Thread 106965169

DEC kino edition

A place to discuss old tech, post setups, and argue about which decades old metal box is better.

>Emulation
https://dosbox-x.com/
https://86box.net/
https://vice-emu.sourceforge.io/
https://www.winuae.net/

>Buying Hardware
https://shopgoodwill.com/
https://craigslist.org
https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php#marketplace.18

>Software Archives
https://archive.org/details/vintagesoftware
https://winworldpc.com/home
https://www.abandonwaredos.com/

>Other forums
https://www.vogons.org/
https://forums.atariage.com/
https://www.lemon64.com/forum/

I'd love to add some DEC stuff to my collection someday.
Any oldheads here who worked on DEC machines back in the day?

Sun Microsystems server rack spotted in Mexico.

>>106965555
checked and based, what do you guys think those tacos taste like?

>>106965169 (OP)
I don't have neither the money nor the patience to acquire and tinker with old tech nowadays, but damn I miss machines feeling like actual machines, like professional tools to accomplish something. The documentation looked insanely good, yeah, printed of paper, hard to store, killed some trees, but it felt nice having an actual manual, an actual book you can swift through at your leisure that explained everything that you needed to know, every quirk, every small feature all laid out to you, properly organized, indexed, following a easy to look up structure. Nowadays you get an online link to some React site that barely loads and it's impossible to follow, with links that go nowhere and menus that you can't find.
I miss when things were good.

>>106967736
I hear they taste good with a cup of java.

>>106967817
The velocity of software and hardware development meant that properly documenting things would always be on the absolute bottom of the pile of other issues that engineers were dealing with.
It was an inevitability. You don't really get major flagship systems like back then and then sell it for years afterward. Think about how long lived a processor like the z80 or 8088 was in computer systems.

>>106967817
>it felt nice having an actual manual
Agreed. The fact that the C64 came with a full schematic of the system is still amazing to me

>>106968412
>The fact that the C64 came with a full schematic of the system is still amazing to me
Not really, once you consider that very few people owned a computer back then compared to today, and that most of the ones who did were the kind of people who'd have to know how to code drivers for printers, CRT monitors, and other kinds of things, as opposed to nowadays, where literally every single person from Burundi to Bhutan has a handheld personal device of some sort, and the average computer user needs assistance from ChatGPT/Gemini/Copilot just to find out how to open CSV files.
There was no "tech support" industry in those days, because people who couldn't give support to their own computers simply didn't own computers at all back then (as a matter of fact, most people couldn't even fix their TV or their phone back then, and that's in spite of how simple tech was back in the days before the digital revolution).
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times", as Charles Dickens said in the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities.

>>106968217
>Think about how long lived a processor like the z80 or 8088 was in computer systems
Those microprocveso

>>106965169 (OP)
Made a thread the other day but the PRAM battery for my Power Mac G4 came in and like one anon pointed out it unsurprisingly did not fix the power on issue. Gonna do a teardown of the thing tomorrow since I've got the next couple days off.

Might hit up the thrift store I found it at and see if the G5 got marked down or if any other Apple stuff appeared.

>>106970002
are there atx conversion kits available on ebay still?

>>106970079
Doubt it. Hopefully I can find a compatible PSU assuming the one in it is dead. Of course if that doesn't get it to power on then I've got other problems.

After that I think my next vintage project will be the Apple IIe I got last year.

>>106965318
My first mini was a DEC PDP11 used in a TV station automation system. Next was a VAX server used in a science place. You couldn't easily self teach then - no such thing as the internet. You needed a system and the manuals. Obviously there were not a lot of people with those skills looking for a job so the $$$ were much better than today

good thread

Funny to think we might be going back to having separate graphics towers

>>106973726
retvrn to tradition

Anyone here has or considering getting a PiDP? (pic not mine)

>>106974193
Time is a flat circle
>>106974767
It looks really cool. Would love to but I don't have the money right now. If you're into repro kits High Nibble's Imsai 8080 kit is really good from what I hear.

>>106974767
Always wanted to get in to that era of computers since I saw a booth at the fair with an Altair 8800 running something

>>106965169 (OP)
Someone should resurrect the LK-201 keyboard.

Has any /g/ anon been a amiga user in the 80s/90s

>>106977286
PC98 would be neat to own but God damn is it expensive to get in the US

>>106979600
Yeah, I had a 500 and 1200. Good times.