The Vintage Computer Festival is getting tons of goodies from me. This year i’ve got literally three carloads! (thanks Eric & Harry) Some is so good it’s destined for the consignment room. Don’t worry i’ve got plenty for the free table. i’ve got a box of unused 3.5″ 500GB PATA disks! spares for the xRAID. who needs 7TB of 2GB fiber SAN? Form an orderly line please.
Launched at Defcon 33 and eagerly awaited by wifi tinkerers and technologists. i finally received mine. i’m still figuring out the functionality from potential. As a handheld device, unlike the rest of the pineapple line, it is designed to be used from the device. i was looking for an always monitoring device with audio and haptic alerts. it’s handheld nature makes extracting logs a novel concept, but it is already providing insight into my wireless space. 
I love the default look with all it’s retro elements. From war games to classic MacOS, out of the box it has more retro style than it’s 90s pager reveals. it operates on 3 wifi bands! (2,5,6) and maybe bluetooth as well eventually. This is just the beginning as the firmware gets more mature and additional content is added by the users. this is with the stock hardware. Hak5 is already selling USB modules for ethernet, GPS, and LoRa for even more functionality. i’ll update as i get more capable with the gadget. currently it does eat it’s battery very enthusiastically. i don’t think i’ve gotten more than 2-3 hours of use on a charge. (but i don’t yet know what i am doing)
There were so many incredible computers from the 70s, 80s, and 90s! Beautiful computers that might have just been taken out of the box. I got to play with an Amiga 4000 with a Video Toaster! (My dream box from the 90s) I used a Commodore Pet that is older than i am. Some of my favorite stuff is modern boards that work with the vintage computers like micro SD floppy drives and Wi-Fi modems.
This was actually the idea that started it all! It took me a while to finally complete it. I know that i am missing the serial mouse from the original Macintosh and 128. Despite having one, i decided to keep my 128 with all its pieces. Besides, i never touched one until after college. The mice represented here had my hands all over them most of my life. I am very happy with how it came out.
My doc was a bit confused about the age of this computer when he gave it to me to setup. We spoke about a 5 year old laptop. It turned out to be a beast from 2003: a Lifebook n series by Fujitsu. I’ve always said that Fujitsu must be run by a supervillain or at the very least, a rebel billionaire. They make industrial equipment and infrastructure, while at the same time making laptops and other select home electronics. Like someone just wanted their ideal laptop and then as an afterthought sold it as a product. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to disparage Fujitsu in any way. Quite the opposite in fact. I have relied on their hard drives for my most precious data and their Lifebooks have always been some of the best out there. The fact that this 13+ year old laptop is operating with all original parts and a working battery is testament to Fujitsu’s commitment to quality.
My first clue was the XP sticker. I decided to go with Lubuntu, a minimized variant on the popular Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu is a wonderful distribution, especially for those new to Linux, but it’s built on top of Debian, so it’s not just for beginners. For years, I’ve used some of the older (still supported) Ubuntu versions for old machines. I hate to see workin computers fail because of a lack of software support. Thanks to the good people at Lubuntu, Ubuntu, GNU/Linux, this is a thing of the past. This guy is running all the latest in security and cryptographic technology, a fully modern web browser and a full suite of productivity software fully compatible with the latest MS Office.
Meet the Artificial Intelligence that runs Security Systems Corp in the 80s television show Max Headroom.
(I’ll tell you later why this is significant)
I was replaying the classic Blizzard game Warcraft II and I couldn’t remember how to win. It wasn’t this difficult to win the Orc campaign. Great game, I miss the 12+ hour games we’d play on our localtalk network. It’s just not the same playing the computer. #lanparty
