Oldskooler Ramblings

the unlikely child born of the home computer wars

Archive for March, 2014

Happy 30th Birthday, Peanut

Posted by Trixter on March 23, 2014

While the announcement for the IBM PCjr was made in November 1983, it didn’t actually show up on store shelves until March of 1984.  So, I consider this week the official-unofficial 30th birthday of the IBM PCjr.

The Register agrees, and posted a very nice stripdown of the system, with sarcastic and humorous comments.  The comments section for that article also has some nice observations for those who would like a trip down memory lane.

Later this year I will record the full version of my PCjr talk that I was never able to fully give last year (floods, shortened timeslots, etc.) and I’ll break it up into parts and put it on youtube.  I’ll announce when that series is up.

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Mixed Feelings

Posted by Trixter on March 22, 2014

If the airlines gods shine on me next week, I will be at NVScene 2014 in San Jose Tuesday through Thursday.  Co-located within the GPU Technology Conference, the entire event is looking to be the most concentrated collection of Very Intelligent People in regards to realtime computer graphics hardware and techniques.

I have mixed feelings about attending events like these, because I am so completely out of my league among these people.  I understand no more than 10% of everything they present or create.  I am looking forward to visiting and staying with friends, but my knowledge and accomplishments are dwarfed in orders of magnitude by every single other attendee.  It’s very intimidating.

That’s all.  No pithy observations or self-help advice in this post, sorry.  My level of anxiety is high enough that, if I weren’t seeing some old friends there, I definitely wouldn’t be going.  I have no business being there.

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