Floppydays Vintage Computing Podcast

The Epson HX-20, Part 2, With Earl Evans Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 95 of the Floppy Days Podcast for November, 2019, where once again this month (in Part 2) we will continue talking about one of the world’s first portable computers: The Epson HX-20. I’m extremely happy to again have my good friend, and vintage computer podcast legend, Mr. Earl Evans, as my co-host for this episode. It turned out we had so much material to cover that I ended up breaking this topic into 2 parts.  Last month was part 1, where Earl and I covered HX-20 history, tech specs, and peripherals. This month will be part 2, in which Earl and I will continue coverage by discussing how to use the machine, emulators, software, ads and appearances, modern upgrades, Web sites and more.  In addition, I will include an interview with a gentleman who has done recent work around the HX-20 in the area of emulation, Mr. Pontus Rodling. First, however, I will spend a few minutes talking about my recent acquisitions in the vintage computi

The Epson HX-20 Part 1 Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 94 of the Floppy Days Podcast for October, 2019, where this month we will be talking about one of the world’s first portable computers: The Epson HX-20.  Thank you, Terry Stewart, for your thoughts about the HX-20 to lead off the show. For those that want more information from Terry, check out his Website and Youtube channel where he has a terrific video on the HX-20, as well as lots of information on other vintage computers. I’m extremely happy to announce that my good friend, and one of the godfathers of vintage computer podcast, Mr. Earl Evans, will be my co-host for this topic.  It’s always a thrill to have Earl join me on this podcast as he and his Retrobits podcast were the inspiration for Floppy Days. It turned out that Earl not only knows the gentleman I interviewed last month, Chris Rutkowski, but he also used to work for Epson and supported the HX-20 and its successor the PX-8.  He also owns a couple of machines. As a result, Earl is able

Interview with Chris Rutkowski, Epson QX10 & ValDocs Hello and welcome to episode 93 of the Floppy Days Podcast.  We’re still in the year 1981 for computer introductions and next up on the docket is the venerable Epson HX-20, oft-considered the very first laptop computer.  It spawned an entire series of laptop computers from Epson, such as the PX-8 and QX-10. In this episode, I have an interview with Mr. Chris Rutkowski.  Chris worked for or at Epson during the days of the HX-20 and the other machines.  Although Chris didn’t work directly on the HX-20, as he was more focused on the QX-10 and software for it (such as ValDocs), Chris has a great perspective on what it was like to work at Epson at that time. In the next episode I will then talk in detail about the HX-20, including the usual topics of history, specs, software, magazines, ads, Web sites, emulators and more. After talking with Chris, I was very impressed with the work that he did and impact that he made on the fledgling microcomputer industry. 

Hello, welcome to Floppy Days Podcast #92, coming to you in July, 2019.  This month, I’m bringing to you an interview I’ve had in my backlog for almost 2 years now.  Thank goodness, most of the information on Floppy Days is timeless, so the interview is just as relevant today as it was then.  Anyway, I’m very happy to present an interview with Mr. Dave Lagerquist, who was the editor of both the CLOAD cassette magazine, which was produced for the TRS-80 Model I and Model III, and Chromasette cassette magazine, which was produced for the Tandy Color Computer. As usual, I will cover a few new acquisitions, a run-down of upcoming shows and other news, a piece of feedback, and then we’ll get right into the meat of the interview. Links Mentioned in the Show: New Acquisitions C64 mini - https://www.amazon.com/C64-Mini-not-machine-specific/dp/B07GMV1X1K  Atari 400/800 Programmer’s Guide Poster by Steve Boswell - https://www.redbubble.com/people/choccyhobnob/works/39504539-basic-programmers-guide-from-1981?asc=u&am

The Osborne 1 with Lee Felsenstein Welcome to episode 91 of the Floppy Days Podcast for May, 2019. In the timeline for personal computer introductions, we are now in the year 1981.  For this episode we are going to be talking about the Osborne 1. The Osborne 1 was the first commercially successful portable microcomputer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation (OCC).  It was powered by the Z80 CPU at a blazing 4MHz, weighed 24.5 lb, cost US$1,795, and ran the CP/M operating system. It was powered from a wall socket, as it had no on-board battery, but is a portable device since it can be hand-carried when packed.  The computer shipped with a large bundle of software that was almost equivalent in value to the machine itself. The Osborne 1 was the brain child of Adam Osborne and was brilliantly engineered by Lee Felsenstein.  So, who better to have help me talk about the machine than Lee Felsenstein himself! For this show, we’re going to spend some time with Lee talking about the history surrou

Episode 90 - Interview with Lee Felsenstein (Osborne 1) Welcome to episode 90 of the Floppy Days Podcast for April, 2019. In the timeline for personal computer introductions, we are now in the year 1981.  For this episode, and actually the next couple as well, we are going to be talking about the Osborne 1. The Osborne 1 was the first commercially successful portable microcomputer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation.  It was powered by the Z80 CPU, weighed 24.5 lb, cost US$1,795, and ran the CP/M operating system. It was powered from a wall socket, as it had no on-board battery, but is a portable device since it can be hand-carried when packed.  The computer shipped with a large bundle of software that was almost equivalent in value to the machine itself. The Osborne 1 was the brain child of Adam Osborne and was brilliantly engineered by Lee Felsenstein.  So, who better to have help me talk about the machine than Lee Felsenstein himself. To kick off this series, we’re going to spend som

The Apple III - Part 3 with David Fradin Welcome to episode 89 of the Floppy Days Podcast, where we love our computers and programmable calculators of the 70’s and 80’s (and even into the 90’s). As mentioned on the last episode, we’ve moved in to the year 1981 for computer introductions and have been discussing the much maligned but misunderstood Apple III for the past couple of shows.  This episode will be the last in the series about that machine. This episode we focus on an interview with someone who was responsible for the Apple III line at Apple in his tenure there, Mr. David Fradin.  David was product manager for that line and has some insights into the challenges of managing and marketing it. Before we get to the interview, I will briefly talk about what I’ve been up to and about some new-to-me vintage computer acquisitions.  I’ll also run through the upcoming vintage computer show schedule for 2019, which is pretty full, and I have a bit of feedback to share. Links Mentioned in the Show: New Acquisiti

Floppy Days Episode 88 - The Apple III - Part 2 Hi, all, and welcome to Floppy Days #88 for December, 2018.  I’m your host, Randy Kindig, and it’s hard to believe that 2018 is coming to an end.  I hope you all had a great year! As stated in the last show, we are into the year 1981 for computer introductions and we are covering the Apple II’s more powerful sibling, the Apple III.  This is part 2 of the 2-part series and will again have Paul Hagstrom, prolific podcaster himself, to help me cover this machine. We will continue where we left off the last show, and will cover magazines, books, software, emulators, Web sites and a whole lot more.  Stay tuned to learn more than you ever wanted to know about the Apple III. New Acquisitions/What I’ve Been Up To Tandy Assembly 2018 - http://www.tandyassembly.com/index.html Bartlett Labs (Peter Barlett) - MISE/M3SE/MIRE - http://bartlettlabs.com/ Ian Mavric - The Right Stuff - http://members.iinet.net.au/~ianmav/trs80/ Peter Cetinski - http://pski.net/category/retro/ B

Tandy Assembly - http://www.tandyassembly.com  Ian Mavric - ianm@trs-80.com PSKI Software - http://www.pski.net  

The Apple III - Part 1 Hello, everyone, and welcome to Episode 87 of the Floppy Days Podcast for November, 2018.  In the timeline, we continue to cover machines that were released in the year 1980. The topic of this show is a machine that while it came from a very well-known computer company, was never popular enough to make a large splash in the computer market.  Nevertheless, it was an important piece in the history of personal computers and I’m happy to bring it to you this month. Of course, the machine that we’re talking about, as you already know from the excellent memories intro by Mike Maginnis, is the Apple II’s more powerful brother, the Apple III. I’m very happy to have one of the well-known members of the Apple III community today, and co-host of the Apple III podcast “Drop III Inches” as well as a cohost of the RetroComputing Roundtable Podcast, Mr. Paul Hagstrom, assist me with this month’s topic. New Acquisitions/What I’ve Been Up To Little Darling Designs - (http://www.littledarlingdesigns.com

The Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81 Welcome to the Floppy Days Podcast with myself, Randy Kindig, and a whole host of vintage computers surrounding me, each one wanting their time in the limelight.  This will be part 2 of the 2-part series on the Sinclair ZX80 & 81 computer line. Once again, I will have one of the grand-daddy’s of vintage computer podcasting, Earl Evans, co-hosting with me as we complete the journey through one of the historically significant computers from across the pond.  We will be covering the normal topics from where we left off the last show, so we’ll be talking about peripherals, software, books & magazines, ads, emulators, Web sites and whatever else comes to mind. Before we do that, though, I do want to talk a bit about my new acquisitions and projects, let you know about upcoming shows so you can make your plans, and I might even have a little feedback. I want to thank Ian Bucknell for providing his thoughts and memories of the ZX81. Links Mentioned in the Show: Memories Ian Buckne

Advertisement for Tandy Assembly 2018 November 10 & 11, 2018 in Springfield, OH http://www.tandyassembly.com  

Interview with John Grant - Developer of the OS & BASIC for the Sinclair ZX80 In the last show Earl Evans and I covered part I of the Sinclair ZX80/81 line of home computers; its history and tech specs.  Before delving into part II, we’re going to have a topic-relevant interview this month. I was able to, with the help of Kevin Palser, track down and interview Mr. John Grant, a man whose name we mentioned several times last month when going through the Sinclair ZX80 history.  You see, John is literally the gentleman who wrote the operating system and BASIC for the ZX80. He still owns Nine Tiles today and still has the rights to that OS. I think you’ll enjoy this discussion with a true vintage computer pioneer. Nine Tiles - http://www.ninetiles.com/ John Grant at LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/johngrantninetiles/ John’s current work - https://uk5g.org/discover/read-articles/packet-routing-for-the-other-two-corners/  

The Sinclair ZX-80 Hello and welcome to the Floppy Days Podcast for May, 2018, where we remind everyone of the days when everyone knew how to program a computer, not just use it for social media.  My name is Randy Kindig and I host this podcast. We are coming near the end of the computers to be covered on this podcast that were introduced at the beginning of the 8-bit era, when things really started to take off, that being the year 1980.  This month, we will be talking about a limited, inexpensive, but definitely historically significant line of computers known as the Sinclair Z80, ZX81, and Timex Sinclair 1000 and 1500. I was very happy to get an old friend, and vintage computer podcasting legend, Earl Evans to help me host this episode.  Earl does a great job of researching and discussing vintage computers and his help was great. In addition, I was able to get some members of the Sinclair ZX80/81 community to provide memories and to help provide information, as well as assisting with going through the topic

This is a special promo episode of Floppy Days for the upcoming VCF East XIII show, May 18-20, 2018.  I speak with VC Federation Executive Director Evan Koblentz about the show. Please attend if you can! VCF East Web Site Connor Krukosky Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk   

The Intellivision Keyboard Component Hello everyone and welcome to Floppy Days #83 for April, 2018.  My name is Randy Kindig and I host this little retrospective on vintage computers.  I’m stepping outside the normal timeline for this particular episode in order to cover a vintage gaming console and an upgrade that could be purchased for it that turned it into a home computer.  The gaming console is the Intellivision and the upgrade was called the Intellivision Keyboard Component. This system falls roughly into our current timeline, which sits currently at 1980, in that the Intellivision Master Componenet was released in 1979 and the Keyboard Component while work was started on it in 1978 it was never officially released except for about 4,000 units before it was officially canceled in 1982. Paul Nurminen, aka Nurmix, of the Intellivisionaries Podcast, came to me some time ago and suggested that we collaborate on a podcast about this system as he thought it might be interesting to Intellivisionaries and Flopp

The Acorn Atom and the Fifth Year of Floppy Days 1980 was a very prolific year for the development of personal computers around the globe and we continue to cover machines made in that year.  This month’s topic is a machine that was never made available in the United States.  It was popular in parts of Europe and particularly in the Netherlands.  The machine: The Acorn Atom.  This is the first non-US machine I’ve covered and I have plans to cover other machines that were made outside of North America. I want to start out by thanking Walter Miraglia and Andy Collins for providing their thoughts and memories of the Acorn Atom.  I have zero personal experience with the Atom, never having seen one or even heard of it prior to doing some recent research on non-US personal computers and deciding to cover it.  So, it was great to have a couple of people who do have some experience with the machine volunteer to share their memories. To help me cover this machine, I found one of the foremost Atom experts on the forums

David Needle, technology reporter David Needle is a technology reporter and editor based in Silicon Valley. He has worked for a variety of publications including: Computer World InfoWorld Personal Computing Information Week Computer Currents He has interviewed many technology giants of the early computer days, such as: Steve Jobs Bill Gates Dan Bricklin Jack Tramiel Nolan Bushnell Steve Leininger This interview occurred on November 3, 2016 Links: Dave interviews Steve Leininger - https://books.google.com/books?id=yS4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA66&lpg=PA66&dq=steve+leininger+tandy&source=bl&ots=SOhJ_VmIPk&sig=rkv-wpHfieMH5rlOfSsNTu5kSaI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjw1MGU6pDQAhWB6YMKHVgYCAMQ6AEIITAB#v=onepage&q=steve%20leininger%20tandy&f=false

Tandy Pocket Computers, Part 2 Welcome to episode 80 of the Floppy Days Podcast, for December, 2017! This episode is part 2 of the coverage of the TRS-80 pocket computer line.  In the timeline we’re still in the year 1980, with the first of the pocket computer line, the PC-1, having been released in that year.  Again, the TRS-80 icon known as Ian Mavric will be walking through various aspects of that computer line with me.  We will be covering newsletters, magazines, emulation, Web sites, modern upgrades and much more. Web site: http://floppydays.com email: floppydays@gmail.com Twitter: @floppydays Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/floppydays on iTunes and Stitcher (www.stitcher.com) part of the Throwback Network (www.throwbacknetwork.net ) Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/I5bhao6ixoxkzq52qlku5mfb43q?t=FloppyDays_Vintage_Computing_Podcast Links Mentioned in the Show: New Acquisitions CoCoSDC - http://cocosdc.blogspot.com/ REX - http://bitchin100.com/wiki/index.php?title=REX NADSBox - http

Tandy Pocket Computers, Part 1 Web site: http://floppydays.com email: floppydays@gmail.com Twitter: @floppydays Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/floppydays on iTunes and Stitcher (www.stitcher.com) part of the Throwback Network (www.throwbacknetwork.net ) Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/I5bhao6ixoxkzq52qlku5mfb43q?t=FloppyDays_Vintage_Computing_Podcast Links Mentioned in the Show: New Acquisitions Amiga RGB to SCART cable - http://amigakit.amiga.store/catalog/ SCART to HDMI converter - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Scart-HDMI-to-HDMI-720P-1080P-HD-Video-Converter-Monitor-Box-For-HDTV-DVD-STB-BK/322819178099