Retro Computing Archives - Page 2 of 2

January 4, 2018

Make a Sony E-Reader Picture Frame

The technology world is continuously changing. Today’s awesome technology is tomorrows trash, its just a simple fact of life. I truly believe we should do what we can to reduce, reuse and recycle our old tech. Today while rummaging through the archive of stuff I came across an old Sony PRS-600.

The Sony PRS-600 was released in 2009 and by all standards ready for the trash heap. Before sending this device off to its finial resting place I decided to make a cute black and white picture frame.

Step 1 – Prepare the PRS-600

Using an old 2GB SD card, I loaded up around 300 of my favorite photos, inserted it into the unit. On the settings menu I configured the PRS-600 to never shut off, and run a perpetual slide show with a 60 second delay between images. Continue reading “Make a Sony E-Reader Picture Frame”

June 30, 2017June 29, 2017

Nintendo Retro Does It Again – SNES Classic Coming Soon!

The retro hits just keep on coming! Nintendo has been banking on our love for nostalgia lately reviving tons of classic games and consoles. Late last year they released a limited production run of the NES classic that had about 30 installed classic NES games and included 1 retro controller. They were next to impossible to purchase selling out almost instantly everywhere and even bringing Amazon’s servers to a crawl. I guess the next console in the progression of things is the SNES Classic!

SNES Classic launching later this year:

Looks like we will be able to purchase this closer to the end of the year, sometime late September. This time around however the unit will include two controllers and will have an $80 price point.

Games will include:

Continue reading “Nintendo Retro Does It Again – SNES Classic Coming Soon!”

May 23, 2017May 18, 2017

Don’t believe the hype – MP3 is NOT Dead!

What did we do before MP3? I remember the early years using my Dolby high speed dubbing tape decks to make copies of the tapes my friends and I used to share. Not too soon after came the Compact Disc, and I ran out to buy a Pentium 60mhz with a 2x CD-Recorder to make my mix CD’s.

I was amazed that we could “rip” huge wav files off the CD’s and play them back on the PC. But disk space was at a premium in the 90’s, due to the limited capacity of hard drives.

There had to be a better way to store music! That’s when a friend introduced me to the MP3 format. Full length songs at decent quality only 3mb – 5mb! WOW this was amazing, think of the possibilities. There were no portable MP3 players yet, I found myself taking a laptop in the car hooked to an FM transmitter to listen to my music.

I even marketed a CD on eBay for $10 that had plans for a car MP3 Player Just imagine putting a computer in a pizza box in the trunk of your car, running a PS/2 cable to a numeric keypad and mounting a 40 character display to your dash board with a parallel cable. It was good business until the portable MP3 players began to arrive about a year later.

A BRIEF TRIP DOWN THE PORTABLE MP3 PLAYER MEMORY LANE

Continue reading “Don’t believe the hype – MP3 is NOT Dead!”

May 19, 2017May 19, 2017

Weekend Project – Repairing & Emulating the Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 was not only one of my favorite computers it was my first computer. Over the life span of the C64 I broke quite a few of them due to the poor quality of early deigns. This may have been a good thing because it lead to taking them apart and attempting to repair the units insuring my life long love of computers and consumer electronics.

Sometimes I was successful at my repair endeavor and many times not so much. Repairing the Commodore 64 became as much a hobby as programming the computer.

If you still have one of these dinosaurs in your basement and want to fire it up to show the kids take a look at this great PDF file I found on the Internet. It could prove to be helpful.

Feel Free To Download The Service Manual PDF Here

The service manual is dated March 1992 and that was about the year the C64 went out of production. It is actually very complete with lots of hand drawn schematics and theory of circuit operation. Parts numbers and chip / port pin outs are also listed. Basically everything you need to troubleshoot and fix that old computer and fire up the BASIC V2 screen we all remember so well. Continue reading “Weekend Project – Repairing & Emulating the Commodore 64”

Category: Retro Computing