I imagine anyone interested in retrocomputing knows about the Osborne-1 and the so-called Osborne Effect. Is it true? I don’t know. Maybe? Sure? Why not.
But I find the story behind the company, Osborne Computer Corporation, to be just as interesting.
From the March 1984 issue of Creative Computing magazine, here’s David H. Ahl on the rise and fall of OCC.
It’s easy to remember Commodore for what happened to it. But there were a lot of years of fun and excitement before that bitter end.
From the first issue of Amiga World magazine comes today’s entry: The introduction of the Amiga 1000.
Special, special thanks to @BanjoGuyOllie for his awesome banjo rendition of the hit Xenon 2 Megablast game intro.
And a special thanks to @WillWinter for pointing out this great rendition!
The basic story is this: Woz offers the very beginning of the microcomputer revolution to HP in the Apple 1. HP declines. Woz leaves with Steve Jobs to found Apple. Apple is a titan. HP is slowly sinking.
As with most things, the story is a lot more complicated. You may even know about some of those complications. Do you know HP’s side?
Today’s entry is HP’s side.
Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World’s Greatest Company
If you follow my Twitter account (@retroreadspod), then you may have seen a tweet in which I mentioned that I recently hired a narration and voiceover coach.
While meeting with him on May 13, 2019, I mentioned that I had put together an audio presentation about KansasFest, the Apple II convention. When I mentioned the Apple II, his eyes lit up. He started in voiceover and music composition in the early 1970s and purchased an Apple //e at release (1983). He bought it for a certain product, alphaSyntauri. It was a combination hardware/software product that allowed composers to create complex musical arrangements using a synthesizer keyboard, and an Apple II.
My coach, James Conlan, sent me one of his compositions, one he described as “one of my favorites.” Since the next episode is an excerpt from a book chronicling HP history and Steve Wozniak’s association with same, I thought this might be a nice aside for podcast listeners.
Enjoy!
James Conlan
alphaSyntauri (interview with inventor Charlie Kellner introduced by an article on the website Apple II Bits)
Tedium piece about joysticks including Benj Edwards small business creating insanely great ones!
https://tedium.co/2019/02/07/bx-foundry-video-game-controllers/
Today’s is an item from the DAK Winter 1988 catalog about a small laptop. It’s retro-ish.
There are a few DAK items up on the Internet archive!
https://archive.org/details/1988-Winter-DAK-Catalog/page/n47
Tedium piece about joysticks including Benj Edwards small business creating insanely great ones!
https://tedium.co/2019/02/07/bx-foundry-video-game-controllers/
This episode details the Xerox Star Emulator the Living Computer Museum and Labs announced in January. The below link contains a _lot_ of images and links so review it!
Kevin Savetz recently* wrote a Twitter thread about Timesharing History that he uploaded to the Internet Archive. Here’s that thread.
Show Note:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1073364446007816197.html
* Not at all recent
Three articles all to do with the Altair 8800.
RetroReads Podcast 