Networking Cabletron Ethernet April 19, 2024 / April 19, 2024 by mark | Leave a Comment We’ve started looking at 1980s Ethernet products recently, and Cabletron was one of the most prominent Ethernet vendors at the time. I stumbled upon this Ethernet Technology Guide published by Cabletron, and found it to be a very comprehensive of Ethernet history and how the physical LANs were built (10base5, 10base2, 10baseT) particularly the multi-port […] Read more » 10base5 cabletron
Accessory cards Uncategorized B.G. Micro Vocal Synthesizer Card February 17, 2024 / August 3, 2025 by mark | 2 Comments on B.G. Micro Vocal Synthesizer Card Our PC’s Limited (Dell) 286 computer came with a B.G. Micro vocal synthesizer card, which lets the computer “talk” in 1980s robot style. Two tantalum capacitors had failed on the board, so all were replaced. We showed it functioning in this restoration video: Photos Resources Resources we found related to this card components How it […] Read more » bgmicro dos synthesizer
Networking HP Procurve 1810G-24 J9450A January 28, 2024 / January 28, 2024 by mark | 3 Comments on HP Procurve 1810G-24 J9450A I’ve used several HP Procurve switches over the years and have found them to be great for general office use. We have been using a 1810G-24 (J9450A) switch in our lab, to keep machines online including the infamous Cobalt RaQ 3. This is a “web managed” switch, with basic VLAN support. On the plus side, […] Read more » hp procurve J9450A procurve 1810G
Internet BBN and Arpanet December 19, 2023 / December 19, 2023 by mark | Leave a Comment found some interesting materials from Dave Walden’s site Source: https://www.walden-family.com/bbn/ A great write-up of BBN history is also here, including details on their contract to provide modem dial-in service for AOL (over 400,000 modems!) Read more » arpanet BBN internet history
FreeBSD Installing FreeBSD 2.0.5 in a VM October 2, 2023 / August 5, 2025 by mark | Leave a Comment How to install FreeBSD 2.0.5 in a virtual machine Read more » freebsd virtualbox
Uncategorized Xyplex MaxServer Menu October 1, 2023 / October 1, 2023 by mark | 2 Comments on Xyplex MaxServer Menu While working on the Xyplex Maxserver 1620 for our upcoming terminal server video, I wanted to try re-creating a menu I thought I had seen before from a 1990s ISP. The idea is that the user can dial in with a modem, and then get a menu to choose between several options such as telneting […] Read more » isp ppp xyplex
Sun ZuluSCSI CD-ROM for Sun Sparcstation August 22, 2023 / August 22, 2023 by mark | Leave a Comment After we completed the hardware restoration on the Sun SparcCLASSIC, my first objective was to do a network-based Solaris install. I had heard many people talk about network installs of Solaris, in particular _Jumpstart_ which is an automated install method over the network. Eventually, we got the network install of Solaris 2.6 working and showed […] Read more » sparcclassic sparcstation zuluscsi
Uncategorized Cisco router: Modem ISP in a box February 22, 2023 / May 16, 2024 by mark | 7 Comments on Cisco router: Modem ISP in a box In our journey to re-live old experiences with our retro computers, part of that experience is to use dial-up modems. For example, we did a thorough factory restore to bring our Packard Bell Platinum 2220 back to life [vintage 1997] and while it would be easy to get it online by slapping in a 3com […] Read more » cisco dialup isp modem ppp
Compaq PXE booting & NT install on the Compaq Deskpro February 7, 2023 / February 7, 2023 by mark | Leave a Comment After we recently added the Compaq Deskpro EN (Celeron 300A) system to our collection, I was eager to do a new OS install since the system seemed completely functional in original form. The machine came with both Windows 95 & NT badges, and we obviously decided to install NT since this was a business-class machine. […] Read more » compaq nt domain nt workstation windows nt
Dell PCs Pro200n power supply restoration January 2, 2023 / February 10, 2023 by serialadmin | Leave a Comment Ensuring that power supplies in vintage hardware are reliable and safe is extremely important. If voltage regulation in the supply were to suddenly fail, or even slowly fail over time, this can cause damage to downstream components that may be much harder to replace than the power supply itself. To that end, we’ve been working […] Read more »
