Vintage Apparatus

If this screen looks familiar, I bet I know where a chunk of your GPA in college went.

An Apple Power Supply feature that some people may not know about! This is a cute little feature not he Apple MagSafe power supplies that lets you wind up and store the cables in a convenient way. The little plastic tabs on either side of the power brick can be…

I thought this was common knowledge, but everyone I poitn this out to goes "Wait, really? I had no idea!" So here ya go, something that you can show off to friends at your next social event.

youtube.com/shorts/FFkVp...

People wonder why things like Craigslist are dying and Facebook Marketplace is taking over the world.

This motorcycle spammer has been active on CL for literally decades, and CL does nothing to stop it. The site is ancient. This is what happens when indifference sets in.

Checking in on my next video. Ya'll loved the War Games vid, right? Well, next one just hit the first big milestone as all audio and video is loaded into the timeline and synced. It's 2hrs 45 minutes long in raw form, I expect it'll be half that when done.

Stay tuned!!!

TRS80 model 1 setup

Saw this on /r/trs80 - what a perfect beautiful TRS80 Model 1 setup. Kinda the dream configuration from 1979...

www.reddit.com/r/trs80/comm...

Absolutely! I had a spaceorb back in the day and was a screaming Descent player. The SpaceOrb was PERFECT for it. Up, down, left, right, forward, back, spin in any direction… good stuff!

The entire T series was rock solid. When I was doing conventions, I collected stacks of them - mostly T21 through T23s, and any T4x's when I could (they were more expensive). Absolute workhorses, and they all used the same power supply.

I did a nice long video on a G3 laptop - not far from this one. They're nice. Also heavy enough to be a blunt trauma instrument!

In one of my recent videos, I noted I had a Visual Commuter 'laptop' (really a portable) computer that I'd never seen before. I just found an ad for one on FBMP, nearby - I'm half tempted to get it just so I have one machine and one for spare parts. Seeing two of these rare birds is fascinating!

I’m really sorry I was unable to make it, I had another event I was already signed up for. This is right in my back yard!

Next time!

So, not so vintage, but fun anyway. I have a linux laptop many folks have seen in my videos - a 6th gen X1 Carbon I really like - but it has a bad CMOS battery in it. Finally sitting down to replace it tonight.

What's in a Vintage Computing Nerd's Storage Unit? Let's take a look at what a vintage computing nerd keeps in the long term storage unit... Home page: https://vintageapparatus.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/VintageApparatus Bluesky:…

So, if you're a vintage computer nerd, and a bit of a collector, and maybe a bit of a pack rat, what does. your storage unit look like? Lets take a look...

youtu.be/4trzVGXnMS4

I was a rabid rogue player in college (which may explain my arc as a student in college). Then, rogue was only on the VAXes in the computer room (these were running 4.2bsd), so were on remote terminals. We'd play until 3am when response time dropped through the floor. Backups were starting.

Buy a Raspberry Pi 400 Personal Computer Kit – Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi 400 is your complete personal computer, built into a compact keyboard. Featuring a quad-core 64-bit processor, 4GB of RAM, wireless networking, dual-display output, and 4K video playback,...

Bananas. "Under $1000!" - this whole keyboard-is-computer thing, not only back to the 80's and ZX's and hell even a radio shack model 1 - ancient.

But a modern laptop is a 'keyboard is the computer'. Or if you want super-cheap, get a Pi 400! $80.

www.raspberrypi.com/products/ras...

So many productive hours lost (?) to this game.

When these games were popular everyone was going bananas for Dragons Lair. I on the other hand couldn’t stop shoveling quarters into Space Ace.

KIMMMEEEEEEE!

I too wish to have a pair of Big Mac boxes strapped to my skull.

YES! This! FFS people, those are NOT meant to be held like Bob goddamned Barker.

This trend has been bugging the heck out of me. The handheld desk mics are irritating as heck.

What’s just as bad are the people holding the lavalier mics up in front of them - those are area pickups. I almost universally downvote and “Don’t recommend this channel” when I see someone do that.

Just picked up this fully functional Data General / One via a Facebook Marketplace. It's in amazing condition for 41 years old, with OEM case, printer, powersupplies, and cables.

The DG/One was the first battery powered fully PC compatible computer on the market.

A DEC VR201 with glue deterioration, aka 'cataracts'

Man I am not looking forward to this project. Gives me the heebie jeebies. This are referred to as 'crt cataracts'. When the glue on the face of the CRT breaks down and gets gooey. It's fixable, but involves a heat gun, a wire, and a lot of patience.

All on a 50 year old CRT. Aieeee.

Calculator running BASIC from 1985! This "Calculator" from 1985 was an early device from TI that was bridging the gap between scientific calculators and programmable handheld computers running BASIC!

Lets take a look at a TI calculator from 1985 that could also run BASIC!

www.youtube.com/shorts/Uo3-R...

My local fiends group is called The Posse. About 10 of us. Naturally the singular member is a Possum.

What can I say. I'm lazy.

Retrocomputing merry christmas! Happy holidays to all you vintage computing nerds.

Still a favorite. Some of bills throwaway lines are true gems. (“…. hit me with a toaster. “)

UNIX V4 tape successfully recovered : Crucial early evolutionary step found, imaged, and ... amazingly ... works

This really is such an amazing story. The fact that they got it running again is fantastic. This sort of archival work is so important right now as all the gains of the last 50 years are, well, aging out.

www.theregister.com/2025/12/23/u...

Here's an update on the next big video - available on my Patreon...

www.patreon.com/posts/next-v...

1" Hard drive from 1998! The IBM Microdrive set the standard (literally!) for CompactFlash II cards in 1998. Digital cameras and other devices standardized on this format for many years, but this was the first! …

I dug this 1" CompactFlash2 drive out of my media bag and decided to see if it still works...

'vi' handbook circa 1984

'vi' handbook circa 1984

Very important to keep your reference documentation on hand and up to date. As relevant today as it was when it was printed.