In Memoriam: Clive Marles Sinclair (1940-2021)
British inventor, Founder of Sinclair Research, Creator of Sinclair computers
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See Also:
RSOTW: Where’s the Bits? (2008)
RSOTW: Memotech ZX81 Modules (2014)
I joined How-To Geek in February 2020, and I’ve been regularly writing tech history-related features in addition to my usual how-to pieces. At the moment, they’re usually published every Monday or on special anniversaries.
Since my first post and second post detailing my history-related How-To Geek articles, I’ve written 46 more pieces that may be of interest to VC&G readers (bringing the total to 66, I think). Man, I’ve been busy! This is the kind of writing I always wanted to do for Vintage Computing and Gaming if my Patreon had ever been fully funded. Luckily, I’ve got a great thing going at How-To Geek.
I realize this list is almost incomprehensibly long, so I’ll try to break it into categories. I also wanted to have a record of all of them in one place, which will help when referring to them in the future.
[ Continue reading Wowzers! 46 More How-To Geek History Articles » ]
Greetings, fellow retro tech fans. 15 years ago today, I launched Vintage Computing and Gaming. The origins of the site have been well-covered elsewhere, so I’ll spare you the rehash.
While I haven’t updated the site all that much over the past five years (since our big 10th anniversary celebration back in 2015), I still thought it would be nice to mention this anniversary. As you can see, VC&G is still online, and we still gets lot of legacy traffic from our old posts. In particular, I feel that this site’s archive of comments are a priceless historical record of people’s memories of the past. The server still costs money to keep running, and generous folks on Patreon make that possible without advertisements.
And even though I only post on VC&G a few times a year these days, the site is still not dead. Our patron saint Steve Wozniak recently posted on the site, marking a sort of full-circle fulfillment of how much my career has changed since I started the site 15 years ago. Back then, I had no idea I’d still be talking and writing about vintage computers and retrogaming 15 years later, or that it would became a career path. It’s mind-boggling to think of all the historical tech achievements that have taken place in the past 15 years, and now this site itself is vintage.
So what’s next for VC&G? I’m not quite sure yet. I plan to keep it up as long as I can, and I’ll post on it when I have something to share that I can’t post anywhere else. For example, I’ve recently been experimenting with setting up the TTL RGB input on one of my old monitors. I might put some of that info on here at some point so it doesn’t get lost. And my wife wants me to try doing some YouTube some day. Not sure when I’ll ever do it (and the topic is so well-covered by others), but if I do, you’ll hear about it on this site.
Other than that, it seems retrogaming and vintage computing are both covered very well all over the Internet now (on YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Discord, and more), unlike back in 2005, so I don’t feel like the world needs VC&G as much as it did then. But this site has served its purpose, and the old posts and scans still continue to serve as a valuable historical resource for people. I don’t know why but I almost felt a tear well up inside this old vintage head of mine.
Anyway, if anyone is still out there and still reading this site, thanks for sticking with VC&G for so long. I’m grateful to have had you along on this 15-year journey. If you have the time, I’d love to hear some of your memories about your favorite VC&G posts of the past in the comments. Happy Birthday, Vintage Computing and Gaming!
As I mentioned back in April, I joined up with How-To Geek in February, and I’ve been regularly writing tech history-related features in addition to my usual how-to pieces.
Since that first post, I’ve written many more pieces that may be of interest to VC&G readers. Here’s a list:
Some of my favorites include the Turbo Button piece, in which I discovered the first PC to ever use a turbo button, the Noisy Modem piece, in which I identified the man who invented the onboard modem speaker, and my look at Gopher, wherein I talked to the lead creator of the Gopher protocol. My ode to Windows 2000 is fun too. But heck, they’re all fun reads.
Hope you enjoy reading them! Keep an eye on my How-To Geek author page for more in the future.
Back in February, I landed a full-time job at How-To Geek as a Staff Writer. It’s been a great gig, and I am enjoying helping people with tricky (and sometimes very simple) tech problems.
I’ve written a lot about iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows 10, and the Nintendo Switch so far, but HTG also lets me do a history feature about once a week. That way I can keep flexing my tech nostalgia muscles. Here are the history pieces I’ve done so far:
Expect much more where that came from, so keep an eye on my How-To Geek page, and you’ll see new ones pop up from time to time.
I hope everybody out there is doing well. This blog isn’t dead yet — I still plan to post some more Retro Scans some day.
How is everyone doing out there? We’re living through historic times, with most of the world on lockdown due to COVID-19 (AKA novel coronavirus).
My family and I have been staying at home since early March. We stocked up on supplies in February when it seemed things were getting really bad in China, so we’ve been ok regarding food. We’ve also received some supplemental grocery deliveries every few weeks. We typically buy non-perishables and let them sit for a few days before touching them, then wash them off before using. Any perishables get a scrub down immediately then sit quarantined in a bag in the fridge. Checking the mail involves surgical gloves and a multi-day quarantine in a safe spot before opening.
We’re fortunate enough to have a large enough house and a big enough yard that we don’t get cabin fever too badly. The weather has been nice in general, so me and the kids have spent a lot of our free time outside catching toads, gardening, and repeatedly washing the pollen off of everything.
And every night since it came out, I’ve been playing a little bit of Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Switch. It’s a fun diversion.
Since February 10th, I’ve worked for How-To Geek as a Staff Writer. It’s a work from home job, so not much has changed there — I work 8 hours a day Monday-Friday. The kids have mostly left me alone, but it can be stressful. Luckily, my wife has kept them busy. They just recently started doing online schoolwork, and that has been a stressful adventure unto itself. But I think they will soon get into the rhythm of it.
I hope everyone out there stays healthy and safe during these strange times. They’re not permanent; We will get through this, and I hope we will all be wiser and kinder for having lived through the experience.
Discussion Topic: How are you and your family coping during these times? Have you played any games or used any old computers to keep yourself busy?
In Memoriam: Lawrence G. “Larry” Tesler (1945-2020),
inventor of Copy/Paste at Xerox PARC, member of Apple Lisa team,
human-computer interaction expert
Tesler was a giant in the field of human-computer interaction, having pioneered modeless interfaces at Xerox PARC and carried those over to Apple as part of the Lisa team. While at PARC, he and Timothy Mott created a text editor called Gypsy that included the first implementation of the now-common Copy and Paste features for moving blocks of information easily within a document. According to Robert Scoble, Tesler was also on the committee at Apple that decided to re-hire Steve Jobs in the mid-1990s. He will be missed.
Since August 1st of this year, I’ve been building and selling custom joysticks through Twitter. This small venture has been an unexpected success.
People love them, and that makes me very happy. I’ve sold about 140 so far, and I’ve built and shipped about 100 all around the world.
The past few months have been a wild ride, and I’d like to tell you some about it.
The basic concept behind every joystick I’ve made so far is simple: bring the best quality arcade parts to home consoles and computers.
I’ve been using Japanese arcade joysticks and buttons from Sanwa Denshi, a firm that makes some of the best arcade assemblies in the world.
The results have been incredible. Games I thought previously unplayable are suddenly rendered fun, like lifting some kind of fog.
Mushy, worn out control pads have come between me and gaming for too long, and I had no idea. When you push a button or move the lever on one of my sticks, something happens. Every time. There is no blaming the controller for gaming failures.
That extra level of accuracy brings new life to older games. Especially on platforms that didn’t have great controllers to begin with. Figuring this out has made me want to share these joysticks with everybody. But let’s take a step back and see how this all got started.
It’s that time of year again: the Yuletide. Over the past few years, I’ve been posting an annual collection of all the Christmas-related tech material I’ve written (both for this site and for others) into one place for easy reading. Below, you’ll find list of off-site Christmas slideshows, other features, and of course, plenty of Retro Scans of the Week.
I have a soft spot for Christmas, having been raised with the tradition, so this list is for me as much as it is for everyone else. After going through these things again, it’s amazing to see how much Christmas stuff I’ve posted over the years. I hope you enjoy it.
[ Continue reading The VC&G Christmas Collection (2017 Edition) » ]
Steve Wozniak is known for many things, but did you know that in addition to co-founding Apple, he also invented the universal remote control?* In this podcast interview, I dig into that story and more as we talk about Woz’s personal history with Television.
Since October, I’ve been working on a new podcast called The Culture of Tech. It’s an interview show where I talk about the intersection of culture and technology — and the past, present, and future of tech — while intertwining my own original music into the mix.
My first show is here. The guest is Steve Wozniak talking about Television. I thought it would be fun to pick a unifying topic and discuss it throughout his career.
In this case, Woz’s love and knowledge of television both allowed him to design Apple’s first two signature products (the Apple I and Apple II), but also to later create a company called CL9 that pioneered universal remote controls with the CORE remote.
Coming up on episode 2 will be Richard Garriott (of Ultima fame) talking about the Virtues.
I’m still working on logos, artwork, etc, and the official Culture of Tech website. I also set up an official Culture of Tech Twitter feed.
Hope you enjoy the show. Please let me know what you think — your feedback is essential. And if you like what you hear, please consider supporting my work on Patreon.
*Engineers at GE also invented a universal remote control around the same time, and Woz’s product, which was much more powerful, hit the market two years later.
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