I wonder if there have been any meaningful improvements in compiler optimizations for targeting the 8088 platform in the last few decades, too. I have a lot to learn about compiler design. Maybe I should read the compiler "dragon book" some day...

Looks like a M1212 'Macintosh Color Display'. It probably would work with an adapter, though that monitor can only display at a resolution of 640x480 @ 67hz, and also the horizontal refresh frequency on that monitor is weird so you'd need to specifically configure that as well

That's so cool! I've heard of Macintosh clones before but I never knew they existed in this form factor. I wonder what the battery life was like. Does 'Plus ROMs' in the manual mean that this behaves like a Macintosh Plus?

The $5 Computer Software Store is selling software for $6?? Damn, inflation is really hitting everything...

Looks great! That display looks incredibly sharp, love to see it. My brain keeps trying to see some of those icons as having color for some reason

The original keyboard for this luggable seems to have met an unfortunate end before I took ownership of it - I found the severed remains of the XT cable connected to the motherboard when I first disassembled it. I'd love to design and make a custom new keyboard for this that fits the case!

The most peculiar thing about it to me is how the internal CRT is connected to the video card - the CRT has a DB-9 connector that runs through the case and out through a hole on the side, connecting to the video card output. The mono/RGB switch also has leads hackily soldered to the motherboard!

What kind of oscilloscope do you have? Apparently there are USB to floppy adapters for some types of Tektronix scopes out there, but they're not particularly cheap. You might also have some luck looking for laptop floppy drive adapters as those are also slimmer than full height ones

Oh cool I didn't know there were 3D printed parts available for these, I have a couple of similar Powerbooks lying around that also have broken hinges and such everywhere. I swear the plastic on those PowerBooks shatters just by looking at it

Apparently the specific parameters of the design were chosen by Steve Jobs himself, I wonder if that's why it wasn't really changed at all.

There's a story about its development here:
www.folklore.org/Calculator_C...

I wonder what this would look like on a compact Mac modified with an amber display.

A few months later, the original owner purchased a 20 megabyte hard drive for a total of $745.22, or approximately $2,120 USD accounting for inflation. Despite the reputation of Hardcards as unreliable, this one is still working to this day.

The memory upgrade alone costs $400 USD, which would have expanded the memory from 256KB to 640KB. 16GB of system memory purchased at the same rate would cost approximately $17,000,000.

Shout-out to James B. Penny, P. L. Roddy, and G L Brasher for the work here! 42 years later...

Since the demo program was written in BASIC, the source code is readable... and at first glance, it's really quite scary to look at, especially with only 80 columns. The 'DRAW' function is pretty versatile.

I took inspiration from the demo program included with Compaq MS-DOS version 2.12! The intro sequence for this program is just delightful. I love the attention to detail with the laser 'sparking' whenever it starts drawing a new letter. #retrocomputing