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[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Sharp Retro Scanner

Monday, October 15th, 2007

Retro Scanner of the Week? For only $9,639.64 (in today’s dollars), you could buy a Sharp flatbed scanner in 1989 that could digitize images in 260,000 colors at up to 300 DPI. Why 260,000? I have no idea, but any color support at all made this this one heck of a high quality scanner for the time.

Even today, most 11×17″ scanners still cost an arm and a leg; users have always paid a premium for that much glass real estate. But current models offer much higher resolutions and color depths in a far-sleeker form factor than this one.

[ From CDA Computer Sales Fall/Winter 1989 Catalog ]

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Posted in Computer History, Design, Retro Scan of the Week, Vintage Computing | 9 Comments »

[ Retro Scan of the Week ] The HP-150 Touchscreen Computer

Monday, August 20th, 2007

In 1983, Hewlett-Packard released what may have been the world’s fist personal computer with an integrated touch-screen. The HP-150 was an 8088-based MS-DOS compatible PC with a handful of advanced features for its time. Unfortunately, the 150’s hardware architecture proved so different that it was not compatible with most IBM PC programs.

The HP-150 uses a crude, low-resolution method for detecting finger placement on its display. The unit projects a grid of infrared beams across the surface of the screen. By sensing which beams are obstructed by an object, the computer can calculate the coordinates of the touch.

Aside from the touch-screen, The HP-150 is notable for being the first U.S. computer to use Sony’s 3 1/2-inch “micro-floppy” disk format, as well as support for Ethernet networking, hard disks, and HP’s first LaserJet printer (through an HP-IB interface). Not bad for 1983.

Anybody have one of these that they don’t want anymore? I’d love to add one to my collection.

[ From Personal Computing, December 1983 ]

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Posted in Computer History, Design, Regular Features, Retro Scan of the Week | 10 Comments »

[ Retro Scan of the Week ] The 3-Inch Compact Floppy Disk

Monday, August 6th, 2007

Sure, you’ve probably seen plenty of 3.5″ “micro-floppy” disks. But have you ever seen a 3″ compact floppy? I picked up a stack of these at a thrift store about seven years ago. The ones I found were once used with an Amstrad computer (strange to find in the US), which unfortunately wasn’t accompanying the disks at the shop. Amstrad, the once-prominent British computer manufacturer, used these disks in a few of their computer models (the CPC and PCW, or so I read), and consequently, mainstream usage of 3″ floppies was limited mostly to the UK. Sony’s 3.5″ floppy standard took firm hold in the US because of Apple’s decision to use it in the Macintosh.

I’ve seen an advertisement in an old computer magazine for a 3″ 128k compact floppy drive for the Apple II, one of this format’s first applications. Nintendo fans out there might notice similarities between this disk and Nintendo’s 3″ Famicom Disk System media, but Nintendo’s disks used a proprietary format based on a different standard.

A neat history of the 3″ compact floppy disk can be read here.

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

Posted in Computer History, Design, Retro Scan of the Week | 6 Comments »

[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Biofeedback Game Interface

Monday, July 16th, 2007

Let’s get wired up and play Jumpman!

[ Scanned from a 1986-87 Comb Catalog ]

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Posted in Computer History, Design, Design, Gaming History, Humor, Retro Scan of the Week | 2 Comments »

Vintage Computer Keyboard Quiz

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007

Vintage Computer Keyboard Quiz Keyboards, keyboards everywhere, but not a drop to drink. How many different computer keyboards have you used in your lifetime? Do you remember the good ones? The bad ones? By golly, I’ve known quite a few.

See if you can recognize which vintage computer system each of these keyboards comes from. Feel free to post comments about them and share your memories about keyboards of yore. Answers to the quiz will be posted next week as an update to this entry.

Number 1 – Number 2

Number 3 – Number 4

Number 5 – Number 6

Number 7 – Number 8

Answers after the break.

[ Continue reading Vintage Computer Keyboard Quiz » ]

Posted in Computer History, Design | 17 Comments »

Retro Scan of the Week: P1-14 Punch Card Terminal

Monday, April 23rd, 2007

Have a dusty stack of old Hollerith-type punch cards sitting in your closet? Then you need this amazing bridge to the past: the Phone 1 P1-14 Card-Reader Terminal. This advertisement, proclaiming a “powerful new concept,” appeared in the February 1979 issue of BYTE magazine. Somehow this terminal seems like an unlikely fusion of new and old, similar to building an abacus into the case of a PowerMac G5. Maybe that’s why no one has ever heard of this unit.

It’s sad to think that some people might have still been using punch cards for data input in 1979, but with the speed at which universities and other institutions updated their equipment, it would be no big surprise. Still, I think this terminal was mainly designed for legacy applications.

Let the punch card memories commence!

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

Posted in Computer History, Design, Regular Features, Retro Scan of the Week | 6 Comments »

Retro Scan of the Week: Wico Computer Command Joystick

Monday, April 16th, 2007

Back in the day, Wico was “king” of all joysticks. At least, they wanted to be. They had quite a variety of different models, this “Computer Command” stick being only one of them. I’ve never used this particular analog computer model, but I’ve definitely laid my hands on more than a few gangly Wico “Command Control” joysticks in my time. My brother loved using his Command Control joystick for Asteroids on the Atari 800, but I never could get used to it. He probably just thought it looked cool.

Did/does anybody have one of these and wish to share their thoughts on it?

[ From Personal Computing magazine, December, 1983. ]

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

Posted in Design, Design, Retro Scan of the Week | 14 Comments »

Retro Scan of the Week: The First Microsoft Mouse

Monday, March 19th, 2007

When I first started using PC compatibles in the early 1990s, Microsoft mice were recognized far and wide as the best mice around. I used their third model (I believe), which was a smooth, white rounded number with an incredible feel and response. I still use those mice on some of my older PCs. Although I’ve never used the mouse pictured here, but I’d wager that it was pretty good by 1983 standards.

I always found it ironic that Microsoft made some of the best mice on Earth, considering the sorry state of their software at times (I remember thinking this in the Windows 98/ME days — Microsoft’s lowest point so far). Whomever is/was in charge of their hardware division really knows what they’re doing, although I think they’ve been slipping up a tad recently by releasing keyboards with weird, nonstandard layouts and too many mouse models with superfluous buttons. But as long as they still sell this baby, (my current mouse of choice), I’ll be happy.

[ From Personal Computing Magazine, December 1983 ]

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

Posted in Computer History, Design, Retro Scan of the Week | 15 Comments »

Name Those Pixels: GUI Edition

Friday, March 16th, 2007

Pixel Challenge #11 - 1 For a little change of pace, I’d be fun to focus on some non-game pixels in this edition. This week’s theme and hint is “GUIs” — that is, Graphical User Interfaces (ala “Windows”). Name the GUI and the computer it ran on. The first block is to the right, the other two are below. As always, post your guesses in the comments section of this entry, and don’t be bashful. Good luck!

The answers to the last challenge are after the break.

[ Continue reading Name Those Pixels: GUI Edition » ]

Posted in Computer History, Design, Name Those Pixels | 4 Comments »

Why Super Nintendos Lose Their Color: Plastic Discoloration in Classic Machines

Friday, January 12th, 2007

Discolored SNES

Sure, consoles age and get dirty. Heck, I remember a suspicious incident involving my Super Nintendo (SNES) console and a can of Coca-Cola in the early ’90s that left my SNES looking more like a moldy loaf of bread than a video game system. But around five years ago, I noticed that my SNES console was aging particularly badly. I cleaned off all the remnants of fossilized Coke residue from the chassis with a wet washcloth, but the “moldy bread” look still remained. The top half of the console’s plastic body retained a uniformly nasty yellow-brown hue, while the bottom half flaunted its showroom shine — that native SNES gray that we all know and love. I soon realized that a much deeper mechanism was responsible for the aesthetic disfigurement of my beloved SNES than mere dirt and sugar.

To further complicate matters, I have another SNES unit that was obviously produced more recently than my original one, and that console shows no sign of aging whatsoever. Comparing the units and the way different parts of them had discolored led me to believe that there is something different about the two batches of plastics — the one for the top half of the SNES chassis and the one for the bottom, or the plastic for the old unit and plastic for the new — that made them age differently over time.

Immediately below are two photos I took of my actual SNES units. Notice the difference between the colors of the top and bottom halves of the plastic chassis on the older unit, and also how the newer unit shows no sign of discoloration at all.

My first SNES console (right) exhibits discoloration on the top half only.
The newer unit on the left, however, looks as good as new.