If NO IMAGES will be shown, use www.z80.eu/blog instead of blog.z80.eu

Please note also - THIS BLOG ENDS HERE WITH THE LAST ENTRY FROM NOVEMBER 9th 2021.

I have prepared a new blog with wordpress at https://vintagecomputing.info !!!

Thank you.

I have to add one note:
There is still a living community related with a Debian Port for Alpha, regardless of the fact, that a port of Debian Linux for Alpha isn't developed further (and supported) anymore.
There is a newsgroup named linux.debian.ports.alpha - and there are still new entries.
I have found some other newsgroup related with this old CPU architecture, but there is no life anymore.
This seems to be the last newsgroup which still covers the topic "Alpha".

If you're looking for ISO images for Debian 5.0.9 "Alpha", this will be difficult, too.
But I've found a reliable download site in Europe: debian.bsnet.se (see "Related link" below).


May 2012: Meanwhile 5.0.10 is out, see at http://debian.bsnet.se/mirror/cdimage/a ... ha/iso-cd/

In 1999, this (print) ad was very demonstrative, and many like me thought, this will be the future.
Do you remember ?

(btw if you're using Firefox and Adblock, this image may be blocked too)

Regardless of this, I found some useful links for my DEC PWS Miata.
Maintenance guides and docs
http://www.o3one.org/hwdocs/alpha/miata_pws_.html
A collection of hints and small guides
http://www.turquoisewitch.com/~bradh/miata/Service/

Especially the error codes (LED codes and beeps codes) were interesting.

Also, I found an outdated hint about installing CentOS and OpenBSD on a Miata (PWS).
http://www.cromwell-intl.com/unix/linux-alpha.html
CentOS development for Alpha CPUs were stopped in 2006 (latest CentOS Release is 4.3)
OpenBSD is still also available for Alpha CPUs - Release is 5.0 (November 2011!)

So best choice for my PWS433a (beside a Windows 2000 RC2 for Alpha Build 2128) is OpenBSD at the moment, OpenVMS would be still interesting but license is time limited and not very easy to get.

Related link leads to current OpenBSD distribution for Alpha.

UPDATE: Meanwhile OpenBSD 5.1 is out. I refreshed the "related" link.

Interesting blog and site of Rudolf Brandstätter, can be found at http://alker33.wordpress.com

He shows an Apple Lisa 1 running with a very early operating system version - named "Lisa Office System"(LOS) 1.0 - and surprisingly also with a kind of 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive named "Twiggy media".
I've seen more than one Apple Lisa in real, but never with such floppy drives.
So take a look at his blog entry now:
http://alker33.wordpress.com/2010/12/29 ... er-of-gui/

Here is a picture of it:


Very nice!

Btw... it seems he is addicted to Lisa's. See his whole collection here:
http://alker33.wordpress.com/2011/04/05 ... ollection/

A long time ago, I developed a BBS software for Atari ST...

This computer was ahead of the times, he offered a powerful CPU, a GUI (like the Macintosh), and was affordable !
Unfortunately marketing and also product development was chaotic.

I remembered it again and buyed one again. Here is my new (old) Atari Mega STE:

It comes with a TT-alike case but only with a 16MHz 68000 CPU, 4MB RAM, a build in harddisk, an additional floppy drive, a Lacom/Syquest 44MB removable (hard)disk and an obligatory monochrome monitor (SM124).

At the moment, it runs without problems (boots from harddisk), but I did not get a Lacom driver/utility disk also.
Also amazing, that keyboard is really usable, compared to earlier ST models, this was really a progress.

I started to look for Atari ST software and I was a bit surprised - you can't find so many sites with software ... may be some with games, but applications and utilities ? Nope. I even convinced you can find CP/M software more easily than ST software :-(

Update: Meanwhile I changed the TOS version from 2.05 to 2.06, when powering up, now I got an Atari Logo and a boot progress bar :-) Thx to "Gaga" (he sold me these 2 TOS EPROM Chips, discussion about it can be found at http://forum.atari-home.de) again ...

A few mixed news here:

Found a web site which still offers ZX81 kits.
Like in the "Good old days", you can create your own, brand new ZX81.

Just visit http://www.zx81kit.com/zx81_kits.htm
The costs ? A bit expensive... £199.99

Very interesting, too:
A (self made) ZX80 replica board, looks very similar compared to the original: > 8bity.cz <

If you need a keyboard, you can get it from > sellmyretro.com <...


Also revisited again and still available... MS-DOS 1.x/2.x sources almost finished on a czech web page. It's name is MICRODOS and LT-DOS.
Here is the "google" translated page link:
http://translate.google.de/translate?js ... mp;act=url

Compared to FreeDOS it's much smaller. So it's very interesting as a base for an embedded PC, but also interesting to port it to a vintage PC back ;-)