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Retro Thing
retrothing.com · Group blog · on HN since 2009
A blog covering vintage gadgets, old computers, and retro electronics, from 1960s modems to Sinclair watches and microcassette recorders.
What HN saysHN links it for retro hardware posts such as early digital cameras, toy engines, and electro-mechanical devices; comments give no explicit judgment.
19HN people shared it
11linked it in comments
8stories submitted
447story points
1 year agolast shared
2009people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 11964 Modem Reaches Out And Touches The Internet2 people · 115 points · first shared 2010 · 33 comments on HN
- 2The Tinkertoy Computer2 people · 7 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 3RIP Hans Camenzind, Inventor Of The 555 Timer1 people · 280 points · first shared 2012 · 64 comments on HN
- 4The Almost Mythical 1984 Sinclair FM Radio Watch1 people · 38 points · first shared 2021 · 3 comments on HN
- 5EBay Pulls The Plug On Retro Thing1 people · 5 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 6Rebuilding a RCA Photophone from scratch to play obsolete audio1 people · 1 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 7Lanier VW35 Microcassette Recorder, And The Days Of Moving Parts1 people · 1 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 8The harmonium a1 people · first shared 2022
- 9Brix blox leg1 people · first shared 2020
- 10Kodaks first di1 people · first shared 2013
- 11Star wars prehi1 people · first shared 2021
- 12Wordperfect 511 people · first shared 2013
- 13Minimus speaker1 people · first shared 2016
- 14Testors galax i1 people · first shared 2023
- 15Oddball micros1 people · first shared 2009
What HN people wrote when they linked it
RickJWagner · 2023-01-05
One year for Christmas I got an awesome Galax IV Hovercraft, also powered by the venerable Cox .049 engine.
Great fun!
https://www.retrothing.com/2008/03/testors-galax-i.html
kens · 2013-05-12
Kodak made the first digital camera in 1975. It's pretty amazing to compare it to current cameras, since it's about the size of a bowling ball and took 23 seconds to record a 0.01 megapixel picture onto a cassette tape. http://www.retrothing.com/2008/05/kodaks-first-di.html
sargstuff · 2024-09-09
Use emacs as backstore/virtual gpu for displaying/generating doom ai 3d graphics [1] (vs. 2d mechanical tv[2])
Test out various ai approaches via battle of different ai control models of doom player(s).
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[1] : http://newatlas.com/technology/ai-powered-gaming-engine-gamengen-doom/
[2] : http://www.retrothing.com/2008/06/build-your-own.html
monkeycantype · 2022-10-17
I'm wading into an area I'm not expert, not to assert but to ask, I remember having an electro-mechanical object explained to me, I think it was a variant of this:
https://www.retrothing.com/2008/05/the-harmonium-a.html
I can roughly recall the mechanism by which it worked, and was told that this was an analog for how the Fourier transformation worked, and I vaguely remember going through one on paper. The spiral of the cochlear seems an analog of how the harmonium works. Does the earlier poster have a point with regard to the cochlear as a physical object performing a Fourier transform (though perhaps not a fast one)?
nwallin · 2021-07-23
It wasn't used for the wire frames of the Death Star/trench run briefing. Those were digitally generated on a PDP-11.
I'm like 75ish percent sure the Scanimate was used to generate the orbits the Death Star's targeting computer was showing as they were showing the moon coming out from behind the planet.
oh.. spoilers... for Star Wars....
https://www.retrothing.com/2008/04/star-wars-prehi.html
smcameron · 2020-02-22
When I was a kid, we couldn't really afford legos. But one year my brother got a big plastic bucket of Brix Blox[1], a lego clone (but not compatible). They were just as fun as Legos to us. They weren't a kit, just a bucket of bricks to build what you want. I think it might have come with a little pamphlet of suggested designs, but we made spaceships and weird little rocket-boat things and little stormtrooper-ish guys to ride them. It's kind of weird how I can picture those little guys in my mind so perfectly all these years later. Pretty sure I could build one right now exactly as we did then, if I had some brix blox.
Edit: this is the bucket we had: https://www.cutetoyus.com/product_detail.php?c=town%20toy%20brix%20and…
[1] https://www.retrothing.com/2008/07/brix-blox---leg.html
mcphage · 2016-12-08
> and weren't as flexible in terms of what you could construct
The things you made were a lot more abstract, but people have even made computers using Tinkertoys: http://www.retrothing.com/2006/12/the_tinkertoy_c.html (which doesn't excuse the fact that Minsky was flat-out wrong there)
thelazydogsback · 2016-07-25
And, if they did hang out at Radio Shack, they would have come across the venerable Minimus-7 - one of the first examples ever of a high-performing micro speaker with a sealed-enclosure design, that still stands up to the test of time.
http://www.retrothing.com/2011/06/minimus-speaker.html
mbreese · 2013-11-21
I thought working in WordPerfect's text mode was an extremely easy and productive way to do document formatting. Then again, I still remember the little keyboard shortcut cheat sheet [1] at the top of our PC at home.
[1] http://www.retrothing.com/2006/06/wordperfect_51_.html
angdis · 2012-07-24
Adorable as a cool future-retro gadget. OK, probably not optimal for pedagogical purposes!
I once read about a sewing machine had a gameboy interface (don't remember if it was a hack or OEM). These things are so tough and ubiquitous, it is surprising that they aren't used as cheap interfaces to machinery.
Check it out: http://www.retrothing.com/2006/04/izek_sewing_mac.html
chaosmachine · 2009-06-23
In case you wondered what those 2 inch floppies looked like:
http://www.retrothing.com/2006/05/oddball_micros_.html