retroSwarm

@oldyzach I still remember playing the Czech version of Teenagent as a kid. Together with The Secret of Donkey Island, these were the first point & click adventures I had ever played.

Tak dla odmiany - wpis w moim ojczystym języku. Rok 1996. Pierwsza polska gra na CD (wersja dyskietkowa na trzech flopach pojawiła się rok wcześniej). Teenagent - ależ to było cudownie przaśne. Swoją drogą - gra nadal jest dostępna za darmo na GOG: gog.com/en/game/teenag…

@Angel_Lumiere @IRIXpilled ultimate road warriors 😍

@IRIXpilled 1998/1999 :-D

ThinkPads in 1998

@Jonharson Apparently can't 😢

@retro_swarm Can you not count up to 6?

💾Let's look at something unusual again... 💾 This is a system board from a DEC Personal Workstation 433a with a 433-MHz Alpha AXP CPU (top-left corner). This is a system from the 1996 and was quite expensive. Next to the CPU, you can see the cache module and 8 RAM slots...🧵1/5

@ac_fetch Yes, the system bus runs at 66MHz.

@retro_swarm What would the bus speed have been? 66mhz?

@OldRexBanner It boots into AlphaBIOS (ARC) and I didn't see any option to switch into SRM on this machine (which my DS10 has).

@retro_swarm Beautiful AXP board! Does it contain ARC or SRM firmware, or both?

@pawel_lasek This is the transceiver module used there:

@retro_swarm Also, in addition to the cursed CMD640 IDE controller, the ethernet chip is actually 100MBit if appropriate PHY is attached (somehow I doubt it's missing one)

@TheLimpingMerc I think the small chips next to the silver one are 16-bit buffers / bus drivers (74LVT1622448) for the RAM. There is no on-board video here.

@retro_swarm Trying to work out what the add-on module of memory & also the bank of 8 IC’s next to the silver heat spreader are🤔 I don’t know the cache layout for Alpha (very little experience with them other than few hours messing with NT4) so assume one is L2cache & the other video memory?

Here you can see the complete machine. With SCSI controllers installer, all riser boards (ethernet, audio), PSUs and storage devices. The long PCI card is a high-end Evans & Sutherland 3D accelerator from @morciatka that makes an ultimate hi-end workstation 🤭 🧵5/5

We fixed this machine and completely cleaned all parts. The case design is surprisingly complicated and it took ages to disassemple/assemble the whole thing. This was one of the dirtier machines we rescued - we were quite radical there...🧵4/5

@davepl1968 Seems like they want to address exactly the reasons that pushed me from Windows 11 to Mac a few years ago (after using windows for three decades).

Microsoft is apparently finally admitting that what many users have wanted all along is a faster, quieter, more dependable operating system. Not more Copilot. In a new Windows Insider post, Microsoft’s Pavan Davuluri laid out a broad quality push for Windows 11 centered on performance, reliability, and what the company calls “craft.” More likely, it's what Steve Jobs called "taste", if you remember THAT interview... And honestly, a lot of it reads like Microsoft finally sat down, opened Feedback Hub, and decided to take the complaints seriously. The headline changes are exactly the kind of practical fixes power users have been asking for: taskbar repositioning to the top or sides of the screen, fewer forced update interruptions, more control over when updates install, faster File Explorer, lower baseline memory usage, better search responsiveness, fewer notifications, and more reliable drivers and wake behavior. Microsoft also says it is reducing “unnecessary Copilot entry points,” starting with apps like Snipping Tool, Photos, Widgets, and Notepad. The Windows Update story is interesting.... Microsoft says it wants updates to be less disruptive, with a move toward a single monthly reboot, the ability to restart or shut down without being forced to install u-pdates, and the option to pause updates for as long as needed. That is a major philosophical shift from the old “we know what’s best, enjoy your reboot” era, even if the real test will be how consistently Microsoft follows through in shipping builds. Performance also seems to be getting real attention instead of marketing lip service. Microsoft says Windows 11 will reduce its own resource usage, improve memory efficiency, make File Explorer quicker and more dependable, and lower latency by moving more core experiences to WinUI 3. The company specifically calls out Start menu responsiveness, search consistency, faster file operations, and a smoother overall feel under load. That is the sort of engineering work users notice every single day, even if it doesn’t make for a shiny keynote demo. My personal benchmark is to be able to type 'Download" into the Start menu and have it find my Downloads folder. Not a Bing search for a Copilot download. The Copilot pullback is equally interesting because it suggests Microsoft has realized there is a difference between useful AI and AI sprayed across every available surface. The company is not abandoning Copilot, but it is dialing back what it describes as unnecessary integration points. That sounds a lot less like “AI everywhere” and a lot more like “maybe Notepad didn’t need to become a sentient billboard.” The most encouraging part of all this is the tone. Microsoft is not pitching this as a revolution. It is pitching it as a cleanup, stabilization, and giving users more control. And that may be exactly what Windows 11 needs. After years of feeling like the operating system was being used to push services, experiments, and mandatory behavior, this looks like a return to a simpler idea: Windows should serve the user, not manage them. I, for one, still advocate for Windows Pro having NO advertisements, bloatware, or needless telemetry. Make people pay, then quit asking for more. But I've been barking up THAT tree for years. Now the obvious catch: these are commitments and previews, not a completed turnaround. Microsoft has promised a lot here, but Windows users have long memories. This is probably still the best Windows news in a while, because it focuses on the fundamentals: Faster. More reliable. Less noisy. More customizable. Less pushy.

@mdscntstmgm That HP PA-RISC workstation looks like an easter egg in the game selecter.

A Raspberry Pi 4 is still the ultimate budget multi console and DOS emulation machine btw. 50 bucks, less than 15W power draw, virtually inaudible, plays thousands of great games and most of video gaming history's milestones.

@b4b4Tu MS distributed the the Royal theme also as a separate package online, so even users of XP Home/Pro could use it.

@retro_swarm That is "MCE" from 2005 - "Media Center Edition" youtu.be/Ti4vB9lBo08

Oh, that strong Windows XP era feel 🥰 The HP Compaq nx6110 was one of the most prevalent laptops among college students in Czech Republic in the mid-00s.

@oldyzach OMG... this type of graphics aged so well.

Good ol' Sudden Strike.

@RetroTechChris It is interesting how the history repeated itself when HD video codec came. I remember ExpressCard and miniPCIe cards with video decoders for laptops without support for newer HD video codecs (era of Intel GMA X3100).

@retro_swarm Glad you enjoyed it! Yea the short life of MPEG-1 decoders probably didn't help with support for this 😂

Well, after spending way too much time this weekend trying to get my MPEG-1 decoder working on the Presario 5528 from a fresh Windows 95 install, I finally was successful. Let's talk briefly about it in a 🧵 here!

@michaldobro I am still surprised how even the low-end models had good keyboards back then. Usually better than you can find today on a hi-end business model.

@retro_swarm The keyboard 😍 If we could have keyboard like that in modern laptop 😔

@Reaktorrr1 @Gammitin 8900D had command queue, linear frame-buffer support and full 32-bit access to local memory. Unlike other 8900/9000-series trident chips, this one was actually a very fast among non-accelerated ISA boards.

@Gammitin My first one... Slow as turtle, difficult to make it work with Linux, but cheap as F.

Trident TVGA8900D 1MB ISA 16-bit & 8-bit compatible Video Card (1992)