home computer

This lovely 10MHz home computer, yours for only $3,240

Nostalgia for vintage PCs knows no bounds. I still have my Apple IIc in storage, and God knows why. But I don't think I'd spend thousands on a 30-year-old machine like one eBay buyer did.

A bidding war for the rare Texas Instruments TI-99/8 has turned heads among fans of these early PCs. The winning bid of $3,240 was also unusually high for a computer of that era that's sold on eBay.

The machine is an engineering prototype designed to bolster TI's precarious position in the brutal home computer wars of the early 1980s. … Read more

Commodore founder Jack Tramiel dies at 83

Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore International and former CEO of Atari International, died on Sunday at the age of 83. He was surrounded by family at the time of his passing, according to Forbes.

Famous for saying that computers should be built "for masses, not the classes," Tramiel played an important role in the early days of personal computing and video gaming, as his company introduced a line of powerful but affordable home computers, including the popular Commodore 64. The latter became the best-selling home computer of all time, with an estimated 20 to 30 million units sold, … Read more

Exclusive First Take: SheevaPlug computer makes unique NAS solution

I blogged about Marvell's SheevaPlug computer awhile ago, and Monday I got to do some exclusive hands-on testing with the first prototype of the machine.

This is a very simple and ultracompact computer that has 1.2GHz CPU, 512MB of flash memory storage, and 512MB DRAM under the hood. The only peripheral connections it supports are a USB 2.0 port and a Gigabit Ethernet port. The prototype comes with a 8GB ScanDisk thumb drive as its external storage, which makes it a very unique network-attached storage (NAS) solution.

Masses to Marvell at tiny wall plug computer?

You might have heard of or even used a powerline network adapter, such as the one made by Netgear that plugs directly into the wall. Now think of a similar-looking device that's an entire computer.

Marvell on Tuesday introduced a new kind of personal computer, called SheevaPlug, along with its Plug Computing initiative. The idea is to make make a high-performance, ultracompact, and green computer that consumers can plug right into a wall power socket.

Because the SheevaPlug draws less than a tenth of the power of a typical PC being used as a home server, according to Marvell, … Read more

Deal of the day: Dell Dimension C521 for $499

We don't usually post a computer as a Deal of the day, since packages can vary so much. But if you choose the no-frills, no-extras, no-peripherals bundle from Dell, you can have an entirely decent home system for $499--down from the everyday price of $729. A 19" LCD monitor, keyboard, mouse and 56K PCI modem are included, and for more money you can add speakers, increase memory or bump up other capabilities.

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 3600+ Operating system: Windows Vista Home Premium Monitor: 19" Samsung 920NW widescreen LCD monitor Memory: 1GB dual channel DDR2 … Read more