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Hi, I'm Iljitsch van Beijnum. These are posts about retrocomputing and other old stuff.

An accordion made of two Commodore 64s plays Scott Joplin ragtime

In an infinite universe, everything that's possible does in fact exist. I've long held the position that the internet is pretty much an infinite universe.

So of course a Youtube video where someone created an accordion-like instrument consisting of two C64s with bellows made out of 5¼" floppy disks playing Scott Joplin ragtime classics does exist on the internet. Enjoy!

Permalink - posted 2022-10-23

Shooting film

In this digital age, we still may want to shoot photos on film. But what type of film?

Or why film in the first place?

I think that last question will have a different answer for everyone. For me, it's the joy of seeing decades old machines do what they were built to do so cleanly. I can just pull the film advance lever and push the shutter on my Nikon FE time and time again, it never gets old. It's even better when there's film in the camera. Although of course then this starts to cost real money.

Full article / permalink - posted 2022-06-19

Review: A500 Mini, F710 game controller, PETSCII Robots

The A500 Mini, the Logitech F710 and Attack of the PETSCII Robots: an excellent combination. So let me cover all three in a single review.

Full article / permalink - posted 2022-06-05

My first iPod

This is the third generation iPod that I bought for an enormous amount of money back in 2003. It has a "20 GB" (more like 18 and change) harddisk and came with a dock and a wired remote control. It still looks cool although the screen seems so small now. The red LEDs behind the touch buttons are very nice, but the touch buttons are a usability nightmare because you can't feel around for the buttons because then you'll activate them.

My later fifth generation iPod with 30 GB and a color screen that plays video has the click wheel, where the 12, 3, 6 and 9 o'clock positions of the wheel are also buttons, that works much better. Unlike the older one, it also supports podcasts. But it hasn't aged as well, with even less battery life even though I replaced the battery a decade ago, and the screen backlight has issues.

The 3rd gen iPod only syncs over Firewire or USB, but only charges over Firewire. The 5th gen iPod only syncs over USB, but charges over Firewire or USB. However, with the battery being in a very sorry state, USB + the battery combined don't deliver enough power to start the iPod up successfully. So I first have to charge it on Firewire and then it has enough juice to be synced over USB.

Anyway, I was very happy with my iPods from when I got my first one in 2003 until I got my first iPhone in 2008. Apple discontinued the iPod "classic" in 2014 and the iPod Nano in 2017. They kept the iPod Touch around until this week, but that's not really an iPod, it's an iPhone without the phone part.

Permalink - posted 2022-05-13

6502, Z80, 8086, 68000: the four CPUs that dominated the 1980s

Although there were definitely other CPUs in use in the 1980s, the vast majority of microcomputers people had at home or at the office used either a MOS 6502 or one of its variants, a Zilog Z80, an early member of the Intel 8086 family, or a Motorola 68000. Let's have a look at those four CPUs.

Read the article - posted 2022-04-19

First impressions: THEA500 Mini

On friday, I received my preordered THEA500 Mini. This is smaller and modern version of the Commodore Amiga 500 computer from 1987. By the same company that makes a similar version of the Commodore 64.

After exploring the A500 Mini for a few days, I can't really make up my mind on whether I like it, or it's too limited. So here some first impressions, I'll probably do a more complete review later.

Full article / permalink - posted 2022-04-10

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