Last weekend I attended the second annual Boatfest gathering, which again took place in Hurricane, West Virginia. Despite its name, the event has nothing to do with boats — it’s a gathering of retrocomputing and retrogaming enthusiasts named after the organizer, John “Boat of Car” Shawler. Boatfest is difficult to summarize because it’s different things to different people. Some people go to Boatfest to show off their vintage computers and gaming systems, while others go just to see them. It’s an event where old friends reconnect, and new friendships are made. There are tournaments, there are presentations, there are people… (read more)
The old saying “you get what you pay for” is usually true. Recently I had a brilliant idea. Instead of hooking up my old computers and video game consoles to a large television, wouldn’t it be nice if I could hook them up to a small flat screen monitor? I have a couple of 4:3 ratio flat screen monitors out in the garage that could work for just such a project. The only hurdle is that those monitors only have VGA inputs, and my old computers and video game consoles all have RCA (composite) outputs. If only someone made a… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on July 23rd, 2018 in Apple II 
If I were to tell you I purchased the computer currently sitting on my dining room table fifteen years ago, you might wonder what I was doing with such an ancient piece of technology. The truth is, when I purchased the computer back in 2003, it was already 20 years old! The machine is an Apple IIc, the fourth machine in Apple’s line of “II” computers — there was the original, followed by the II+, the IIe, and finally the IIc. Despite weighing almost eight pounds, the “c” in the computer’s name stood for “compact,” and, relatively speaking compared to… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on March 11th, 2017 in Apple II 
Just over six months ago, my Apple IIe blew up. The smoke was impressive; the smell, even more so. As I mentioned in my post from last year, and as you can see in the following picture, I paid $1.98 for this particular Apple IIe computer. The most frequently suggested solution I received was to replace the failed vintage power supply with a modern one, which runs $100. I simply couldn’t justify spending $100 to repair a computer I spent less than $2 on, so I began looking for alternative solutions. Jimmy, a co-worker who reads my blog and listens… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on August 16th, 2016 in Apple II 
On July 21, 2016, Ancient Legends was released for Apple II home computers. The game is similar in design to classic role playing games from the 1980s like Ultima and Bard’s Tale, and I was greatly looking forward to trying it out on my vintage Apple IIe computer. A few years ago I purchased a CFFA3000 card for my Apple II. The CFFA3000 card allows owners to play Apple II disk images stored on a USB stick. I paid approximately $200 (including the additional remote and shipping) for my CFFA3000, and $1.48 for the computer at a thrift store. I’m… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on January 30th, 2015 in Apple II, MainMy parents owned and operated a small computer store in the mid-80s, Yukon Software. I didn’t get to bring a lot of software home from the store, but one program I ended up with was Trivia Fever. I’ve posted this picture before. That’s me in the mid-80s, wearing a Miami Vice knock-off jacket with a Footloose-esque spike hairdo. That’s my original Commodore 64 I’m posing with, the one I still have and use today. Right behind my Commodore computer is a blue box that reads Trivia Fever. Trivial Pursuit debuted in 1979 and, according to Wikipedia, peaked in 1984. By… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on March 8th, 2014 in Apple II, MainWell… not “new” new. While it’s no secret I’m a Commodore fanboy, I do like to give credit where credit is due. Although pretty much across the board the Commodore 64 versions of games looked better than their Apple II counterparts, there was one thing I was always jealous of — the Apple II’s second fire button. While Commodore opted to use the standard Atari 2600 DB9 joystick port, Apple went with an analog format that supported two fire buttons. Both designs have advantages and disadvantages, but there were several games that took advantage of that second button on the… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on March 3rd, 2014 in Apple II, MainBack in December I wrote a blog post about trying to make one working Apple IIe out of four parts machines. The project hit a snag when none of the parts machines I had acquired had drive controller cards. For the past three months I’ve had a table out in my garage that looks like this: While digging around in a “junk drawer” upstairs over the weekend, I found the missing piece: a drive controller. That’s kind of how I work; a project that’s been dormant for months will suddenly leap to life. It’s the offspring of too many projects… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on December 2nd, 2013 in Apple II, MainThe line between collecting and hoarding is a thin one, one I’ve straddled for many years. Although hoarding is tough to define in a single sentence, I personally think of it as acquiring things I’ll never “do” anything with. And I’m pretty liberal when it comes to “doing” something with a thing — even displaying things counts as doing something with them to me. It’s those items I buy that come home and sit out in the garage for years that worry me. To me, hoarding is when I’ve acquired so many things that the stress of owning those things… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on March 6th, 2013 in Apple II, MainI routinely tell people that my family used to own an Apple II computer, but technically we didn’t. We actually owned a Franklin Ace 1000, which was 100% compatible with the Apple II. In fact it was so compatible that Apple soon sued Franklin soon after it was released for copying their ROMs. In this picture which was taken at my parents’ computer store (Yukon Software) back in 1985, you can see the Franklin Ace 1000 playing Little Computer People. The computer in the background is I think our PC Jr. The printer in between the two computers was an… (read more)
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