retrocomputing

About the Commodore PET startup sound

#retrocomputing #commodore #pet #mildlyinteresting @retrocomputing

https://scruss.com/blog/2025/12/11/commodore-pet-startup-sound-again/

Candy Cruncher stands as an interesting piece of Linux gaming convergence, with it pulling on almost all of the major threads that defined the industry up to that point. The lead developer of the game was Brian Hook, who is best known for being one of the key architects behind the Glide API for 3dfx, but he would also find success working on both Quake II and Quake III Arena at id Software; founding Pyrogon was his attempt at a slower pace after being at the top of his field for so very long.

The Linux port was crafted by Ryan "icculus" Gordon, not long removed from his initial freelance work on Serious Sam, with the game also being one of the first titles to be picked up by Linux Game Publishing. Founded by retailer Michael Simms in 2001, LGP was an attempt to carry the torch dropped by Loki Software, and thus extend the shelf life of his Tux Games online store. So many people's hopes were tied up in this otherwise unassuming product, making it a shame it was but a mixed success.

So, I got this. But I also know these things aren't the most reliable and I am really paranoid about breaking it, and there's some suspicious things.

First, it feels cheap, especially the USB port on the back feels like it wants to break off.

Second, and quite worrying, when I first got it, it was clicking and not reading disks. Slower when I held it with the opening towards the top, faster with opening towards bottom. I thought it was dead, when eventually after a few retries it started working. Now, this was faster clicking, especially fast shortly before it started working, so perhaps it was just stuck.
On the other hand, I found this: https://www.grc.com/tip/codfaq2.htm

Most users who have lost their crucial data tell the same sad story of hearing "those clicks" some time ago "but then they went away and everything seemed okay for a while."

Now, 2 of the disks also had some smaller issues. One had trouble loading. Formatting it seems to have fixed the issue. Maybe. I used fdisk so it left out the first 1MB.
The second loads fine, but doesn't seem to like writing. It seems to do it in bursts, and it is audible. There's also 2 sections where it produces a buzz, both on read and write.
Here's an audio sample from continuous (one file) write to that disk:

https://files.catbox.moe/yo6g50.flac

Current ideas

Checking disks for damages by pulling back the metal cover and rotating the disk manually, looking for stuff like this: https://www.grc.com/tip/codfaq4.htm or anything suspicious (the white cloth inside is too close and hairy for my liking).

Peeking into the drive to check for head damage and dirt.

Treating it like I treat running HDDs (do not unpower without parked heads, avoiding movement and vibrations), and generally being careful even when off (avoiding drops).

The Commodore 64 is officially back. Just months after signing paperwork to acquire the original brand and assets, Commodore 64 Ultimates are slowly rolling off the assembly line, and some units may arrive in customers' hands before the holidays.

This news comes direct from Commodore CEO Peri Fractic (aka Christian Simpson), who posted a video from the assembly floor. [Warning, TT link]

On this day in 1996, a freshly inked U.S. patent quietly laid the cornerstone of the digital music revolution. In addition to facilitating this now vast internet-based entertainment business, the humble MP3 file format would propel broadband proliferation, usher in the iPod era, and arguably precipitate the iPhone and all the other touchscreen-slabs that remain indispensable gadgets to this day.

MPEG Audio Layer III (MP3) files were devised by scientists to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent an audio file. Key personnel behind the invention of MP3 included: Bernhard Grill, Karlheinz Brandenburg, Thomas Sporer, Bernd Kurten, Ernst Eberlein, and Dieter Seitzer. Brandenburg is often credited as being the father of MP3, for leading this and similar research since 1977, but Seitzer (for example) brought expertise in transferring music over standard phone lines.

An interesting trend over the last year or two has been the emergence of modern retrocomputer PCs, recreations of classic PC hardware from back in the day taking advantage of modern parts alongside the venerable processors. These machines are usually very well specified for a PC from the 1980s, and represent a credible way to run your DOS or early Windows software on something close to the original. [CNX Software] has news of a couple of new ones from the same manufacturer in China, one sporting a 386sx and the other claiming it can take either an 8088 or an 8086.

Both machines use the same see-through plastic case, screen, and keyboard, and there are plenty of pictures to examine the motherboard. There are even downloadable design files, which is an interesting development. They come with a removable though proprietary looking VGA card bearing a Tseng Labs ET4000, a CF card interface, a USB port which claims to support disk drives, a sound card, the usual array of ports, and an ISA expansion for which a dock is sold separately. The battery appears to be a LiPo pouch cell of some kind.

If you would like one they can be found through the usual channels for a not-outrageous price compared to similar machines. We can see the attraction, though maybe we’ll stick with an emulator for now. If you’d like to check out alternatives we’ve reported in the past on similar 8088 and 386sx computers.

Found my old pocket computer at my parents' house, and it still works!

You could choose between RAM vs storage lol, and of course the storage gets wiped when the batteries die

https://www.hpcfactor.com/hardware/devices/32/Compaq/C140

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39184812

It's time to revisit the battery damaged Apple Lisa from a couple weeks ago. I had a chance to test a couple of my boards in a working Lisa so I could rule out potential issues with these two boards.

Part 3 of the Apple Lisa series

In the dying days of the Zip drive, IOMEGA made one... that hooks up to your TV. Was this a good idea? Or a poorly-executed and frustrating act of desperation? Tune in to find out!

Pat Gelsinger has shared the story of how his initials remained on the Intel 386 silicon die, despite them being spotted by the top brass during a pre-production design review session. Creating such inscriptions "was not done," during this era at Intel, remembers Gelsinger. Nevertheless, the legendary true-blue Intel man says he uttered “some complete nonsense about substrate tap configuration experiments” to swerve a comment on the 'PG' silicon markings by the gruff (then-CEO) Andy Grove. The end result is that Pat Gelsinger's initials are etched directly into the silicon of every 386 processor ever made.

The story goes that Gelsinger and his team of fellow architects and engineers were gathered in a conference room poring over “a huge 25x25 foot printout of the [i386] chip, magnified so we could see every little detail.” This was a part of the design review stage of a chip at the time.

During the review session, the team was excited by the arrival of Grove, invited by the youthful (~25) rising star Gelsinger. However, they grew apprehensive as the Intel CEO du jour took some time to review the detailed printout.

I think this is how you cross post something. If not, be patient with the old head. I was told you guys might enjoy this glimpse into a simpler time.