Thoughts on an Apple II FPGA Coprocessor
I’ve been kicking around the idea of using the on-board FPGA in my Yellowstone Universal Disk Controller as a general-purpose Apple II coprocessor. With an FPGA on a peripheral card connected to the...
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Atari 2600 Hardware Acceleration
Atari 2600 programming techniques are fascinating. The hardware is so very limited, and programmers must use every possible trick to scrimp and save the last CPU cycle and byte of RAM. For a refresher...
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Oceania Has Always Been at War with Eastasia: Dangers of Generative AI and...
In George Orwell’s ominous Novel 1984, the world is controlled by three superpowers fighting a never-ending war. When the protagonist’s country abruptly switches sides in the conflict, former allies...
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Reflections on Orders of Magnitude
This week I upgraded my home internet service to 10 Gbps, and not because I needed faster speeds, but because it was simply cheaper than my existing 400 Mbps service. A 25x speed improvement for less...
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Tetris Max and System 6, Fixing 31-Year-Old Bugs
31 years ago Tetris Max for the Macintosh was born, an improved clone of tetris, and it became an insanely popular Mac game during the 1990s. I may or may not have had some involvement in its...
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Searching for Paul C. Pratt
Paul C. Pratt is the man behind the Gryphel Project, an ambitious software and documentation effort to preserve and extend classic 68000-based Macintosh computers. He’s the author of the...
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You’re Invited: October 14 Bay Area Classic Macintosh Meetup, Expo, Repair...
Somebody stop me! On Saturday October 14 from 11am to 5pm, Big Mess o’ Wires invites you to the 1st Annual San Francisco Bay Area Classic Macintosh Meetup / Mini-Expo / Repair Clinic / Swap Meet /...
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A Tale of Three Bidirectional Level Shifters
Level shifters, voltage translators: whatever you call them, these devices are very handy when interfacing 5V and 3.3V logic for devices that aren’t 5V-tolerant. The 74LVC244 has long been my go-to...
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Mactoberfest Bay Area Meetup is October 14!
Classic Macintosh fans, don’t miss your chance to revisit the halcyon days of Hypercard, desk accessories, and flying toasters! Mactoberfest Meetup is coming to the San Francisco Bay Area on Saturday...
View ArticleImageWriter II Printer Resurrected
I’ve had an ImageWriter II printer gathering dust in the back of my closet for at least a decade. Originally purchased at the Silicon Valley Electronics Flea Market for 25 cents, it was an obsolete...
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ATX to Mac 10-pin Power Supply Adapter Kit
If you dabble with old computers, then you know the power supplies can fail just as often as the computers themselves. In the case of classic Macintosh computers, Apple didn’t use any kind of standard...
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Announcing the Tetris Max High Score Contest, October 14
Oh yes, this is happening. This is the moment. Put your peril-sensitive sunglasses on, warm up your wrists, and prepare your ergonomic keyboards. Saturday October 14 at Mactoberfest Meetup will feature...
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Classic Macintosh Video Signals Demystified, Designing a Mac-to-VGA Adapter...
In the late 1980s When Apple released its first Macintosh models supporting external color monitors, the company made some design choices that continue to cause trouble even today. Computers like the...
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Mactoberfest Meetup is One Week Away!
The Mactoberfest Meetup classic Macintosh celebration is only one week away! What is this? Mactoberfest Meetup is a free social event for classic Macintosh computer collectors in the San Francisco...
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Electric Bow Tie 3000 Reloaded
Ah, the Electric Bow Tie 3000: BMOW’s least-loved product. The bow tie was retired several years ago, but it’s still possible to make your own annoying neckwear device! I’ve belatedly uploaded the...
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Mac-to-VGA Sync-Splitter Prototype
Elapsed time: 122 hours from design concept to finished product in my hands. Hey, it works! Last week I wrote about my attempts to design a Macintosh-to-VGA video adapter with an integrated sync...
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Tetris Max Worldwide High Score Contest is Saturday
Here’s your reminder for the first ever Tetris Max Worldwide High Score Contest, happening this Saturday October 14 from 11:00 am to 3:30 pm Pacific Daylight Time (UTC−07:00). Warm up your wrists,...
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Mactoberfest Meetup Recap
The first ever Mactoberfest Meetup was a success! Everybody seemed to have a great time, and there were no serious hiccups. In a hobby that tends to be pretty insular, it was nice to spend a day with...
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Power Supply Design, Group Regulation, and Vintage Computers
Vintage computer power supplies will eventually grow old and die. Instead of rebuilding them, many people are opting to replace them with a PC-standard ATX power supply and a physical adapter to fit...
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Mac-to-VGA Composite Sync-Splitter Progress
I’ve been continuing the design development on a Mac-to-VGA video adapter with an integrated composite sync splitter, whose concept was first discussed in October, with a first-generation prototype...
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