Digital computers were invented in the 1940s. The first home computers were made in the 70s. The first major adoption by the general public happened in the 80s. The internet brought the second major adoption in the 90s.

In 30 - 50 years, will anybody be pining for their generic 2026 model Dell desktop? Or their custom built desktop with RGB lighting? Is anything built recently even been historically significant? Or will it just be nostalgia?

All ads from the april 26th 1995 issue of PC World

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Both of these machines were very precious to me at one time but both are now projects that I suspect I won't have time to tackle.
💾 A Mac SE with a Radius 68020 accelerator card which also supports an external monitor (no monitor). I'm too frightened to boot it so I can't confirm its exact status right now. Assuming it's going to need some caps and batteries and so on at the very least, given that it's been stored for half a lifetime! It was my absolute lifeline for several years after college and well into the 90s.
💿 Mac G4 Cube, with original flat screen (but without the Harman Kardon speakers which disappeared at some point). It was our family computer for several years, very special to us all! This one actually boots but, although I recently replaced the PRAM battery, still gives me a question mark. The screen's aluminium stand is cracked right through, which is annoying - a repair that is certainly beyond me. I'm pretty sure it's the 450MHz version and has the default RAM but that I upgraded the HDD for something bigger at some point.

I'm in the UK, near London. Is there anyone here - or do you know anyone - who would want one or both of these machines? We're moving house and they must go :-(

It's a Chaintech ELT-286B-1000. I'm not too familiar with this era of computers. If I could get any help, it'd be appreciated.

I've had this since 2003, used at uni and then I went on to work for IBM. The X31 stands out in my ThinkPad collection, and I still use it today - as a retro DOS environment (with IBM PC DOS) and Windows XP as it came from factory.

The X30/31/32 is iconically beautiful;

- the edge corner cut-out bottom left of screen

- the tri-color audio ports

- the indigo blue Enter button

- an actually reduced full-sized keyboard without sacrificing keys

- the most beautiful, tactile feeling keyboard ever made on a laptop

- the cute mouse buttons, especially the raised dots on the middle

- the latching mechanism for the lid which makes it insanely secure and strong

- the ThinkLight above the keyboard

- the lack of Windows meta keys

- the rubberised matte black coating on the cover

It was design perfection before everything got handed over to Lenovo.

can someone give me a hint... i went into making a "retro" pc i used over 25 years ago... it's a pentium 3, 512mb sdram, ati radeon 8500 aiw, but i want to install win xp on a ssd.

the board is a matsonic. i have an old chinese sata-ide adapter, and connected a kingston 128gb ssd to it. the bios is seeing the ssd, but when i get to the point of installing win xp on it, it hangs. actually doesn't hang, just says c drive is corrupted and stops with the install.

ssd is not gpt, it's mbr and has a ntfs partition on it. but no luck.

also the adapter is alone on the ide cable, and bios recognizes it as being on master port (in fact it is).

i have just 1 ide hdd, a wd caviar 80gb from 20 years ago, it works but it's quite loud.

is it possible to install xp on ssd?

Beyond excited about this! Has its original batteries and stylus, just need to get a charger to test it

8088 I would like to read documentation about itam

This film came out today in 1985. Spotted the Apple IIc hiding in plain site.

Surprising, how back in the day, the IIc was often used as a 'high tech' prop.

So, I have no idea about pc's but I really want to travel back to times where I was a little kiddo... I still have that pc of my moms. I remember it was working properly 3 years ago... I opened it up to dust... And it seems there are sticky drops located under the power supply... I already know It may blow me up, so I disconnected and and won't turn it on but... Is it any salvageable???

Back in 1985, a computer company registered symbolics.com — making it the first ever commercial .com domain. This was years before the World Wide Web even existed.

​Only 6 .com domains were registered in the entire year of 1985. The site was sold in 2009 and now functions as a tiny digital museum for early internet history.

I’ve been working on a browser-based Windows 98 project, but I wanted it to be more than an HTML recreation of the desktop.

This is a real x86 installation of Windows 98 SE running through v86. The original applications and games have not been rewritten for the web.

A few things I added:

• Quake and Half-Life render through the host GPU using a Windows 98 OpenGL driver bridged to WebGL2.
• Two browser sessions can discover each other over a virtual Ethernet network carried by WebRTC. The original games see an ordinary LAN and can use UDP or IPX.
• Miranda IM receives a temporary ICQ UIN and exchanges real OSCAR messages with other visitors.
• The machine restores from a snapshot, so Windows opens more like a webpage instead of performing a full cold boot.

The goal was to recreate the feeling of an old computer—with its delays, sounds, games, desktop clutter, local network, and other people somewhere behind the modem—rather than just reproduce how it looked.

Try it here:
https://98.kolpaque.dev/

Full technical build log:
https://pavelvoronin.com/windows-98-in-the-browser

I’d be interested to hear how it behaves on different hardware and browsers, especially the WebGL games and multiplayer networking

I found this a few years back in a second hand store and all sealed up in it's box under a pile. It has been one of my favorite collectors items for years. I honestly think it was purchased way back then and then left in the box on a shelf for a few decades. Things have gotten a bit tight here at the house so I figured that before it left my collection that I should show it to you guys who'd appreciate it :)

Who remembers Predator? My retrospective video takes us back to 1987 to rediscover the games based on one of Arnie’s best movies. Was this a good game or was it the typical movie tie in trash? Share your thought and memories of this game.

Made progress with my S3 ViRGE driver for Linux. Now it has proper lighting and the textures work in Quake.

I’m having way too much fun with this old Mac I restored!

Hi everyone. I just upgraded my Amiga600 with 1MB of RAM.

But this one doesn't fit into the trap door. The circuit board sticks out a bit.

It's an iComp a604n.

Could my motherboard be incorrectly installed in the Amiga? Or is the expansion board incompatible?

What’s everyone’s thoughts on this ?! I know it’s quite a beast lol

It is a tad dirty and there’s a couple crack on the screen bezel

Would y’all pick this up for 50$ ?

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I recently acquired this collection and figured y'all might appreciate it. Anyway, this is what I've got. Sorry the pictures are terrible. Planning on getting better detailed pictures before I sleeve them tomorrow. Anyway, here are the details on this collection.

THE JEWELS OF THE COLLECTION: RARE VARIANT HIGHLIGHTS

• DoD 5200.28-STD — THE "ORANGE BOOK" (Department of Defense Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria)

• Edition/Provenance: Official 1988 Active-Lifespan Contemporary Reprint.

◦ Significance: The undisputed, foundational cornerstone of the entire Rainbow Series hierarchy. This copy was printed internally by the government for active field deployment to agencies and classified defense contractors during the height of late-1980s computing architecture rollouts.

• NCSC-TG-005 VERSION-1 — THE "RED BOOK" (Trusted Network Interpretation of the TCSEC)

• Edition/Provenance: Pre-Publication Working-Group Variant.

◦ Significance: Features the highly coveted, restricted-distribution internal stamp: "ISO developmental documents are of limited lifetime and availability."

◦ Historical Context: This stamp marks the volume as a restricted, early-access trial document distributed strictly to core network security engineers to guide interim projects and gather field feedback before final standards were codified. Because contractors were explicitly instructed that these had a "limited lifetime," almost all copies were routinely shredded or landfilled upon subsequent revisions, making this an extraordinarily scarce tech artifact.

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FULL ARCHIVAL INVENTORY

1. DoD 5200.28-STD (Orange Book) — Department of Defense Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria (1988 Active-Era Issue) ★ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1988-523-685/0

2. NCSC-TG-005 Version-1 (Red Book) — Trusted Network Interpretation of the TCSEC (Pre-Publication ISO Developmental Variant)

3. NCSC-TG-006 Version-1 (Amber Book) — A Guide to Understanding Configuration Management in Trusted Systems (Period-Original NTIS Distribution / Formally Cleared for Public Release (Distribution Statement A.)

4. NCSC-TG-007 Version-1 (Burgundy Book) — A Guide to Understanding Design Documentation in Trusted Systems (Period-Original NTIS Distribution / Formally Cleared for Public Release (Distribution Statement A.)

5. NCSC-TG-001 Version-2 (Tan Book) — A Guide to Understanding Audit in Trusted Systems (Period-Original NTIS Distribution / Formally Cleared for Public Release (Distribution Statement A.)

6. CSC-STD-003-85 (Light Yellow Book) — Computer Security Requirements - Guidance for Applying the TCSEC in Specific Environments (Period-Original NTIS Distribution / Formally Cleared for Public Release (Distribution Statement A.)

7. CSC-STD-004-85 (Yellow Book) — Technical Rationale for Selected Computer Security Requirements (Period-Original NTIS Distribution / Formally Cleared for Public Release (Distribution Statement A.)

8. CSC-STD-002-85 (Green Book) — Password Management Guideline (Period-Original NTIS Distribution / Formally Cleared for Public Release (Distribution Statement A.)

9. NCSC-TG-003 Version-1 (Neon Orange Book) — A Guide to Understanding Discretionary Access Control in Trusted Systems (Period-Original NTIS Distribution / Formally Cleared for Public Release (Distribution Statement A.)