Next in my ongoing effort to document the world’s most expensive version of Logo for the Apple II, LCSI’s Sprite Logo for the Apple II Family, I show the included hardware sprite card. The board is a custom design from LCSI based on the TI TMS9918A video display processor, a video chip used in several …
Continuing my exploration of LCSI’s “Sprite Logo”, let’s break the shrink wrap and open the box. These photographs preserve the original packing order. Despite dirt and water damage to the exterior, the box contents appear pristine.
LCSI “Sprite Logo” comes in a large cardboard box with similar design to the “Apple Logo” box. Compared to “Apple Logo”, the “Sprite Logo” box is larger, more colorful, and displays patterns that suggest interconnections between multiple turtles. Notice the turtles taking on different shapes, such as an airplane, flower, dog, cat, or truck. The …
In the 1980s, there was a lot of enthusiasm and press surrounding the Logo programming language. Logo and the underlying pedagogy promised a revolution in education using the new personal computer. Unsurprisingly, there were versions of Logo for most personal computers of the era, and, in many cases, multiple versions of Logo for each computer. …
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The Living Computer Museum opened October 2012 in Seattle, WA. Unlike most museums that strive to preserve artifacts how they find them, usually broken and powered off, this museum keeps their machines alive. They’re in working condition, complete with the strangely beautiful sounds of teletypes, Disk ][ drives, paper tape, and raised-floor cooling. The museum …
KansasFest came and went in a flurry of sleepless excitement. Among other things, we had a great keynote from Randy Wigginton, a surprise visit from Mr. Wozniak, and an Apple I. I particularly enjoyed seeing the amazing, creative, and unbelievable things people are doing with their Apple IIs.
Compared to today, computer networking in 1984 was heterogeneous, and compatibility between two systems from different vendors was unlikely. Every vendor developed their own proprietary and incompatible solution to networking, including file sharing and print sharing. Apple joined the foray with AppleTalk, a low cost and easy to operate networking system, with an announcement in …
Ever wonder what the comforting buzz of your modem is trying to say? I certainly do, and a fantastic picture and post from Oona Räisänen sheds some light on this.
David Greelish recently posted an interesting interview with Alan Kay, a visionary behind the modern graphical user interface. Interestingly, Kay argues that modern computers fall far short of the original vision and potential. For all media, the original intent was “symmetric authoring and consuming”. So much of our culture is about consumption. In some ways, …
I recently visited the American Computer Museum in Bozeman, MT, which includes exhibits like an Apple I, assorted Apple IIs and Macs, two models of Altair systems, a PDP-8S, an IMSAI, electronic and mechanical calculators, many personal computers, and a Minuteman missile guidance computer. Check out my photos here.