SaustrupMar 29, 2025

.. and suddenly I find myself back in the #90s where we saw the future of home computing unfold before our eyes. The #PC - a bulky expensive machine for boring tunaheads running WordPerfect suddenly got graphics and sound that didn't suck.

Young aspiring programmers (that would be coders for you young people) wrote code in assembler and made the PC do thing it was never meant to. Awesome things. Things that blew your mind. Some wrote trackers for composing sample based music, and suddenly everyone could compose music on their PC.

The level of optimism and creativity was mind blowing, and I feel so incredibly lucky for having been a part of it. Sure, our demos were too horrible to be shown on the big screen, but we did submit at least one for #TheParty back in '92 or '94.

I miss the 90s.

This, by the way, is a sweet #Pentium 200MMX system with #PicoGUS, #SoundBlaster Vibra16 and an #TsengLabs #ET6000 graphics card (that's GPU for you young'uns).

#VintageComputing

SaustrupDec 28, 2024
Managed to buy a couple of delicious #Trust Soundwave speakers for around €20. Case and contacts cleaned. Tested with #SecondReality by #FutureCrew on my #Pentium 200 sleeper with #TsengLabs #ET6000 graphics and #PicoGUS sound.
SaustrupNov 6, 2024
#vintagecomputing #MSDOS build progressing. #Pentium 200 with #TsengLabs #ET6000 graphics, CF for storage, #Gotek for floppies and a #PicoGUS with the #McCake #WP32 #MT32Pi wave table add on. Output looped into a #SoundBlaster Vibra 16C for full Gravis Ultrasound, Sound Blaster, Roland and General Midi support. Excellent for all things DOS. Aiming for early to mid 90s games and demos, including point and click adventures from #Sierra and Lucas as well as some of the excellent demos from that time. I'm talking #MonkeyIsland, #LeisureSuitLarry and #FutureCrew and their #SecondReality demo. Tested the latter and got something in my eye. Oh the feels.
SaustrupNov 5, 2024

So yesterday and today was a bit of a #VintageComputing roller coaster ride. Yesterday I was out of town for a talk, and decided to pick up a few items I had bought on the Danish equivalent to Ebay. Specifically a couple of lovely CD-ROM drives, audio cables and a Sound Blaster Live PCI card. All good and well. The seller and I have a lovely conversation about old and vintage computers, and he mentions that he has a #TsengLabs #ET6000 PCI graphics card laying around. Obviously he's not that interested in that particular time in computing history, and I - being the lovely buyer I am - offers to take it off his hands for about €25. I have a soft sentimental spot for the #ET4000 card, since it was the pinnacle of demo scene graphics cards when I was a kid. Anyway, I buy it and later find out that they sell for around €160. Great deal, right? Kinda. Turns out it had a loose connection, and I thought now would be a great time to try my skills in #SMD re-flowing for the first time...

🧵