Does this qualify as #retrocomputing enough?

I updated #mbedTLS and #curl in #DOjS. This one took a lot longer than I expected because curl dropped Makefile.mk builds and I had to switch to #CMake or #autconf.
I went with CMake, but had to work around some weird problems.

#MSDOS and #Linux build are already green again, I'll tackle #win32 later...

I hope I can fix this excellent Viewsonic G90FB 19" CRT VGA monitor.

At the moment the image is blurry, but when I went to adjust using the front panel controls, none of the buttons work currently.

Got a new printer so I redid the artwork that covers the electric service panel in my lab. Looks much better now.

Microsoft AI creates shitty Quake II demo. Microsoft claims this will be great for game preservation and bringing old games to modern platforms, blissfully ignorant of emulators that work extremely well using a infinitesimal account of the compute or energy power.

Good one, Phil Spencer.. good one.

#AI #RetroGaming #RetroComputing

https://www.theverge.com/news/644117/microsoft-quake-ii-ai-generated-tech-demo-muse-ai-model-copilot

"Usually when we talk about #retrocomputing, we want to look at — and in — some old hardware. But [Z→Z] has a different approach: dissecting #MacPaint, the #Apple drawing program from the 1980s.

"While the program looks antiquated by today’s standards, it was pretty hot stuff back in the day. Things we take for granted today were big deals at the time. For example, being able to erase a part of something you drew prompted applause at an early public demo.

"We enjoyed the way the program was tested, too. A software “monkey” was made to type keys, move things, and click menus randomly. The teardown continues with a look inside the Pascal and assembly code with interesting algorithms like how the code would fill an area with color.

"The program has been called “beautifully organized,” and [Z→Z] examines that assertion. Maybe the brilliance of it has been overstated, but it did work and it did influence many computer graphics programs over the years."
https://hackaday.com/2025/04/05/a-look-inside-macpaint/

today’s absolutely mission critical acquisition: a cisco 2500 AS2511-RJ router/access server, which will be turned into a dial-up isp with a pile of 14.4k-33.6k external modems

circa 1995

Thinking of NEXTSTEP this morning...I'd guess many aren't aware of the unusual color display arrangement.

The NeXTstation, which was the first "affordable" color solution for NEXTSTEP, has a 16-bit framebuffer, but instead of rendering the desktop in 65,536 colors (as per Windows or Mac hardware, say), it rendered in 12-bit color with 4-bits of alpha channel (transparency).

That means it had a palette of 4096 colors, with all colors available at once on the display (not like, say, the Amiga or Apple IIgs with a 4096 color palette, but video modes with a small subset of those colors available (yes, yes, HAM mode excluded). Additionally, anything on the screen had 16 levels of opacity available.

It's interesting to see in person, on the actual hardware (especially on a good LCD display). With dithering, it looks very close to 24-bit truecolor.

(The NeXT Dimension color board for the Cube allowed 24-bit color with 8-bits alpha, but that was not so frequently used -- less so that most NeXT hardware even...)

But that's not nearly the weirdest that NEXTSTEP-capable hardware got, when it came to color video display...

There seems to be a more recent alternative to EtherDFS now

https://github.com/jrohel/NetMount

I just bought one of these with the goal of cramming it inside a 8" #CRT to make an all-in-one. It's an Atom, which will run FreeDOS + SBEMU well.

Probably not battery powered this time #retrocomputing

Other projects: https://www.lydie.cc/retrocomputing.html

I'm decommissioning my Proxmox server in favour of running libvirt on my main server. I only had one VM I wanted to keep: the Windows 2000 domain controller. I looked into how to convert the VM disk and other stuff. But, there's another way more fun option: setup a new VM as a secondary domain controller and then promote it to primary.

Today we're expecting a small group of visitors at our museum. I've taken this opportunity to tidy things up a bit and fire up some machines. Here's a look at our Sinclair series in the exhibition.
#ComputerMuseum #RetroComputing

A great new article by Jeffrey Starr, Investigating MacPaint's Source Code: https://ztoz.blog/posts/macpaint-source-code/

The parallel stories of Data General, the Eclipse MV/8000, and The Soul of a New Machine. I love the book but I wish it went into more technical detail.

https://thechipletter.substack.com/p/the-soul-of-an-old-machine

My ship has finally arrived. I'll remember all of you little people when I've made it tho.