Posted on 21 Oct 2026
Inside the Intel 8087 chip: floating-point addition and subtraction
Oscar Toledo G. has posted an animated video (PNG) of his BBS from 1993.
Oscar's site is quite a treasure trove of posts that might be of interest to the retrocoder. Take a look:
Jarno Beumer has released version 1.0 (Beta) of his Retrocommander utility for Windows. This utility lets you manipulate D64 virtual disk images for C64 emulators and the C64 Ultimate.
The newest episode of Antic, the Atari 8-bit Podcast is available:
One of the noted discussions in this episode is about the forthcoming Atari 800XL.
Posted on 17 Oct 2026
Salvatore Sanfilippo / Antirez ( creator of Redis ! ) has created a visual hardware simulator for the Commodore 64 computer.
Levente Szabadkai has created a font that looks like the characters on the keys of a C64 keyboard.
The first manual for the venerable Fortran programming language was published on October 15, 1956.
Celebrating 70 Years of Fortran
The HN commentary for the above post and for discussions of Fortran in general is also worth reading.
Happy Birthday, Fortran!
Just about every time Fortran is celebrated, some goofball cites the old Datamation magazine article that poked fun at Pascal and inferred that Real Programmers used only Fortran or Assembly Language.
I guess that today is my day to be that goofball.
Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal
Computer scientist and cryptographer Phil Zimmerman explains why he wrote the groundbreaking encryption utility, PGP ( Pretty Good Privacy ).
The October edition of Compute's Gazette magazine is available (along with other issues) at:
Long-time tech author Dan Gookin is providing supplements to his book C for Dummies including a weekly article on C programming:
What're ya waitin' for? Get out there and learn C! It's a life skill!
Here's Atari's pre-order page for the forthcoming 800XL (from Retro Games).
Like the forthcoming Amiga offering, this model has a working keyboard. Here are the basic details from the above page:
Includes the THECXSTICK 8-button joystick.
$219.99
Margaret Hamilton, who had been the NASA software team lead for the Apollo program has died at age 90.
news.mit.edu/2026 Computing Pioneer Margaret Hamilton
Mark Stephens, who used the pen name Robert X. Cringely passed away on Saturday of this week in his sleep at age 73.
A number of tech writers had apparently used the pseudonym Robert X. Cringely when writing for InfoWorld magazine but I think that Stephens is the one who had pretty much commandeered the name's usage. I was aware of the writer only through his book Accidental Empires which led to the PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds.
His Wikipedia entry is here:
Christopher Snowden announced his forthcoming book A Crazy Thing Called Life - My Life with the Commodore 16 & Plus/4. The book is scheduled to be released on October 30th.
Here's the book's description from the preview image of the back cover:
Here's the site for the book launch:
Posted on 01 Oct 2026
Jawaid Bayzar announced that his Apple II* and IIgs emulator software GSSquared has reached version 1.0 !
Thom Cherryhomes and Michael Sternberg join Kay Savetz to inteview Vince Wu. Mr. Wu was a long-time contributor to the multiuser online sytem known as PLATO. He was also the author of The Learning Phone ... a PLATO terminal for Atari 8-bit computers.
Antic Interview 465 - Vince Wu
Mark D. Rejhon made his MS-DOS-based PETSCII terminal available with source on the Lemon64 forums. You can download the QuickBASIC 4.5 sources, MS-DOS EXE file, and documentation from 1997 here:
In addition to supporting the PETSCII character set, BlazerTerm64 supports Xmodem file transfers.
I came across this write-up in the ACM of Roland PantoÅaâs Interactive Fiction games for the Atari 8-bit computers written in Forth.
Forth: The Best Programming Language for the End of the World?
In an Ask HN post, the participants at HN were asked "Who's still keeping a DOS machine because the business depends on it?" There were quite a few answers ... some of them referring to MS-DOS, but there were a number of folks who talked about machines still running or running for a long time that run on the Amiga, Windows XP and various other Windows releases, SCO Unix, and others.
Who's still keeping a DOS machine?
This YouTube video covers some non-electrical calculation tools:
FujiNet creator Thom Cherryhomes shows that folks can now load Intellivision games directly from FujiNet:
A couple of years ago, I talked with Thom Cherryhomes on my Stray Pointers podcast. We talked about his creation, FujiNet. It's grown a lot since then, but I think this interview is worth a listen.
Stray Pointers S2:E06 (YouTube)
This fault-tolerant server from Stratus Technologies has been running since 1993!
This blog post takes us inside the workings of Amiga's windowing system.
Roel Nieskens reminisced about snippets of code, including C64 BASIC and some 6502 code ... that changed things for him.
Here's a work-in-progress page depicting the Star Trek variants written in quite a variety of BASIC dialects.
Missile Command chamption Tony Temple tells us about the would-be successor to the amazing arcade game Gorf. It was apparently called Ms. Gorf. You'll have to read more about it in Tony's blog post. There appears to be a link for a version of the game that you can play in your browser. I'll have to check that out.
Resurrecting Midway's Ms. Gorf
The original post from 2018 made it back to the front page of HN this week. It's a Read Evaluate Print Loop for the Z-80 microprocessor.
The current HN comment thread for the above post is here:
I was able to enter Z-80 mnemonics and they would assemble in real-time. I tried to set up a LDIR instruction to just move some memory, but I couldn't figure out how to make it run ( you know ... the "R" in "REPL". ) I haven't had enough time to play with this but I'll revisit it soon.
John Hardy ( @jhlagado@defcon.social on Mastodon ) posted about his multi-platform Z-80 assembler known as Atom.
Paulo Amoroso ( @amoroso@oldbytes.space on Mastodon ) posted these links to an extensive Z-80 tutorial.
The Custom PC Hardware series on YouTube has a new episode discussing Z-80 and Z-180 computers that he has reviewed in 2026.
Wade Ripkowski has been building a scripting system for Atari 8-bit computers. Take a look here for a brief description and a collection of links to each blog post installment:
A post arrived on HN a couple of days ago announcing a new site that hosts a new product for contemporary OS's called FoxScript. It's supposed to be a workalike for the venerable FoxPro system. Here's the link to the site:
Please take a look at the HN comments that follow:
There are some nice stories about having used FoxPro back in "the day" as well as some folks cautioning that this all might have been built somewhat hurriedly. Use at your own risk.
Posted on 21 Sep 2026
Here's a new entry from Jimmy Maher in his Digital Antiquarian website about the classic game Lemmings:
The Lamentable Later Life of Lemmings
I hadn't heard about early efforts to bring Unix to certain models of the Amiga prior to seeing this site, but apparently, it was a thing. You can follow the project here:
I'm pretty sure that you'll want to read through some of the comments in the related HN thread.
The comment that stands out to me points out that NetBSD has a current, working Amiga port:
I happened upon the TechJesse podcast (hosted by Jesse Petrilla) and the first interview that really caught my eye was one with Sierra Games co-founder / game-designer Roberta Williams. I'm looking forward to this interview.
You can find other TechJesse interviews here:
On his 8-bit Show and Tell podcast, Robin Harbron celebrates "SepTandy" with a Tandy-themed episode. Ken of Canadan Retro joins to discuss the TRS-80 Color Computer Electronic Book:
Here's an old PDF document defining / describing the puzzles for the old LucasArts game Grim Fandango.
Posted on 19 Sep 2026
Run Stop Restored podcast provides a very nice walkthrough of VCFMW.
The Future of Retro Computing is Here
They also posted an interview with Jim Drew...
... veteran C64 super-techie, currently running CBMStuff.com.
We're Getting 20MHz Commodore 64 CPUs?!
Were Taylor and Amy really bored at VCFMW?
Well, no, they weren't. But you'll have to watch their podcast for more details.
It seems like just last week I posted about Kate & Veronica's first podcast episode together. Here's the second one at VCFMW!
The Largest Vintage Computer Fest
The folks at The Oasis BBS interviewed Thom Cherryhomes and Jaime Idolpx at VCF East to discuss FujiNet.
FujiNet and Meatloaf Interview
A new episode of Antic the Atari 8-bit Podcast was publlished last week.
Kate Fox from the Macintosh Librarian podcast and Veronica from the Veronica Explains podcast have teamed-up to bring us a new podcast. An audio version of the podcast is available from the website. A video edition of the podcast is also available on YouTube.
Website: www.kateandveronica.net
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@KateandVeronica
In her interview on the Retro Hour podcast, Veronica alluded to the realization of this podcast.
Dave Cook discusses InfoCom's game Bureaucracy:
Bureaucracy, or Michael Bywater Saves the Day
In his vintage computing blog, Cameron Kaiser goes into a deep dive about the various incarnations of the VTech Laser 200 computer.
A Dick Smith VZ200 without the Dick Smith (but with a serial port)
If you haven't tuned in to Kari (rhymes with "Atari") Lawler's retrocomputing podcast, you should give it a try. She presents all sorts of adventures in coding, restoring old systems, and other retro topics. Here's an episode where she tries to recrate a Terminator II scene using the venerable Turbo Pascal compiler:
Recreated the Terminator 2 EASY MONEY Scene
If you take a look at the image here...
...you might not notice that each one of the little rectangles on each line are pages out of Byte Magazine. Click on any one of them to drill down to see that page.
I just received a recommendation to check out the Commodore History podcast on YouTube:
www.youtube.com/@commodorehistory
I haven't had a chance to do much more than check out the main page, but this looks like a good podcast. I'll be sampling these episodes soon.
The new issue of the revived Compute's Gazette magazine is available.
From their Facebook page:
Our cover story, Clean Sheet of Paper, is a long-form visit with Steve Leininger â the engineer who designed the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I.
Also in this issue:
It's never too late to subscribe! New subscriptions begin with the October printed edition, and every new subscriber gets the September digital edition free. Contents subject to change.
If you'd like to follow them on Facebook, you can find their page at the link below:
Posted on 10 Sep 2026
The Vintage Computer Festival Midwest will take place on September 12th through the 13th in Schaumburg, Illinos.
The Apple II enthusiast gathering WOzFest 46 will take place on September 26th in Sydney, NSW, Australia.
This year's Tandy Assembly conference will take place on October 2nd through the 4th in Cincinnati, Ohio.
RetroGameCon will take place on October 2nd through the 4th in Syracuse, New York.
The Chicago TI International World Faire will take place on October 24th at the Evanston Public Library.
Chicago TI Users Group Website
October 9th through 11th in Portland, Oregon
Oregon Convention Center Website
Vintage Computer Festival Montréal will take place on November 7th through the 8th.
The World of Commodore conference will take place on December 5th through the 6th ( celebrating 40 years of GEOS! )
World of Commodore Site - TPUG
Posted on 08 Sep 2026
Working with sound on the Spectrum must be a lot like playing with sound on an old TRS-80 Model I where you had to modulate sound through the cassette port into an amplifier. In his ongoing ZX Spectrum series, Michael Martin shares his experiments with 1-bit sound on the Speccy.
Experimenting with 1-bit Sound
Before the Internet was widely available to consumers, we had online services like CompuServe and Genie. I kept up with CompuServe (user 74217,531) until a local ISP became a more cost-effective way of connecting with others via computers.
Davia Minn describes his first commercial software for the Amiga in 1999 (via LinkedIn):
Posted on 06 Sep 2026
In the mid-80's, a peripheral for the Commodore 64 was released that boasted Apple II emulation. I just saw a post talking about the product here:
The item below is my post about my first website that I built in 1995. The post also includes the details my article in the 1995 Dr. Dobbs Journal special edition on Internet and WWW programming:
Posted on 05 Sep 2026
I really enjoyed the recent podcast interview with Veronica (from the Veronica Explains podcast ).
Veronica Explains Why Old Computers Were Better At Teaching Us
Veronica talks about her tech upbringing, her days coding COBOL, being a musician, and how she got into podcasting. I would urge you to listen to the show to the end.
Episodes of Veronica's own Podcast can be located here:
Arthur Jordison has released version 4.10.0 of CBM Prg Studio:
Issue #3 of a new C64 / Amiga gaming magazine Pitstop Retro as been released. You can download a copy here:
www.patreon.com/cw/PitstopRetro
I've been slowly posting links to this site on social media platforms. I did this before the site had frills that other blogs have built-in. The first thing that I was missing was a syndication feed. I now have an RSS feed available at this URL:
The above URL can also be found with the RSS Feeds link in the Handy Links section at the bottom of each page.
Although I had a brief announcement when I stood up the site, I thought that it should have a formal About page. Now, we do:
This is also available in the Handy Links section at the end of each page with the About this site label.
I've been trying to avoid adding features that I don't think I'll need, but syndication and an about page were in my list of to-do's.
Posted on 04 Sep 2026
No Starch Press is having a book sale over the Labor Day weekend:
I noted this book in the ad that I saw:
The processor used in the Game Boy is a Sharp SM83 processor that is apparently some sort of spiritual knock-off of the Z-80 with IX and IY, prime registers, and block-operation instructions removed. I guess that would make it something closer to the classic Intel 8080, wouldn't it? I'm not sure why the tech trade press had compared it to the Z-80 instead of the 8080. But, I digress...
This processor has always intrigued me. I do not need a book on development for the Game Boy but, I'd love to read this one.
I saw a post and the thread of replies about Bill Gates releasing the Altair BASIC source code. The original link and HN reply links are below:
As usual, the discussions in the comments are worth reading. There's a debate about how heavily Altair BASIC was based on DEC BASIC. There are also links to the 6502 versions of Microsoft BASIC that were released no too long ago along with links to posts about string garbage collection techniques used in MS 6502 BASIC.
I saw an ad for a company that sells hats, shirts, and things with "abandoned" software / hardware logos and such on them. ( Some of these aren't really abandoned ... they're just classic logos and such. )
Abandonware Collections (this is just the link to the hats)
I like the Amiga hat and the WinAmp hat.
Martin has posted the beginning of a serialization of another chapter in the OutRun saga.
I'm not going to post further updates here. You can keep up on them by following Martin on LinkedIn.
Posted on 01 Sep 2026
Martin Webb, has posted the final installment to his autobiography as a teen video game developer. You can read the entire saga via the linked posts in this page:
Posted on 30 Aug 2026
Although I didn't own any Atari 8-bit computers in "the day" I've always been interested in them. I used to read the articles pertaining to them in magazines that served multiple brands of computers. Some years ago, I happened upon a podcast called Antic the Atari 8-bit Podcast. Antic episodes vary between a monthly news podcast and hundreds of interviews. The interviews aren't limited to Atarians ... there are a number of folks interviewed who were pivotal in the pioneering days of 8-bit computing.
You can see a list of current episodes here:
I particularly enjoyed the recent episode with Lisa Link Melville and her high school project written in Atari BASIC. You can find the episode here:
Back then, BASIC seemed to bring together the "everyman" in computing. Folks from all walks of life were able to use it to accomplish their computing tasks.
I had the pleasure of interviewing the three Antic hosts ... Kay, Brad, and Randy ... on my podcast. You can listen in here:
The Stray Pointers Podcast - Season 2, Episode 19
Posted on 29 Aug 2026
The Retro Hour podcast is one of many that I'd been meaning to listen to. There's quite a back-catalog of episodes at this link.
I've been listening to a number of these episodes, but one that I really enjoyed recently was this episode ... Netscape: The Spectacular Rise and Fall with Tara Hernandez.
Posted on 27 Aug 2026
Jawaid Bayzar announced his new release of the GSSquared (v 0.11.0) emulator suite in this Facebook post.
The Github repo for this release can be found here.
Michael Heilemann announced the re-creation of his old BBS known as The Norse Wanderer BBS in this Facebook post.
The BBS itself is here.
I had assumed that this would be a BBS that one could telnet to. However, it's a browser-based simulation of a serial terminal on the web page.
Posted on 25 Aug 2026
Track 18 was the track where most Commodore disk drives of the 8-bit era held their directory information. This new LinkedIn blog begins with Martin Webb discussing OutRun. We sure seem to be talking about Martin a lot, these days.
These probably aren't considered to be part of retrocomputing, but I thought the release anniversaries of each was worth noting.
Happy 35th Birthday to Linux and Happy (belated) 31st Birthday to Windows 95!
Posted on 23 Aug 2026
I began to build a list of the BBS's that I visited in Fall of 1984. Here's what I've written about so far:
The Greater Omaha Commodore Users Group (GOCUG) BBS
DRBBS - Dynamic Remote Bulletin Board System
This looks pretty cool! It's a markdown editor for the Apple II+ and enhanced Apple IIe.
trompingmarmots.com/AppSites/ZipEdit/
I saw via HN this morning that Zilog had produced a promotional set of comic books in 1979 for their Z8000 microprocessor. The micro-series was called Captain Zilog.
Here's a collection of the issues:
https://www.zilog.com/captain_zilog/
A quick search indicated that comic book legend Joe Kubert was the penciler for those issues.
In the HN commentary here, user xioxox cites this blog post talking about the series, but it looks like it refers to a comic other than the ones collected at the Zilog site:
I saw a blurb on Facebook about THEA1200 ... a forthcoming machine that appears to embody the function of the Amiga 1200 computer system.
Here's a clip of a video from Retro Games Ltd ... the makers of the forthcoming machine ... along with commentary on the You've Been Gamed podcast:
Although the pre-order pages are up on Amazon, I'm not sure if I want to get one of these or not.
Greetings, all!
jumptable.net is a retrocomputing site with a heavy focus on programming. I expect to use a fair amount of C and assembly language in my own posts, but I'm sure we'll have a variety of topics.
This root page will serve as a newsfeed. It will contain news, links to other sites, and links to my own posts and podcasts.
More to come!
Last year, a conversation on the lemon64.com forum led me to write a little program for the Commodore 64 that generated a short Fibonacci sequence. You can find the code here:
https://github.com/jimlawless/fibonacci
A binary PRG file is there already assembled and ready to run ( org'ed at $c000 ). Here's how to load and run it:
And yes .. I know the C64 has a 6510 and not a 6502, but I didn't use any 6510-specific mnemonics.
Posts are copyright © 2026 by James K. Lawless
8087 Math, La Cueva BBS (1993), D64 Utility, New Antic Podcast
8087 Addition and Subtraction Microcode
Animated Video of the La Cueva BBS (Mexico) from 1993
Retrocommander - A D64 Utility for Windows
Antic Atari Podcast #131
C64 Hardware Simulator, C64 Keycap Fonts
C64 Hardware Simulator - Break Stuff and See What Happens!
New Font from C64 Keycaps
Fortran at 70, Real Programmers, PGP's Origins
Posted on 15 Oct 2026
Fortran Turns 70
Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal
Phil Zimmerman Explains Why He Wrote PGP
New Compute's Gazette, C for Dummies, Atari 800XL
Posted on 11 Oct 2026
October 2026 Compute's Gazette
Dan Gookin's C for Dummies Site
Atari 800XL
A recreation of the classic Atari 8-bit computer, featuring 25 built-in games, a full-size mechanical keyboard, working cartridge slot, HDMI output, and more.
Pre-orders open now. Shipping late April, 2027.
Margaret Hamilton's Passing
Posted on 08 Oct 2026
Margaret Hamilton
Robert X. Cringely's Passing, New C16 Book
Posted on 05 Oct 2026
Mark Stephens / Robert X. Cringely
New Commodore 16/+4 Book
GSSquared 1.0, PLATO Pioneer, PETSCII Term for MS-DOS, Forth Games in Poland, Old Apps Still Running
The GSSquared Apple II* and IIgs Emulator
Antic Interview with PLATO Pioneer Vince Wu
BlazerTerm64 - A PETSCII Terminal for MS-DOS
Forth Games in Poland
Applications Still Running on Old (sometimes virtual) Machines
Vintage Slide Tools, Intellivision on FujiNet, FujiNet Podcast Interview, Server Up Since 1993, ZZAP!Amiga, C64 Asm Tutorial
Posted on 29 Sep 2026
Vintage Slide Tools
Load Intellivision Games Directly from FujiNet
Thom Cherryhomes Podcast Interview
This Server has been Running Since 1993
Amiga Screens Primer, Ten Lines of Code, BASIC Star Trek, ...Ms. Gorf?
Posted on 25 Sep 2026
Amiga Screens : A Primer
Ten Lines of Code that Changed my World!
Charting the Progression of Star Trek in BASIC
Ms. Gorf? For Realz?
What the HL? It Must Be Z-80 Week!
Posted on 24 Sep 2026
A Z-80 REPL
Atom - A Z-80 Assembler
Extensive Z-80 Tutorial
Z-80 / Z-180 Machine Overview
Atari 8-bit Scripting, FoxPro Clone
Posted on 23 Sep 2026
Scriptee for Atari 8-Bits
FoxScript
Lemmings, Amiga Unix, Roberta Williams Interview, TRS-80 CoCo Electronic Book, Grim Fandango Puzzles
The Lamentable Later Life of Lemmings
Amiga Unix
TechJesse Interview with Roberta Williams
TRS-80 Color Computer Electronic Book
Grim Fandango Puzzle Document
Four VCF Midwest Podcasts
Run Stop Restored - Two Podcast Episodes
Taylor and Amy Build an ALTAIR-Duino
Kate & Veronica at VCFMW
The Apple IIGS Turns 40, FujiNet Interview from VCF East, New Antic Episode
Posted on 15 Sep 2026
FujiNet Interview at VCF East
Antic Episode #130
Kate and Veronica's New Podcast, Infocom's Bureaucracy Game, VTech Laser 200
Posted on 13 Sep 2026
Kate and Veronica's New Podcast
Bureaucracy
VTech VZ200 / Laser200
Kari's Milestone, All Byte Mags in One Image, Commodore History
Posted on 12 Sep 2026
Kari Lawler's YouTube Podcast Reaches 100,000 Subscribers
// Using a real 1989 Atari Portfolio and Turbo PASCAL
Byte - A Visual Archive
Commodore History Podcast
New Compute's Gazette
Posted on 11 Sep 2026
Compute's Gazette - September 2026
COMPUTE!'s Gazette - September 2026 Digital Edition is out the door!
Upcoming Retro Events
VCF Midwest
WOzFest 46
Tandy Assembly
RetroGameCon
Chicago TI International World Faire
Portland Retrogaming Expo
VCF Montréal
World of Commodore
Speccy Sounds, CompuServe, Amiga Software
ZX Spectrum 1-bit Sound
Whatever Happened to CompuServe?
MP4 to ANIM
C64 Running Apple II Software, Jim's First Website
The Spartan for the Commodore 64
Confessions of a 1995 HTML Noob
Veronica's Interview, Pitstop Retro Mag, C64 Prg Studio, Site Updates
Veronica's Interview on The Retro Hour Podcast
New CBM Prg Studio Release
Pitstop Retro Magazine
Site Updates
A Game Boy Coding Book and Old Microsoft BASICs
No Starch Book Sale
Microsoft's Altair BASIC and 6502 BASIC
Abandonware Hats and an Update
Posted on 02 Sep 2026
Abandonware Hats, Tee Shirts, ...etc.
OutRunning OutRun
The Compleat OutRun:diary
OutRun:diary
Antic the Atari 8-bit Podcast
Antic
A Retrocompuing Podcast
The Retro Hour Podcast - History of Netscape
Apple II (and IIGS) Goodness
From the Apple II Enthusiasts group on Facebook
The Track 18 Blog, OS Birthdays
Track 18 Blog
Happy Birthday to a Couple of OS's
Omaha BBS's, TheA1200 Updates, ZipEdit
Omaha Bulletin-Board Systems circa 1984
ZipEdit Now for the Apple II+
Amigas and Heroes
Posted on 21 Aug 2026
Captain Zilog
THEA1200
Hello, World!
Posted on 19 Aug 2026
int main()
A Fibonacci Sequence in 6502 Assembly
