tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598Sun, 01 Sep 2024 14:44:55 +0000http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Kabluey)Blogger22125en-ustag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-1597529365306697815Fri, 28 Apr 2017 03:21:00 +00002017-04-27T20:21:40.358-07:00In my last post, I mentioned that I had worked on three projects, one of which was a Macintosh Performa 430.  Now I should state up front, I'm not at all familiar with the classic Mac OS.  I've been using Mac OS X since 10.3, but I had never even touched one before that.  As a long-time Windows user, I didn't find the Mac OS X interface compelling at first, and the lack of a http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2017/04/macintosh-performa-430-part-1.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-3530631940231111087Tue, 18 Apr 2017 00:31:00 +00002017-04-17T17:32:09.742-07:00So I'm back and working on some new retro projects.  I am blaming my long silence on kids, but things have changed such that I now should have a quite a bit more free time.  By "kids," I mean my god-children, specifically the twins Harmony and Trinity.  Some time ago they and their mother had moved out to live with her fiance (a very nice guy who is also great with the girls), but http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2017/04/more-retro-projects.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-892681937760004328Wed, 05 Oct 2016 00:39:00 +00002016-10-04T17:39:27.167-07:00I know I'm a little late on joining the Retrochallenge, but I've been dealing with the flu the past few days, so I haven't really had the energy or state of mind to write up my proposal.  But here I am, better late than never! For this challenge, I'm going to try something different than my last few entries.  Instead of a programming challenge, I'm going to try for a bit more of a http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2016/10/rc201610-challenge-proposal.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-5781627108612403598Tue, 16 Aug 2016 19:16:00 +00002016-08-16T12:16:07.112-07:00 My TRS-80 Model 4P: You can't really see it but that's CP/M running off of the FreHD that you also can't really se on top of the machine. So as I mentioned in my last blog post, I took an unplanned six-month rectrocomputing siesta.  I had only recently acquired a cool old-but-refurbished TRS-80 Model 4P with a FreHD (an SD-based hard drive emulator) that was already setup to book LS-DOS http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2016/08/cpm-on-emulator-trs-80-model-4p.html2noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-2461290628428224553Wed, 10 Aug 2016 03:07:00 +00002016-08-09T20:07:19.260-07:00As I'm sure no one has noticed, I haven't posted in a while.  I would like to say that I've been so busy with retrocomputing projects that I just haven't had time to post, but the truth would actually be the opposite.  I haven't done anything with retrocomputing for the last four to six months, so I just haven't had anything to post.  There were a number of reasons for me going http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2016/08/running-silent.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-6248595323189428213Fri, 05 Feb 2016 05:12:00 +00002016-02-04T21:12:20.790-08:00Early last month I ordered a 6502 single board computer off of eBay, and it finally got here yesterday.  It was designed and built by Wichit Sirichote, who lives in Thailand, which is why it took so long to get here.  I've been playing with it a little bit and so far it looks like it works exactly as advertised, and I'm hoping to really dive pretty deep into this machine. If you http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2016/02/my-newest-acquisition-and-newest-project.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-4864544161213370808Sun, 31 Jan 2016 02:42:00 +00002016-01-30T18:42:25.046-08:00If you've been following my retrochallenge at all, then you have come to one of two conclusions: Either I'm making progress but not blogging about it, or I'm just no making progress.  Unfortunately it was the latter, not the former.  My last blog earlier this month discussed all the progress I had made: I developed my tool chain and created a Makefile that automated the build process http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2016/01/eulogy-for-retrochallenge.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-7566797250456251132Wed, 13 Jan 2016 03:23:00 +00002016-01-12T19:26:58.148-08:00In my last post, I talked about some of the tools I would use - specifically cc65 and AppleCommander.  But at the time of that post, I hadn't actually done any development yet.  Now I have, though admittedly I still haven't gotten very much done.  I have refined the build process that I used with other cc65 projects so that it's a bit more logical and flexible, and I've http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2016/01/rc-201601-my-development-tools-part-2.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-7587443916897243134Thu, 07 Jan 2016 18:05:00 +00002016-01-07T10:05:31.777-08:00In my first blog of this retrochallange, prior to the start of the actual challenge itself, I talked about what tools I'll be using to develop kBase for the Apple IIe/IIc platform.  I haven't actually started coding my challenge yet, as this has been a busy week.  I'm hoping I'll be able to start this weekend. I have done a "practice" project (discussed in my prior post) to refine my http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2016/01/rc-201601-my-development-tools-part-1.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-7928739307139765469Thu, 24 Dec 2015 04:41:00 +00002015-12-23T20:41:52.189-08:00It's a little more than a week before the start of my challenge, but over two weeks since I announced it.  I haven't been idle in that time, however.  I've been thinking a lot about the project, which has led me to some changes and issues. Changing the Challenge I've decided to make a change to my challenge.  Instead of developing my dBase for the IIgs, I will be developing it http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2015/12/rc-201601-update-change-and-prepping.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-5223955443184320684Sun, 06 Dec 2015 06:29:00 +00002015-12-05T22:29:23.140-08:00 The Challenge I'm going to write an xBase system, named kBaseGS, that will be compatible with dBase III Plus (the standard early dBase product, and the one that most early xBase products - including FoxPro - emulate).  My eventual goal is to write a fairly complete xBase system that is capable of running full programs, but there's no way I can achieve that within the time span of this http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2015/12/retrochallenge-201601-kbasegs-dbase-iii.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-5002336037723787037Thu, 24 Sep 2015 02:27:00 +00002015-09-23T19:27:28.511-07:00As I mentioned in my last post, I got a nice Apple IIc off of eBay a few days ago.  So far I'm quite pleased with it, but it hasn't actually been that much fun or useful.  The previous owner (who apparently took very nice care of it) was a user, not a developer.  He bought it new and used it to run his business for many years, and then when it was no good for that it became a game http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2015/09/adtpro-and-merlin-assembler.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-6799169011819688632Sat, 19 Sep 2015 21:40:00 +00002015-09-19T14:45:50.982-07:00 As a quick note to those who may have only read my PDP-8 Challenge blog, this blog is my general blog on whatever topic I want to write about - mostly things related to vintage computers.  I haven't updated this in a while because I've really been focused on the PDP-8, but that will probably be changing for a little bit now. So I'm happy to introduce my latest retro http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2015/09/my-latest-retro-acquisition.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-9154257343428571731Mon, 22 Jun 2015 03:39:00 +00002015-06-21T20:53:03.111-07:00Right now, the oldest computer in my collection is a (alas, non-functioning) Atari 800, at least in terms of when the model was introduced, not necessarily when the machine I have is made - although even by this measure it's still likely the oldest.  The Atari 400 and 800 were both introduced in 1979.  But most of the computers I've been playing with have come from the 80's - the CoCo http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2015/06/retrochallenge.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-8217638009062379562Sun, 14 Jun 2015 21:02:00 +00002015-06-14T14:02:16.220-07:00I haven't had much to post in the past few weeks, as I've been pretty busy, but that doesn't mean I haven't done anything with vintage computers.  My biggest accomplishment has been to purchase a VIC-20 off of eBay.  While I haven't been actively trying to acquire a VIC-20, my favorite brand of vintage computers is Commodore, and the VIC-20 was the first computer I ever owned.  I http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2015/06/and-then-there-wasthe-vic-20.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-2182423788700738881Sat, 23 May 2015 22:37:00 +00002015-05-23T15:56:06.104-07:00I talk to a particular friend of mine frequently, and he seems more fascinated by the number of computers I now own instead of what they actually do.  So I thought I would write down a quick summary of my hardware collection, so that the next time he asks how many computers I have, I can answer. Commodore I started with Commodore both back in the day, and more recently when I picked up http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2015/05/my-collection.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-2416384607697071032Sat, 23 May 2015 21:35:00 +00002015-05-23T14:51:22.530-07:00 It's here, my brand-spanking-new (to me) Tandy Color Computer 3!  It came as a standard model, so it only had 128k, but as I mentioned in my previous post, I had also ordered a 512k ram upgrade.  Coincidentally, my memory upgrade (and 6309 cpu, more on that below) happened to come today as well.  So I turned on the CoCo3 long enough to test it (everything seems to work), then http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2015/05/coco-3-and-512k-of-ram.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-6719589933144931265Thu, 21 May 2015 01:14:00 +00002015-05-20T18:14:12.885-07:00 So I got another new computer, a Tandy Color Computer 3, the third and final in the Color Computer line.  I hadn't actually planned on getting one, mostly because they tend to be a bit expensive, but I found one reasonably cheap on eBay.  They're actually kind of difficult to find.  They don't show up on eBay that often.  (Note the photo is just one I snagged off the http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2015/05/ok-another-new-computer.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-2453596490477468449Fri, 15 May 2015 12:17:00 +00002015-05-15T07:54:10.056-07:00 So got my new CoCo yesterday.  It's a 64k CoCo2 that I purchased on eBay for about $60, including shipping.  And I'm happy to report that after some testing, it seems to work completely.  The only thing I haven't tested yet is the cassette interface.  I also got 3 cartridges with it.  One of them, a personal information manager, works, but the other two do not.  http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2015/05/new-cocowell-new-to-me.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-2298914770473573341Tue, 12 May 2015 01:55:00 +00002015-05-11T18:55:54.557-07:00 So I got a item for my CoCo: A CoCo SDC.  This is a nifty little cartridge that plugs into my computer that adds virtual disk capabilities.  Essentially it includes Disk Basic functionality, but instead of going to real floppy disks, it goes to disk images on the SD card.  I don't know a whole lot about it at the moment, but still it's pretty cool. A little ironically I gothttp://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2015/05/coco-sdc.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-3623948491768831414Fri, 08 May 2015 16:08:00 +00002015-05-08T09:08:54.953-07:00Although I've been playing around with vintage computers for a while now, I'm very much new to both the Tandy Color Computer and the 6809 platform.  Now every system has its oddities, but I have to admit that the way the CoCo handles 64k is the oddest thing I've seen with any vintage computer. Now my understanding (and please someone correct me if I'm wrong) is that the CoCo does not http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-weirdness-of-64k-in-coco.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7421126249960051598.post-7792453650375544410Thu, 07 May 2015 14:56:00 +00002015-05-07T07:56:01.417-07:00Having recently acquired a CoCo 1 with 32k of ram (though possibly 64k, not sure about that yet - the CoCo seems to have some odd quirks when it comes to ram) and with only a cassette recorder for storage, I decided to buy the cartridge version of Edtasm+.  I'm actually pretty happy as I found a relatively cheap cartridge on eBay, and I hope to have it by next week.  As I looked at http://kablueyskorner.blogspot.com/2015/05/coco-edtasm.html0noreply@blogger.com (Harry Culpan)