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There exist, in various pockets of the World Wide Web, dark corners in which vintage machines are tucked, quietly whirring away as they make occasional contact with the outside world. This loose confederation of devices constitutes a New Old Web, composed of computers previously considered useless or obsolete.

Serving HTTP from vintage computers is nothing new — it’s been link fodder since the dawn of the public Internet — but I’d like to highlight a wonderful website that maintains a directory of vintage Apple computers functioning as working web servers.

[ Continue reading Vintage Apple Computer Web Servers » ]

A rare scene from the ill-fated film Poltergeist IV: Poltergeist Position.

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Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, Inc., signed my Macintosh. And if you’re the owner of a Mac 128k, 512k, or Plus, he signed yours too. In fact, so did Woz.

In crafting the original Macintosh, Steve Jobs viewed himself and his team as artists. As such, it was only fitting for the renegade band of Apple developers to sign their work. At the urging of Jobs, the Mac design group held a small party on February 10th, 1982, during which they ate cake, drank champagne, and took turns signing their names onto a large piece of paper (see image, right). Soon afterward, Jobs had the signatures engraved into the Macintosh case mold, with an obvious result: Apple permanently impressed the team’s autographs into the plastic case of every Mac that rolled off the production line.

You might notice that some of the signatures present on the original signing sheet are missing on the Plus. But fear not; no one was slighted. All the names originally graced the interior of the first Macintosh release (128k), but according to Andy Hertzfeld, some names were lost over time due to revisions of the case design on subsequent models. For example, compare the Mac Plus interior with this picture of the original 1984 Macintosh case.

I recall seeing signatures in the cases of later Macs by the teams that designed them. But I can’t remember if the later compact Macs contain the original names seen here, or simply others that worked on those particular projects.

Channel Your Inner Jobs

To locate these hallowed names within your own Mac case, simply take your machine apart and peer inside the rear half of its chassis. They might be hard to see at first, but they’re there, hiding in the back. Keep in mind that the presence of signatures on your case doesn’t make your Mac any more or less valuable than it would be otherwise — every early Mac has them, without exception. But at least now you can impress your friends with a formidable piece of Mac trivia.

Shortly after the launch of the Macintosh in 1984, most of its original development team parted company. But in a poetic way, they will always be united inside your Macintosh. It’s a fitting, populist monument to an extraordinary chapter in computer history.

“We were quite impressed with the speed of the Tandy 2000’s 80186 processor.”

In honor of this week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2008), I’ve prepared a special RSoTW that highlights the little-known side career of its keynote speaker, Bill Gates.

Product endorsement ads like this one for the Tandy 2000 computer weren’t unusual for the Gatesmeister back in the early 1980s. Of course, those were the days before Microsoft was insanely huge, rich, and unstoppable. I wonder how much he got paid for the gig?

(P.S. Take a look at the early version of Windows featured in the ad!)

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[Edit – 04/15/2008: I just received an email from Dorian saying that StarTTY is staying up for the foreseeable future. Thanks for your support. ]

I recently received sad news from the creator of StarTTY, an innovative telnet service that VC&G covered back in January 2007. Dorian Garson is shutting down the service on January 30th, 2008 unless he can find financial support to keep it going.

I’m not a regular user of the service myself, but I tried it and it was really neat. If any of you out there want to see this unique information service for old computers/terminals continue, then you should get in touch with Garson soon. I’ve reproduced Garson’s original email below.

Hi Guys,

It’s been real fun, but I’m going to have to shut down StarTTY. January 30 will be the last day.

I’ve got other bills to pay. Spending the dough to keep the site running for just a few users doesn’t make much sense.

UNLESS…

If some of you want to chip in to keep it going, I’m willing to give it a shot.

Reply to this email and let me know what you think you’d pay per month to keep StarTTY running. If I get enough responses I’ll set up a PayPal link and let you guys take over the funding.

Hoping for the best but preparing for the worst,

-Dorian

With floating disc technology, “Pac-Man watches gobble all day long for you.”

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As if you hadn’t had enough Christmas already. Well, here comes yet another Christmas-related piece: my latest article on PCWorld.com. It’s titled “A Very Vintage Tech Christmas” and it’s a slideshow of vintage home computer ads. A few of the ads are decidedly Christmas-themed, and the others focus either on families or pitching PCs to home buyers.

Unfortunately, PC World’s slideshow setup makes the text in the ads too small to read. But at least you can look at the pictures. I hope you enjoy it.

How does Santa keep track of who’s been naughty and who’s been nice? A computer database, of course. And it runs on an Apple II.

Looks like Woz saved Christmas!

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[ Editor’s Note: I asked Eric Lambert, a VC&G contributor, to write something entertaining for Christmas in the vein of his Halloween Spam poem. Just yesterday he delivered, sending me an MP3 of modified holiday jingles with a computer twist. It’s a tad cheesy, yes, but it’s full of fun and spirit. Thanks, Eric! ]

Download the MP3 file here or read a full transcript after the break.

[ Continue reading Eric’s VC&G Christmas Medley » ]