Did I forget to mention that I co-hosted four episodes of the Floppy Days podcast 18 months ago? I’ve become somewhat of an expert on the IBM PC over the decades, so when Randy Kindig wanted to cover the 40th anniversary of the IBM PC, he reached out to me to help with tech research and modern-day hobbyist developments. Along the way, he asked if I could co-host those episodes, and having a face for radio, I agreed.

We didn’t want to leave anything out, so we covered everything and broke it up into four parts, which aired from December 27th 2021 to March 31st 2022:

https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-109-the-ibm-pc-5150-tech-specs

https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-110-the-ibm-pc-5150-part-2-with-jim-leonard

https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-111-the-ibm-pc-5150-part-4-with-jim-leonard

https://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-112-the-ibm-pc-5150-part-5-with-jim-leonard

I recorded all of my parts locally, but Randy was happy with the stream quality, so he used the stream as the audio. As for the content, over the series it goes from historical and technical, to modern topics such as how to get started, where to find systems, modern homebrew hardware, networking, etc.

Give them a listen on your next cross-country trip to a vintage computer festival.

I’ve magically appeared on another podcast dedicated to vintage computing, this time episode #7 of Floppy Days talking about how I got into vintage computing, what I have, and what I do with it.  You can hear my interview around the 38-minute mark.

I keep threatening to put on my own podcast dedicated to vintage IBM PC computing, specifically covering the first 1.5 decades of the IBM PC and compatibles.  There are a few vintage computing podcasts dedicated to specific platforms, such as Antic for the Atari 8-bit series and Open Apple for the Apple II community.  There are also a few people commenting on their own collections and experiences, such as Floppy Days mentioned above as well as You Don’t Know Flack which centers around C64 and arcade nostalgia.  And one that rounds everything up is, appropriately, the Retro Computing Roundtable with news in the world of vintage computing and some light discussions.

But my podcast would differ from those somewhat significantly.  I have a couple of ideas that I’d like to explore, such as:

• Mostly instructional (ie. no nostalgia talk) on how to get the most out of your collection/hobby.  Different main topic each episode.
• Limiting every episode to 20 minutes or less.
• Quick coverage of uncommon/obscure games.
• Ending each episode with PC-generated music (with and without soundcards).
• Not scripted.  (Planned and researched, sure, but no reading the entire episode from a script.)

Too nutty?  The vintage computing hobby has a relatively small active audience; is there room for another podcast?