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The MessagePad was the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) for the Newton platform in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was done in Japan by the Sharp Corporation. The devices were based on the ARM 610 RISC processor and all featured handwriting recognition software and were developed and marketed by Apple. The devices ran the Newton OS.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagePad
Retrocomputing (a portmanteau of retro and computing) is the use of early computer hardware and software today. Retrocomputing is usually classed as a hobby and recreation rather than a practical application of technology; enthusiasts often collect rare and valuable hardware and software for sentimental reasons. However some do make use of it.[1] Retrocomputing often gets its start when a computer user realizes that expensive fantasy systems like IBM Mainframes, DEC Superminis, SGI workstations and Cray Supercomputers have become affordable on the used computer market, usually in a relatively short time after the computers' era of use.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocomputing
Con il termine retrocomputing si indica una attività di "archeologia informatica" che consiste nel reperire, specialmente a costi minimi, computer di vecchie generazioni, che hanno rappresentato fasi importanti dell'evoluzione tecnologica, ripararli se sono danneggiati, metterli nuovamente in funzione e preservarli.
Screenshots from Wizball, running on a real Commodore 64 and a real TV. Written by Sensible Software and originally published by Ocean in 1987. It featured a notable soundtrack from Martin Galway. These shots are from The Hit Squad version of the game, Ocean's budget re-release label.
This advert for Martech Games was printed in Personal Computer News Issue 30 in 1983. Headline game is Harrier Attack on the Oric-1 and ZX Spectrum. Also listed are Starfighter (Oric-1), Blastermind (ZX Spectrum) and The Quest of Merravid (VIC-20 and CBM-64). Some of these games, such as Harrier Attack, were actually written (and published) by Durell Software. I assume there was some sort of publishing agreement between the two.
I love the power bus on this thing. The keyboard also connects through this bus. You might mistakenly assume that it is electronic, but in fact there is only one circuit board in the entire thing, made up of discreet components. It is mostly mechanical.
The venerable BBC Master Series computer fitted with a GoMMC unit. This stores massive amounts of software on an MMC card and then makes it available to the Beeb as a filing system.
There is a sheet of glass glued to the front of the CRT; this glue has deteriorated over time causing the bubbled, mould-like 'screen rot' effect seen here. The only solution is to painstakingly remove the glue (and thereby the glass sheet, leaving the CRT face bare).
My home made Covox Speech Thing Digital-to-Analog LPT (parallel port) stereo sound card. Fairly easy to build. The sound is not perfect but it plays stereo, 44kHz!
Three thumbscrews in the back, one on the left side of the tape reader, and four underneath the nameplate on the front. Remove all screws, the Local/Line switch and the manual roller knob, and then lift off the cover.
Recently, I found the time to ‘clean up’ (it's still dirty. It's always dirty!), maintain and test the Cambridge Z88.
This is Sir Clive Sinclair's first computer after Sinclair Research was bought by Amstrad. He didn't have the right to use his name in the company name, hence ‘Cambridge’. But it's a Sinclair through and through, down to the horrible power supply and ‘novel’ keyboard. This one isn't the worst keyboard I've used, but it does have a knack for collecting all the dust in a five-mile radius. It also has the classic Sinclair cock-up: the expansion connector caused more trouble than it was worth, so in newer versions of the computer (mine included) the opening is blocked. The edge connector is still there on the board, of course.
But it was an interesting design with very interesting software and some unusual features. It has 32K of built-in RAM but takes up to 3MB of various types of memory cartridges (static RAM, flash RAM, and EPROM cards—there was no built-in storage). It also has the only implementation of BBC Basic for the Z80 I'm aware of.
I actually used this little notebook as recently as 2003 or 2004 when I switched to a Palm device.