Presented by

  • Randall Crook

    Randall Crook
    @M109thumper

    Randall is a Unix systems administrator with a checkered background in electronics, integration *nix admin. He started his career as an apprentice electrician, moved on to a Electronics technician trainee-ship and ended up doing network administration. After this early training he passed through a number of PC related support roles to cut his teeth in Unix with NCR Tower system running SYS5R3. More *nix experience with DEC Unix, Ultrix and OSF/Tru64 followed before ending up in a Solaris shop working for NASA in 2010. Since then his focus has shifted to Linux and Cloud infrastructure while working for Thinkstream. While recently he has become more interested in retro computing, gathering an eclectic collection of old computers and modern clones of 8 Bit systems. And now he has been playing with some interesting Open projects that have impacted his hobby in retro computing.

Abstract

How Open Source and Open Hardware have impacted the Retro Computing Community. From a project to replace a scarce CPU to the Firmware that has launched a dozen 8 Bit home brew computers while resurrecting an Operating System from the 70's Explore how the old and new combine to give a truly exciting and nostalgic computing experience.