About this Page
This page is where I put sites with useful or interesting information, friends' sites, etc. This is mostly so I can find pages that I might need again in future, but I hope you find something of interest here!
Interesting Reads
This is stuff that might not necessarily be of specific practical use, but I find interesting, thought-provoking, or just plain cool.
Modern Computing
- Cory Doctorow: Journalist, member of the EFF, generally interesting ideas about technology.
- Permacomputing: A resource that provides information on the permacomputing concept/movement.
- Talospace: All about modern OpenPOWER systems - free/open/libre machines based on the POWER instruction set architecture (ISA)
- Rethinking PID 1: The origins and motivations of systemd, described by its creator.
Computer History
- folklore.org: The development history of the original Apple Macintosh, set up by Andy Hertzfeld, a member of the original Mac team.
- Floodgap Systems: Lots of interesting retro computer things here.
- Gareth Edwards - The Crazy Ones: Articles about pioneers in the early days of personal computing.
- Aber CompSci History: A website chronicling the history of Aberystwyth University's computer science department.
- The Jargon File: Documents hacker culture, folklore, and the associated lingo.
UNIX
People
- datagubbe: Retrocomputing (with a focus on Amiga), and other interesting thoughts.
- moria.de: Electronics projects, sustainability, CP/M resources.
- dvq.com: Old electronics, audio equipment, mainframes and minis, old computer ads, etc.
- vaxman.de: Lots of old computers!
- Beyond Loom: Lots of programming projects, a few old Macintosh guides (THINK C programming!)
Miscellaneous
- Whole Earth Index: Collection of Whole Earth Catalogs and other related publications. The Whole Earth Catalogs are essentially compilations of resources ("tools") on a wide variety of topics, with a focus on self-sufficiency. Fascinating stuff!
- SDF Public Acess System: A shared UNIX system with around 50,000 users!
- Traditional Welsh House Rendering: Making and applying traditional Welsh exterior wall render. Obviously.
Useful/Practical
Pages with tutorials, useful information, or future project ideas.
Operating Systems
- MIT OS Course: Course materials for MIT's Operating Systems Engineering module. See 'schedule' for slides and other info.
Networking
- UPnP Temporary Port Forwarding: Guide to using UPnP on *NIX operating systems to set up (temporary!) port forwarding. Saves messing with router configuration (or allows you to host things when you aren't really meant to!)
FPGAs
- VHDL Cookbook: A beginner's guide to VHDL.
- PDP-2011: An FPGA recreation of the PDP-11 and its peripherals. Compatible with PiDP-11.
- Manchester Baby Verilog: Recreation of the Manchester Baby computer in Verilog, as well as an emulator written in Java.
- fpga4student.com: Resources and tutorials for getting into FPGAs and VHDL/Verilog.
- GHDL Manual: The manual for GHDL, a free, cross-platform VHDL compiler and simulator.
Electronics
- Grant Searle: Lots of old electronics, kit computer designs, ATmega-based video terminal, etc.
- Obsolescence Guaranteed: Info about early microcomputers (mid-70s to late 80s), CP/M, etc. Home of the PiDP-11 (and other kits).
- Megaprocessor: An enormous 16-bit machine built from discrete components. Lots of information about digital logic and computer design.
- m68k ECB Revival: A blog post about using the Motorola 68000 Educational Computer Board in the modern day.
Bit Serial ALUs: An article on bit serial ALUs, as used on early (1950s-60s) computers.
Semiconductors
- Hacker Fab: Instructions for building a semiconductor fab with limited resources and budget, intended to be incorporated in Makerspaces and the like.
Music
- 1950s Theremin Design: Circuit for a valve-based theremin. The wider site includes lots of useful information for analog radio and television repair.
Cameras
Old Macs
- Macintosh Repository: Archive of old Apple Macintosh software. Also has guides and other useful resources.
- MacOS 9 Lives: Information and resources on classic MacOS.
- Classic Mac Networking: Information on networking classic Macs.
- Metalbabble: Blog about 68k Macs.
- OpenFirmware Wiki: A guide to OpenFirmware.
- OpenFirmware Guide: Another guide to OpenFirmware.
- Power Mac G5 Guide: Several guides on the Power Mac G5 (maintenance, repairs, etc.)
- House of Moth: G5 Memory Controller Guide: A blog post about the memory controller in G5 Power Macs, and how to go about re-pasting it.
- MacEffects: Upgrades, replacement parts, and custom cases for classic Macs.
- OS X Tiger Upgrading SSL: Forum thread about replacing the outdated zlib/SSL/OpenSSH in Tiger.
- AquaFox: My browser of choice for later PowerPC Macs.
- Tigerbrew: Package manager for OS X Tiger. Allows you to get modern SSH, GCC, and other software.
- Gentoo on iBook G4: Forum post about installing and running Gentoo on an iBook G4.
- iBook G4 Corey Arnold Problem Fix: A common problem on iBook G4s, and how to fix it (in a slightly dodgy way)
- Mac SE Support Pages: Advice on upgrade Mac SEs to their maximum capability. From the 90s, so quite dated, but still very useful! Home contains general Mac advice and sofware archives.
- SadMacs: A small number of Mac SE-oriented hardware projects, including a work-in-progress accelerator.
- Your First THINK C Program: A guide on programming THINK C on classic Macs.
- Gryphel Project: Repository of Macintosh information and software. Home of Mini vMac.
- macOS Kernel Programming Guide: Old macOS documentation about kernel programming. Technically archived by Apple, but hard to actually get to.
- OSX Technology Overview: See above (more broad description of macOS components as a whole)
Old PCs
Terminals
Console Hacking
Emulation
Friends' Sites
Lovely people with lovely websites! A lot of them are in the webring, but I've put them here anyway (because they're just that lovely).