Jonathan Pallant
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thejpster.org.uk
Jonathan Pallant
@thejpster.org.uk
860 followers 160 following 950 posts
Rust Trainer and Developer, retrocomputing enthusiast
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thejpster.org.uk
Too much fun.

homes.luddy.indiana.edu/ccshan/for/f...
The image says "thejpster.org.uk for old unix computers", but like the "Zohran for New York City logo", in yellow on blue with red drop-shadow.
November 8, 2025 at 3:42 PM
thejpster.org.uk
X11 on 68K HP-UX, diskless.
A photo of some old computers. At the top is a mid 2000s LCD showing the HP VUE desktop at native 1280x1024 resolution. It’s sitting on a HP 9000 Model 340, and we can see the connectors at the rear, including 3 BNCs for video and a BNC for 10base2 Ethernet. It is sitting on an HP Apollo 9000 Model 705, which is on the other end of the comically long 10base2 cable.
October 21, 2025 at 7:01 AM
thejpster.org.uk
I can confirm it needs an HIL keyboard as the HP-IB port is for a disk drive, amongst other things. But the DIP switches were set for serial console, which works great. A lovely machine.
The inside of an HP 9000 Model 340. You can see a PSU, some RAM sticks unlike anything from a PC, and a big graphics card with just three BNC outputs
October 7, 2025 at 6:31 AM
thejpster.org.uk
I think 7,500 for this bomb and 12,000 for a different bomb in Spandau. Happens all the time around here apparently.

Here’s the view from my office. The bomb was in the lock.
A photo through a very German metal framed and highly energy efficient window. Through it we can see the River Spree, a big lock, and the Alexanderplatz TV tower behind.
September 19, 2025 at 12:02 PM
thejpster.org.uk
If you were 15 when the Sega Megadrive came out in the UK - good news! You can now go on a Saga holiday.
It's the SEGA logo with blue stripes, except it says SAGA.
September 14, 2025 at 9:10 PM
thejpster.org.uk
MIPS, PowerPC, 68000, Z80, 65C816, x86, Arm.
A photo of my wooden TV cabinet. It contains a lot of consoles.
August 31, 2025 at 12:53 PM
thejpster.org.uk
Locked and loaded
August 25, 2025 at 6:53 PM
thejpster.org.uk
I think I’ll wash my hands now
The inside of a very grubby sparcstation 10. It’s full of bugs and spider nests and nuts.
August 24, 2025 at 10:38 PM
thejpster.org.uk
I am a engineer
Sun fitted the SPARCstation with DB25F ports, and my null modem cable has a DB25F, so some absolute hooligan has joined the cable to the port with three dupont jumper wires on pins 2, 3 and 7.
August 20, 2025 at 11:54 AM
thejpster.org.uk
The inside of one of the sparcstation 2 units. It has two black Maxtor SCSI hard drives, a network/SCSI card, and is fully stacked with sixteen 30-pin SIMMs
August 19, 2025 at 10:05 PM
thejpster.org.uk
Oops
It’s a car boot full of sparcstations. My car boot. My new sparc stations.
August 18, 2025 at 7:33 PM
thejpster.org.uk
I want to shout out dominio11, who, for my recent HP 9000 Model 712:

- wrapped it in a plastic bag
- wrapped that in two layers of bubble wrap and tape
- taped on cardboard corners
- placed it in a cardboard outer, padded with packing peanuts
- covered the outer in tape

It arrived safely.
A parcel I’m only half way done unwrapping. A big cuboid covered in bubble wrap sits next to a pile of cardboard and bubble wrap. It’s the back of an HP 9000 Model 712.
July 14, 2025 at 6:51 AM
thejpster.org.uk
If you want power and you want speed, the 700 series is what you need.

I am now ready for molecular modelling in cyberspace, or something.

(youtu.be/VLTh4uVJduI)
An HP 9000 Model 712 with no lid on. You can see the polystyrene drive trays, a big black PSU and a remarkably small main board. The back of an HP 9000 Model 712. It has VGA, two PS/2 ports, 10baseT Ethernet (and AUI) as well as 50 pin SCSI. The main board of an HP 9000 Model 712, at jaunty angle. There’s four SIMMS, a stick of cache and the processor is under a small black heatsink with no fan. The clock battery is a CR2032 which has not leaked.
July 10, 2025 at 10:39 AM
thejpster.org.uk
The Quantum drive was dead (obviously) so I squeezed in a 9 GB 7200 rpm SCSI drive.

After much messing about trying to get a patched Disk Setup on there so it would Initialize my non-Apple drive … success!
A photo of a big CRT sitting in top of a PowerMac 7200/90. The monitor is showing the MacOS 7.6 desktop. A photo of the back of the Apple Multiple Scan 1705 monitor, and the PowerMac 7200/90, which it is sitting on top of.
June 29, 2025 at 7:53 PM
thejpster.org.uk
October 2002. Details in the alt.
A scanned photo from 2002. An Iiyama VisionMaster 454, a Yeong Yang 0221B case in black, with the front removed extra fans and a side window, and a Canon BJC-4100 printer. And terrible student digs carpet.
June 26, 2025 at 7:37 PM
thejpster.org.uk
oh no
This time we have the same blue header and footer, but the header says "Oh no" and the page is just the yellow text "There has been a problem"
June 25, 2025 at 7:19 PM
thejpster.org.uk
Now I've done it in Typst - and I haven't even listened to the latest episode of @sdr-podcast.com yet.

gist.github.com/thejpster/aa...

Literally the first thing I've ever done in Typst, and I don't really know what I'm doing.
It looks like like the powerpoint slide from the previous post, except the formatting is slightly different, and all the destinations are "London Marylebone" because I didn't want to type them all out again, and one train is Delayed (in yellow) and one is Cancelled (in red)
June 25, 2025 at 7:02 PM
thejpster.org.uk
I made this in Powerpoint. Because, reasons.
It is an image that looks like an old UK railway station platform information display, circa late 1990s. The heading is "Departures" and underneath are a series of locations and departure times. It uses the font ModeSeven.
June 25, 2025 at 3:25 PM
thejpster.org.uk
I have so many questions.
A screenshot of an estate agent listing for a house. There’s a photo of a room with a bed. With a TV above it that no one could see from the bed. There’s a bath at the foot of the bed. There are no taps. There is no sink.
June 23, 2025 at 8:31 PM
thejpster.org.uk
Well now I see why the picture quality was so astonishingly bad. What a terrible video cable.
A vga cable has been cut and the outer insulation stripped, to reveal three audio grade unshielded wires where the three RGB co-ax lines should be.
June 14, 2025 at 7:08 PM
thejpster.org.uk
Casually running Solaris Acrobat on a Sun Ultra 80, with the display routed to an SGI Indigo 2 running IRIX.

X11 is great. Check out
@cathoderaydude.bsky.social ‘s most recent video!
May 31, 2025 at 2:05 PM
thejpster.org.uk
Much UNIX. Very RISC.
A photo of a table. On the table are several desktop computers with LCD screens, keyboards and mice. Under the table are more computers.
May 31, 2025 at 1:11 PM
thejpster.org.uk
AAAAAAAAAH

I’ve tried so hard for so long to get this screen to appear.

But what is it running on?

Hint: count the lines of text. It’s not 25, which a VGA card in a PC would do.
A photo of an LCD monitor next to a grey desktop computer (mostly out of shot). The text on the monitor starts: Software in the Public Interest presents Debian GNU/Linux 2.2.
May 26, 2025 at 3:23 PM
thejpster.org.uk
Planning
A photo of a slate coloured worktop covered in cut out pieces of paper with hand written labels. They are labelled with things like “Dell 1908 SOG” (a monitor), “Indigo 2” (a computer) and “Intellimouse PS/2” (a mouse).
May 18, 2025 at 8:49 PM
thejpster.org.uk
You should visit the Centre for Computing History.
A CRT monitor from Sun showing the Open Windows desktop A next cube with matching monitor and keyboard An SGI Indy with crt monitor, keyboard and mouse
May 17, 2025 at 3:38 PM