Mastodawn

The Last Psion | Alex

Anyone have suggestions for YouTube channels where people are creating cool new stuff for old computers?

With notable exceptions, I'm less into "here's an $OldMachine, how cool!" and want more "here's a new thing I made for $OldMachine that makes it really useful or usable today."

EDIT: By the way, this can be hardware or software. New storage devices, expansion cards, network adapters and sound cards are just as interesting to me as new SDKs, new compilers that target old platforms, weird ports, and ancient driver mods.

#RetroComputing

Alfred M. Szmidt Jan 13

@thelastpsion most such things tend to stay out of YouTube… since YouTube is nasty.

Howard Chu @ Symas Jan 13

@thelastpsion you should just check out #fujinet

Jari Komppa 🇫🇮Jan 13

@thelastpsion Sigh, adds "start a youtube channel" on todo list. It's in position 10378 at the moment, so don't hold your breath.

@thelastpsion there is @ActionRetro , he does the "$OldMachine how cool!" part but he also try to run a lot of thing on old hardware and he released a search engine that works on old outdated browsers: https://youtu.be/c_v2_vTogS8

I Built a Search Engine... for Vintage Computers!

YouTube

Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐Jan 13

@thelastpsion The sad fact of the matter is that most old computers should not be repurposed, because newer devices are available that are vastly more efficient uses of electricity.

A Raspberry Pi 5, for instance, is more powerful than a lot of older computers, but consumes a small fraction of the power.

The amount of electricity I would save in a single year of running a Pi 5 compared to most older machines of similar capability would pay for the Pi 5.

Joaquín Cuéllar Jan 13

@gcvsa @thelastpsion I agree, but what in terms of electronic wastes?
Should we throw away a fully functional old device because is not the most energy efficient?
What cost has making a new raspberry pi 5? Resources, energy, recycling the old one...
I think is not too easy, and I think #permacomputing is about all this

Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐Jan 13

@gentooza @thelastpsion Older devices should be recycled to whatever extent is possible.

What is the embodied environmental burden of a Raspberry Pi compared to the original embodied environmental burden of manufacturing a full-size PC? Obviously at least an order of magnitude less, and the longer you run that older machine that takes 25-50x as much electricity to run, the worse the imbalance gets.

Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐Jan 13

@gentooza Sitting right next to me is a 2003 Apple Power Macintosh G5, that I bought new over 20 years ago. It's still my digital audio workstation, because it still works for that purpose and I'm tied to PCI-X based audio hardware I can't transfer to a new machine.

It doesn't need to be "repurposed", because it's still serving its original purpose. I put a new clock battery in it, the WiFi no longer connects to modern routers, it can't even run a modern web browser. Logic Pro 7 still runs.

Joaquín Cuéllar Jan 14

@gcvsa @thelastpsion
"Older devices should be recycled to whatever extent is possible. "

Yeah, but seems it's not working in real world

https://unitar.org/about/news-stories/press/global-e-waste-monitor-2024-electronic-waste-rising-five-times-faster-documented-e-waste-recycling)

Global e-Waste Monitor 2024: Electronic Waste Rising Five Times Faster than Documented E-waste Recycling

20 March 2024, Geneva / Bonn - The world’s generation of electronic waste is rising five times faster than documented e-waste recycling, the UN’s fourth Global E-waste Monitor (GEM) reveals today. The 62 million tonnes of e-waste generated in 2022 would fill 1.55 million 40-tonne trucks, roughly enough trucks to form a bumper-tobumper line encircling the equator, according to the report from ITU and UNITAR.

UNITAR

Joaquín Cuéllar Jan 14

@gcvsa @thelastpsion

"What is the embodied environmental burden of a Raspberry Pi compared to the original embodied environmental burden of manufacturing a full-size PC?"

This was my question in fact :-D, I think in a new efficient device and I think about strange materials (Greenland or Ukrayne?), small chips only made by some exclusive companies abroad (with no labour unions), transport (Venezuela?)... And also closed source firmware, onchip blackbox communication devices...

Joaquín Cuéllar Jan 14

@gcvsa @thelastpsion

And finally, more efficient devices are not directly related to a more efficient ecosystem.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800915300112

grapeshot Jan 13

@gcvsa should we then be focused on better ways to run / emulate / virtualize old software on new hardware? This is sort of what I'm doing by trying to write new drivers for Windows 98

Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐Jan 14

@grapeshot What I was saying was specifically in the context of repurposing old machines that are no longer suitable for their original purposes. If you have old software that needs to be run, that's a different matter, and virtualization may not be the best solution, since virtualization carries its own performance burden. However, it does have the advantage, if it works, of being maintainable with new hardware, which might not be the case with old software.

CRG - Glen builds new accelerators and expansions for Amigas
Dave's Garage - Dave recently put his PDP-11 on the Internet
Adrian's Digital Basement - mostly restorations, but he added wifi to an old analogue modem terminal

That the sort of thing you were looking for?

The Last Psion | Alex Jan 13

@woe2you Very much so! I'm already subscribed to Adrian (he was one of my "notable exceptions", because he's just really good at what he does). I'll give the other a go - thank you!

Misja van Laatum Jan 13

@thelastpsion it may not be quite what you're looking for, but it's proper old school and (imho) very fascinating: @UsagiElectric on YouTube

butternut Jan 13

@thelastpsion check out https://na.thanreed.com/2025/12/07/open-firmware-rtl8139.html, which isn’t YouTube but you may still find interesting.

Open Firmware NetBoot with a third-party Ethernet card

Have you ever wondered how an (old) Mac boots? Or have you wondered about Open Firmware, similar in purpose to the PC BIOS (though arguably far more elegant and refined)? Have you ever slogged through installing device drivers after adding hardware to your computer, wishing there was an easier way? In this post we’ll dive deep on these things and more as we explore the process of building an Open Firmware driver enabling a PowerPC Mac to boot over the network using a non-Apple network card powered by the RTL8139 chip.

Nathan Reed

Colin McMillen Jan 13

@thelastpsion this may fit your bill https://piaille.fr/@colin_mcmillen/115884030263935575

Colin McMillen (@[email protected])

And with this assembly video, I declare the BurgerDisk (a free software, open hardware daisy-chainable Apple II hard drive)... released! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73JgiqIu8tc #RetroComputing #AppleII

Piaille

JackyHicks Jan 13

@thelastpsion On YT, Necroware comes to mind, Bits and Bolts also. Not on YT, but on mastodon @polpo does super neat projects for retro PCs

WILLIAM B PECKHAM Jan 13

@thelastpsion I stopped going to YouTube for videos a few years back. It's not worth the extent to which they track and sell your data. But right here on the Fediverse, we have peer tube sites, with exactly that kind of content. I check with Feditips.

@thelastpsion, polymatt (https://701c.org) makes very skilful restorations with complete case refabrication.

Project Butterfly / 701c.org

An enthusiast’s guide to restoring and preserving an iconic portable.

Project Butterfly / 701c.org

@thelastpsion https://www.youtube.com/@reassembler68k porting OutRun (and now Sonic) to the Amiga

reassembler

Touching The Metal ..... Emulation, Decompilation, Hacking, Old Skool Gaming

YouTube