Intrusion prevention 1990s Apple style...

Well first stage of the build trying to get the old Mac open! Seems Apple have intrusion detection built into the case with really deep recesses where some torx 15 screws reside. So off to eBay to order some long reach torx screwdrivers. Managed to secure a set for £6.99 here.

Not much I can do until these arrive! Decided to keep a sheet of project spend so far to keep a track of project costs - come in handy when I come to sell some of my retro gear that will fund this project. Noticed my Mac was built in December 1990. Just over 28 years old. A fine vintage.

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The Commodore 64 and a view of mid 80s computing technology

I am typing this on a computer that has a total of 56 processing units inside of it. 8 performance cores. 4 efficiency cores. 16 GPU cores and finally 16 Neural cores. It has 28 billion transistors. It runs at up to 4.5GHz. It has 24 GB of system memory. It has 512GB of solid-state storage. All this compute power in its entirety fits into an enclosure that is 5”(w) x 5”(l) x 2”(h) inches in size. Progress. So let’s go back in time. A time when we had single processor machines that ran between 1 and 4 Mhz. 64 KB of RAM if we were lucky. No onboard long-term storage – for that a tape drive was needed. Or if you were lucky a floppy disk drive. The Commodore 64 was special though. It had special sauce. That came in the form of custom chips known as VIC and SID. Although I guess they sound like two old characters down the local pub VIC (Video Interface Chip) and SID (Sound Interface Device) were extremely important in defining the Commodore 64 experience. The heart of machi...

After nearly seven years its time to fire this blog up again. A new project.

Project: iGame Overview So retro gamers you know the score you have a cupboard full of hardware taking up space, multiple switchboxes to access all your consoles, CRT screens etc. Basically its a PITA to be a retro gamer these days. The pondering begins. What to do with an old Mac SE/30 I've had stood in the lounge for a couple of years? Fishtank I hear you scream? Fate of many an old Mac... no...boring, predictable... then....the spark of inspiration....the idea flows into my mind, fuelled by the mind bending properties of a good brew of Yorkshire tea... a compact retro coated retro gaming station! So the birth of a wonderful project. So here I am now updating this blogspot for the first time in nearly six years!!! 😊 Step one is to find a long screwdriver to get this thing open and start stripping the bits out - although the project will have to start in earnest after I have done a dreaded incoming exam which I am currently (trying) to study f...

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