My Apples

April 25th, 2025

I’ve been collecting these for a while, bought a lot more than these and threw a few away, these are the best of my collection. Not an Apple fanatic, I like them, but they’re just another computer company to me, one that has certainly earned it’s place in computing history. The “iLamp” model on the far left actually has a circular motherboard! I like them because back before iMacs all looked the same they were very creative in their design. That 80s (IIc) one, far right, was super leet back in it it’s day. Can you believe that 5.25″ floppy (IBM invention) only stored 1.2MB!

Of course I’d like an Apple 1, but apparently only 200 were made and only 20 still exist in working order! I’ll ha…
Read more…

Apple IIc in Film

April 25th, 2025

Apple IIc in the 1984 adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s “2010 – The Year We Make Contact” – Roy Schneider playing Heywood Floyd preparing to go to Jupiter, using an Apple IIc with a portable screen on the beach.

Note computers had neither portable screens, nor batteries in the 80s, and really wouldn’t like damp sand, however it’s a good example of how futuristic they seemed – this was “40 years into the future”. In retrospect it’s rather huge for a portable computer of 2010!

It’s also a great example of how good Steve Jobs was at marketing. It was only Apple’s second commercial model and it got product placement in a major hollywood film!

Also note we haven’t gone to Jupiter ye…
Read more…

All The Laws

January 21st, 2024

Computing has certainly created a lot of “laws”. Unlike the laws of physics, remember they are up for debate. I find it annoying that very few people ask “why” regarding Moores Law for example. Just because Moores Law holds true for now, doesn’t mean in a million years it will be true. Gravity will be though.

Whether these things pass scientific scrutiny aside, most of them hold true and are pretty useful. Here they are in one place.

https://github.com/dwmkerr/hacker-laws

Nice work Dave Kerr 🙂

Why can’t computers use registers as RAM?

March 14th, 2022

I’ve always asked this, and still need to remind myself why every now and then, so I’m posting this link to save myself the hassle of looking it up again in ten years haha.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3798730/can-we-have-a-computer-with-just-registers-as-memory

IBM Z

May 1st, 2019

z14

The dual frame z14, launched in July 2017, and the single frame z14, launched in April 2018, are based on the z14 chip, a 10-core processor running at 5.2 GHz. A z14 system can have a maximum of 240 Processing Unit (PU) cores, 170 of which can be configured to the customer’s specification to run applications and operating systems, and up to 32 TB usable redundant array of independent memory (RAIM), some of which can be configured as Virtual Flash Memory (VFM). Each PU can be characterized as a Central Processor (CP), Integrated Firmware Processor (IFP), Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) processor, Integrated Information Processor (zIIP), Internal Coupling Facility (ICF) processor…
Read more…

Arcade Restoration

April 24th, 2011

I’ve added a gallery of all the pictures taken when restoring an original 80s arcade unit. I tried to reuse as many items as I could, the controller unit was hacked out of an old keyboard, I used a CRT monitor to try and keep the original look of the machine (drove out to the country to find one!), the speaker literally came from the side of the road, the motherboard, disk and power supply were out of some random old computer. The only bought items were the small amplifier module for the speaker and of course it needed new buttons and joystick.

The biggest thrill for me I think was when the coin mechanism was working again and wired in.

The pictures are pretty much in the order the