two computers don't. With the Mercury 3000 computer, I know what the main issue is, however, the DSI 286 looks pristine inside, yet I've sadly only been able to turn on once and yell at me.

Tengo varios procesadores Intel sin usar y viejos también memorias ram y placas dañadas, alguien tiene idea de que puedo hacer con ellos? No los quiero desechar por tema de contaminación y pregunto si tienen alguna idea de como realizar algún proyecto de electrónica es bienvenido.