Søren Ladegaard recently sent me news of his new Commodore-related website. Sure, there are plenty of Commodore-dedicated sites out there, but this one has a twist — it’s geared exclusively towards Apple Macintosh users. He writes:

I have created a website called Think Commodore. It’s about everything Commodore 64 & Amiga such as emulation, games, demos, music etc. from a Macintosh perspective. While there are tons of sites about Commodore emulation for Windows users you’ll be surprised of the amount of sites along the lines of “last update 2002, Mac OS 8.5 required etc.” That’s why I decided to do a Commodore emulation site that’s 100% up-to-date.

I’ve created a real nice and active forum too. I was fed up with posting “Any Mac users out there?” on all the popular Commodore forums. Here’s your chance to join a Commodore forum where every user is a Mac user.

After poking around the site myself, I find it quite nicely designed and very informative. If you’re a Mac user and you love Commodore computers, be sure to check it out (www.thinkcommodore.com).

For those of you who didn’t know or don’t remember, the reason why VC&G has been quiet lately is because I’m in the middle of moving to a new house. After I’m settled, things will be back to normal (I also got married on May 1st. So you can imagine that I’ve been quite busy). Until then, I’ve got a few pictures for you. The first picture (above) is of the first computer I set up in my new house. It’s a Mac Color Classic that I’m currently slowly playing The Secret of Monkey Island on (great game, by the way). I set it up in a little dormer nook in an otherwise empty room upstairs. In lieu of proper furniture, it gets the next best thing: the floor. When the hustle and bustle of all the moving gets to me, I can retreat to my “Mac room” and relax. But not for very long, of course, because there are plenty more computers to move! Chop chop!

Remember my “Compact Mac Shelf?” Well, I’ve had to leave that luxury behind. The closest I can get to that in my new place is what you see here. The previous owners left this wall-mounted TV stand in the kitchen, and upon first seeing it, I didn’t think “TV.” I thought…well, you can tell what I thought, because the picture illustrates it quite vividly. Anyway, if the wife lets me, I might rig up some sort of useless-but-fun interactive Mac art installation. Then again, it’s likely that we’ll actually just put a color TV up there (if we ever get one that size). Still, I thought the new “Mac Shelf” was worth a picture.

That’s all for now. I’ll still be chatting some in the VC&G Forums before I get back up to full steam again, so join in the fun (Haven’t joined yet? Why not?). And don’t worry — more interesting and original VC&G articles are definitely on the way.

Today is the the thirtieth birthday of perhaps the world’s most iconic personal computer company, Apple Computer, Inc. We almost lost her back in 1996 when she was at her all-time low. Rumors of Apple’s impending collapse, or even the embarrassing possibility of a desperate sale to another company, were everywhere. But just in the nick of time, Steve Jobs made his triumphant return and turned the company completely around. In 2006, Apple is actually more profitable than ever before (thanks to the iPod) — even more so than during the height of the Apple II days.

The machine that founded the company, the “Apple I,” is pictured on the left in a homemade wooden case, as seen at the Smithsonian Institution. I downloaded the picture from Compuserve back in 1992, and it’s always been one of my favorites, despite its grainy GIF quality. I thought about planning some more Apple-related features today, but so many others have done it so well already. Check out these interesting articles that Wired has put together on the whole event.

Never before or since has a company put so much soul into a computing machine, and I’m proud to say that I have loved and used many Apple computers in my short time on this planet. Join with me in toasting Apple, a true pioneer in the PC industry, on their big day. I’m really glad you made it this far, Apple. Here’s to another thirty years of incredible success and continued innovation!

On Monday I did a hack of a NES that I will be posting an article about soon, but I’m already hungry for my next project. I’ve caught the hacking bug, I tell ya — since I finished my last project I’ve been compulsively and obsessively looking at every object in my house in a new way, asking myself “How can I chop that device into pieces and turn it into something more interesting?” Lurking in the bottom of a closet I found an ideal candidate for a hack: an old Apple PowerBook 190 (Apple’s last 680×0 machine, circa 1995) that I bought at a local hamfest for $10 a few years ago. It works fine except for a broken screen hinge. Since it’s “broken” I thought it would be a good choice to play with.

A lot of people are making their own digital picture frames out of old laptops these days (mounting a laptop screen in a picture frame with the computer behind it to hang on the wall and display a random picture slide show), but my 190 only has a 4-bit greyscale passive matrix display, so pictures won’t look too impressive on it. It would be cool to make a semi-permanent, wall-mountable installation out of it, but what would it display? Well, if I could get a reliable network connection to it, it could be a window on all kinds of things on the net, displaying activity from my MUSH, weather info, VC&G traffic statistics, news, or any number of things, as long as there is an application that runs in Mac OS System 7.5.2 to display it. My fiance suggested a permanent digital ant farm, which is a great idea, but I still haven’t found a program or screen saver for the classic Mac OS that simulates one in an aesthetically pleasing way. A friend of mine suggested that I put some form of Linux on it and then I could do all sorts of network-related things that are not as easily achieved in Mac OS 7. But putting Linux on a Mac this old and getting it to work — especially with some ethernet adapter — is a challenging project unto itself. So I’ve been tinkering and I’ve got some new ideas, but I’ll wait until I’m done to share them with you (I’ll give you a hint — well, kinda — just look at the picture above). Until then, I ask you: what should I hack my PowerBook 190 into? Ideas? Suggestions? Leave me a comment and we’ll talk!

Apologies for the lack of updates recently. Alas, life surely gets in the way when you’re running a free “blogazine” in your spare time. Some ambitious articles are in the works, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, I’ve been meaning to share this with VC&G readers for months: it’s my somewhat underwhelming microprocessor and PC BIOS collection. Why underwhelming? Because it’s composed mostly of easy to find x86-compatible processors so far. I am almost more proud of the case than its contents at the moment (cases like the one pictured can be had cheaply at places like Target or craft stores for around $12-$15 US). I could add some more interesting CPUs if I was willing to rip the brains out of my old computers (which, in general, I’m not). But I do have something like six nasty C-64s sitting around, so I should at least add a 6510 to my collection. My favorite part is the 64-pin Motorola 68000 chip that I painstakingly de-soldered from a surplus Mac Plus motherboard some years ago. I’ve always wanted one of those loose because of their unique package size (not among 68000s, but among DIPs in general).

So far in my collection I have the following (from left to right, top to bottom): Intel A80486SX-25, Intel A80486DX-33, Intel A80386DX-25 (x2), Intel P8080A, Intel D80287-10 (co-processor), IIT 3C87-40 (386 clone, I think), Intel R80286-10, Intel CG80286-8, Intel A80387DX-25 (co-prossesor), Motorola MC68000P8. Then I have a bunch of different PC BIOS chips that aren’t all that amazing — the only notable ones are the Phoenix 3.10 chips, and the Mac Plus ROMs (which obviously aren’t BIOSes, but I don’t know where else to put them).

If anybody wants to donate some CPUs to the VC&G Microprocessor collection, let me know. 🙂 Also, if you have a collection yourself, feel free to show us some pictures or discuss it in the comments.

While I’m working on some more in-depth articles for VC&G, I thought I’d show you guys something you might find slightly amusing. The house I live in has a small shelf built into the wall, high up in a vaulted ceiling area. For years I’ve wanted to put some cool computer stuff up there, but my old roommate didn’t like the idea. Then the other day a friend of mine suggested it again, and I seized the opportunity. I lined up most of my compact Macs up on the shelf, so now they’re proudly on display — if you tilt your neck up, anyway (Click on the picture above for a bigger image of the shelf). This also freed up a bit of shelf space which I can now devote to new computer acquisitions.

Pictured on the shelf (from left to right) are a Mac Classic II, a Mac Classic, a Mac SE, a Mac SE/30, a Mac SE FDHD, and four Mac Pluses. Two of the Macs have tape over the disk drive slots because I had them in the attic and didn’t want fiberglass dust to get in there. Not pictured: a Mac Color Classic that wouldn’t quite fit, and a Mac SE, a 128k, and a few more Pluses that are in off-site storage. Luckily, I have lots of room on the shelf to add more.