Easy WiFi for Vintage Macs with TheOldNet Serial WiFi Modem
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- Опубликовано: 14 окт 2024
- Today we're going online, 90's style! Well, a retrofuturistic 1990's where Hayes-compatible dial-up modems could connect to a magic internet signal that permeates the air - WIFI!
We're trying out an awesome RS232 WiFi modem emulator from TheOldNet, which requires a little bit of work to get running on old Macs. But maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to live out a dream I mentioned in my very first-ever RUclips video.
🍎 This video is part of the MARCHintosh series! marchintosh.com/
🍎 TheOldNet Serial WiFi Modem: www.tindie.com...
🍎 If you need to make your own Mac serial adapter, use the fourth-down diagram here: macgui.com/upl...
🍎 DeathWish MUD: www.mudconnect...
🍎 4 Dimensions MUD: www.mudconnect...
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💾 For more vintage Apple stuff, please subscribe: www.youtube.co...
💾 Support these retro computing shenanigans on Patreon! / actionretro
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Check out my Amazon page with links to my tools, adapters, soldering equipment, camera gear and more: www.amazon.com...
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💬 Come talk about old computers on the BitBang Social Mastodon! bitbang.social
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#MARCHintosh #Retro #WiFi
![Best Option for Apple ][ Modern Networking?](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/mKAOOH_xjwU/mqdefault.jpg)
A box with a flashing light zip-tied to a phone doesn't look dodgy at all in a coffee shop😁
🤣
No one has any right to care if you are trying to hack them jk
@@Zeon01 if someone hacked me with a powermac in 2022 i'd be so impressed i'd just let them have my money
@@supernoob17 twas the joke.
If I ever get the hang of 3D printing I'd probably make a box for one that has a space for a small enough power bank. It would be even neater to shape the case to look more like a vintage Hayes or US Robotics modem (or even gut an old modem case and do a nice job of putting the pieces in that)
12:19 - You really need to install the Black Night terminal emulator. It supports full color ANSI graphics, and I bet those BBS door scenes would look even more awesome.
Wait. "Way back in the '90s"? LOL. Dude I love this Chan.
Nice. I've been building my own wifi modems inside old 56k modems
Control-H, or whatever the Mac equivalent is, historically sent a backspace when the modem was command mode.
I am very, very old.
11:00 Old school terminal tricks: ctrl+H to backspace and ctrl+D to delete in a terminal. Also, ctrl+W erases the word preceding the cursor, and ctrl+U wipes out the current line. It's very old Unix standard that works even in modern terminals.
If your keyboard has a real backspace key (actually says "backspace" or depicts it with a left pointing arrow), it will generally work fine in a terminal. But if the key says "delete" (I'm lookin' at you, Apple) then it sends an escape code in terminals with usually no visual result and you have to resort to the ctrl+ combo or remap the keys in the terminal and/or OS (I genuinely can't recall if the older software you're using has that remap capability).
Ahh, the halcyon days of BBSing. They were a lot of fun. Except that it took over an hour to download a single floppy at 2400 baud! I never had a phone line clean enough for 56k, so 33.6k is the fastest I ever got to before broadband, and that still took ~5 minutes to download 1MB.
I still have friends who type ^H^H^H in new platforms as a sorta joke, much like people do strike-through text jokes
this channel is so underrated and deserves more subscribers, and your videos are fantastic as always, keep up the good work man!
Hah thank you!
Agree. Good to watch, the guy who speaks with his hands
true, definitely one of the best computer channels. He should have at least as much as MichaelMJD, another one of my favorite creators.
This is so fascinating to me. I am older-I was in middle school in late eighties and I have no memory of these, lol. We spent 45 minutes typing in a code in middle school to watch a hot air balloon glide across the screen. I was struck by how much processing skill these kind of games require of kids-just the reading alone. These are the games all kids should start with even now. I’m a teacher and I can’t imagine my students playing these-it really requires so much imagination. It’s obvious when you look at things like these why there is so much creativity coming from this generation across the board. It’s like your mind is constructing the game instead of it already being made yup for you. I can imagine as a kid that you are seeing this all in your head as you were playing. Great video.
Heads up, the (most likely) reason your first serial cable with gender changer didn't work is you need a null modem in the middle to swap around the tx and rx pairs
YOU ARE A LEGEND! Was having the exact same problem trying to use a gender changer with my Apple //c. Got a null modem and it worked immediately!
Hacking, Whipping, and zip ties. Can always tell this is an Action Retro video! :)
Man, I remember getting my first laptop, a second generation iBook with wifi (Airport) and OSX, after using PC's for several years, I was back in a new and much improved Mac world and truly living in the future. It was so awesome.
I have a Mac identical to yours, a 128K upgraded to a Plus and I fulfilled my dream of getting it online 6 months ago via a WiFi 232 serial modem. Still using it to this day! I watched your original video about wanting to play a MUD on your Mac before I even bought one and I felt the same way.
"You are now sober"
Saddest part of this video
This video really brings back sweet memories! My first computer was a Mac SE in 1989 (just one tiny step up from the Mac Plus upgrade you demoed.) I had mine decked out with 4MB RAM, a 20MB internal hard drive, 2400baud Hayes compatible modem, and the latest copy of Zterm. Yep, screen scrolling was a bit laggy, but completely usable. I spent four years of college dialing into the local university "VAX Cluster," where I would check email and telnet to MUDs, BBSes, and IRC, as well as use gopher and public ftp archives to find and download all of the latest freeware and shareware for my Mac.
I love that these old machines can still connect to the internet, and that there are still fun retro destinations on the internet. My favorite is ISCABBS; just telnet to bbs.iscabbs.com. ISCABBS is a telnet accessible BBS that has been in operation since 1989. It is the oldest (as far as I know) continuously operating free online community on the internet. With nearly 1,000 active users and public forums, sometimes you'll see nearly 30 people logged in at the same time! ISCABBS also contains private forums, internal mail, and instant messaging.
ISCABBS would make a great place to connect to if you do more demos, especially if you want to show interaction with other users via chat. It's viewable in ANSI color as well as black and white.
Thanks again for this and other videos. I'm grinning ear to ear remembering all the fun times online with my old Mac. :)
Oh nice, I'll definitely check that BBS out!
Who needs all the power of a Vax at home when you can just dial into one? 😁
I seem to recall the guy who wrote “The Cuckoo’s Nest” also dialled-in to his university’s Vax system, albeit that was for sysadmin stuff.
Quite a clever little device. I’ve got a few old machines I can use easily online now 👍
Technology, am I right?
"I don't use my cellphone for anything else!" - hearty chuckle at that one, very good. :D
Yay MUDs! glad to see them get some love. I used to play on muds in high-school. :D "Moooom quick picking up the phone!"
Oh yeah, dude. 8MHz machines will do things like that perfectly fine! I started my BBS days on a CoCo2 with a 300 baud modem. I used an 8088 8MHz machine for YEARS on BBSes. Today, I use Apple II series machines, 68k Macs (including a Plus with 4 megs, also!), etc. You should be great at 9600bps on those machines. I'm not sure what the maximum BPS rate is on the older Macs, but the comparable PCs were 9600 baud unless you had 16550 UARTs. 9600 is way more than adequate for these purposes though. Loved the video!
Now that is something I could only dream of as a kid. The first time I seen a wireless laptop it blew my mind. I have all kinds of projects involving wireless and dial up that I hope to make one day on another channel that will be tech focused. This stuff inspires to live out my childhood dreams.
I had a longer comment but I spoke too soon, you ended up doing exactly what I was thinking and man it truly made me happy. THAT IS SO COOL MAN.
This brings back memories of dialing in to the local BBS on my Apple II plus that I still have.
When you tried to plug the modem into the Mac's Serial port, I kind of expected 65scribe's "Sproinnng" sound effect to play.
Followed by the obligatory “doesn’t do anything?” 😁
nice! Need to take my Tandy Model 200 into a coffee shop and connect to wifi with this device. Great Marchintosh content
I absolutely love mine! I have two of them, and was able to do a zmodem bridge between two MS-DOS PCs with them... and also set up a Concurrent DOS terminal server over the internet using one of these! Great video!! As for me, I predominantly use Ethernet to get my old PCs online.
I just bought an XP-era HP Pavilion laptop. My plan is to install FreeDos on it for a retro distraction-free writing environment. But, I definitely want to get one of these and do the BBS thing in my free time.
Why not try void Linux? It’s the lightest weight OS with modern features you can find. Install neovim with plug-ins for writing and you’re golden
I really want to get an old DEC or Wyse terminal connected with one of these , but those are kinda hard to come by right now!! Awesome video as usual.
I would love to see you go one step further on this with some of the slightly newer macs... actual "real internet" with ppp or slip
PPP/SLIP is possible even on the older macs. "Back in the day" I had it running on my 1989 vintage Mac SE, although just barely. Still, I could have POPmail and two telnet sessions open at the same time before it started dropping the connection.... ;)
Check the latest on this project :D
As far as I know, the latest firmware for this device supports PPP automatically. I'm considering getting one for my Mac Plus if I can get it working.
@@TaijanDean I did exactly that. It hardly works because of a lack of flow control. Wait until then to buy one unless you just want to BBS with it
What an awesome video. The BBS days were so awesome, thanks for showing how much fun this is. I have a WiModem 232 for old computers like Amiga and Apple IIGS. Most of my PPC Macs have built in Ethernet so it is easy to still use those. However, you don't get the cool retro feeling of using the Hayes command set with ethernet.
Well, I know what my next little project is going to be. You can actually make your own Wifi modem if you want. There are instructions online. You can even buy 8pin mini-DIN plugs for the Apple end of the cable, although they’re not fun to solder.
Nice work 👍
Thats A Realy Cool Emulator Yes Your 128k Mac Brings Back A lot Of Memories I Bought That Very Same 128 Mac Back In 1984 New In Cupertino Ca Sterlings Computer Store For $2600 That Also Included The Image Writer Printer A lot Of Money Back In 1984 And Have Been A Loyal Apple User Great Video Sean
Greetings from Argentina 🇦🇷🇦🇷🇺🇸🇺🇸💾
Greetings!
And yes, I would like to see more Macintosh shenanigans, keep it up!
Haha thanks Rocky!
This is so fascinating as someone who never got to experience any of this when it was new. I'm only 25 and my first memories of the internet probably date back to around 2005. I've been fascinated by retro tech for as long as I can remember. I'd love to own more retro devices but I haven't gotten super lucky with finds yet and ebay can be quite expensive.
Love the soldering montage sounds 👍
I’m odd like that
Nice! For OSX macs there also exists a custom driver for android usb tethering
I like hardware hacks like this, providing modern solutions to vintage tech. Need a replacement hard drive? SCSI2SD or a CF2IDE adapter. Floppy drive dead? FloppyEMU for Macs, GOTEK's for basically everything else. Retrotink for getting old-school game consoles connected to modern TV's.
I never dialed into a BBS in the late 90s, but I did figure out I could dial into my local library, where besides the usual library things like letting you search the catalog, let you access the internet with lynx. It was a great backup for when my AOL minutes were used up.
I was going to say, why did you even pay for the AOL minutes then, until I remembered it was still a walled-garden for a lot of its services at that time. (I came to AOL a little later, 2002-ish.)
This is great! Very entertaining video. I need that thing to my old Compaq LTE's.
man i love this. your my favorite retro channel!
He made it look way more suspicious by zip tying all those cables to his phone.
You might be able to a) use a battery bank that is small and compact for coffee shops or b) a small mod to add a Lithium battery pack on the power connections of the device. Though a small battery pack would be cheaper and EZ to use.
You just need something which can supply 5 volts. If there's an ADB port on the laptop that could be used with a simple adapter cable.
If it has a pcmcia slot just stick in a USB card and use the laptops power.
What Mac would you say is the oldest that you could still get to load a website page in a browser with this wifi device? Powerbook G3? Or older? Nice video btw. Love retro Macs!
I'm not sure about possible with this emulator, but "back in the day" there was a very early version of the "Mosaic" web browser that would run on Macs like the b/w one demoed here. Very crashy, and you pretty much had to "turn off images" in order to get it to work. So "technically possible" although not actually usable.
Thanks you! What of G3 Macs, if you know? Or in Mac OS 9?
You have taken on a project that I am looking to do myself. I also played a lot of muds and still have a few I play now. I just got a Powerbook 180c up and booting. Next is doing this modem work and away I go.
That zip-tie job is a piece of art! Not sure whether it helps with looking any less suspicious though. ;)
I managed to get my Powerbook 170 "online" 15 years ago, by configuring internet connection sharing on Windows XP and having the Powerbook dial into the PC via PPP. It was a pain to get everything set up, but at least I managed to get it to work briefly loaded google.com on ancient versions of the Wannabe and iCab browsers. As far as I remember, I didn't get the PPP working on my Mac Plus. That modem bridge sure sounds ten times better than that mess!
Haha amazing
Neat! That could be useful for a retro computer but with Wi-Fi. Long live to the macs!!
Awesome video, I haven't tried to play any terminal games using my modem, I'll have to check it out!
Can you tell me how you connected the modem to your mac plus? I have an SE 30 I'd like to hook up. Where did you buy a cable to convert from mini 8 to db9, I couldn't find any with the right gender.
I wound up splicing a Mac cable and a standard serial cable using the fourth diagram here: macgui.com/upload/gallery/f_0/user_2/regular/upload_4705.png
@@ActionRetro I see now @3:21, this is great! Thanks for documenting all of this. I was looking into this last week so this is great timing.
I would like to offer these macs as an optional addon if I can find them in bulk for a good price.
But I see now I shouldn't assume they will work. I'll have to get my hands on a cable like the one you showed and check the pins to see what could be wrong.
I wonder if you tried the multimeter step yourself on the official cable with the gender changer if you would spot a difference between it and the one you hand made.
@23:45 genius!
@@TheOldNet Hi there TheOldNet,
Was wondering if you've since come up with a fix for this? I have a Mac Plus I would love to get hooked online using the WIFI Modem. If so, I'm one step closer to building my dream setup. Only 36 years late to the party but at least I'm here. 😆
Neat device. Just ordered one after watching your video. I recently built an IDEFile for a Lisa and found that the pin outs for serial did not align with a normal IDC ribbon cable connector. I had to wire up my own cable too.
I remember connecting to a VAX system through a 300 baud modem, then later a 1200 baud one. Painful, just for text! It wasn't until I got a 9600 bps connection that the text scrolled by at a rate faster than I could read it. MUDs weren't much fun before this! :)
Thanks for this video! I’ve purchased parts to make something similar with a PiZero, but now I ordered this instead.
Amazing. I was thrilled just to plug a USB ball mouse into my phone the other day. ;D
you deserve way more subs
That old 540c has a beautiful screen
You could paint the box a dark grey or even better, an excellent beige .
On the *inside* so (no matter how bad a botched paint job you do), it'll look proper on the outside.
Bloody brilliant. Great work!
Neat antenna solution. Very steampunk.
Have you tried SSHing into anything from that setup? We're close to the same age, but the BBS/MUD stuff is not something I messed with back in the day. Still cool stuff!
I've been dinking around with electronics for decades and sending serial commands to modems since using 2G/3G and today I finally learned that AT = Attention 😳
Good vid, I found one called WiFi64 on Github, it was basically the same thing as yours, running on an esp-01, but intended for a Commodore 64 (which I don't have) I connected it to a TTL to RS232 converter pcb, and put the whole thing in an old translucent modem case.
This I use on my old TRS-80 model 1. Good fun.
I'll have to try some of those sites you mentioned.
I've been looking for a way to use one of these WiFi modems to connect to a NAS so I can save all my old TRS software where a modern PC can access and share it.
I wonder if the firmware on that device could be expanded to "emulate" PPP or SLIP, so you can get online.
TheOldNet ss an ESP8266 board. I found a SLIP on github martin-ger/esp_slip_router Looks like SLIP with static IP.
This reminds me a bit of the "Mobile Desktop" prank by Improv Everywhere, where they took old desktop computers into Starbucks. Nice video, I didn't know MUDs were still around.
I'd like to see something like this for PowerPC Macs from 1998-2006 whereby you could have an 802.11N slot into the AirPort Extreme or Original Port.
Nice DIY stand!
I have fell in love with this channel
Did you tone out the Apple adapter? It's possible that one or the other is a null modem cable, which while identical in appearance has a different pinout than a serial cable.
Also, if you want to get an even easier CF solution, you could use a PC Card to CF adapter.
For computers with a built in RJ11 modem I have an RPI set up running dreampi to connect to the internet.
But for my older stuff I really ought to get something like this.
I spent a lot of time with a MacPlus and a metal 2400bps modem playing TW2002 and LORD.
1 annoyed guy from Starbucks downvoted this video :D
🤣
@@ActionRetro frick those other 7 sadists
Man does he love his powerbooks
how about using ADB (or on PC: the PS/2 / DIN) Port to power the WiFi Modem?
The original Mac 128K, 512K, and 512Ke have the RS-232 port, so you could plug that wifi modem directly into it.
nope, the macs started with rs422
I just got a Macintosh classic before watching this video
this is the time of the revolution
cooking the next step
converting devices to wi-fi
minding the gap since 1997 (97...97....97)
THIS IS THE TIME OF. THE REVOLUTION
BRINGING IT. IN THE TIME OF. OF FEELING IT
IN MY MIND. YES, OH FEELING IT
IN THE
Awesome! Thanks.
Hmm, a GeoPort should have 5V supply… although from what I've read only 350mA, when the docs mentions 1A requirement… I doubt it actually needs it though. Would be worth investigating, the 350mA is from the PSU budget but depending on the machine it's probably more. Possibly even another version could have an integrated MiniDin.
I say 1 amp in the docs because of the tech support I've had to do in the past when people use cheap power supplies. The modem only draws around 180ma at peak. So hooking it up to a 350ma supply should be fine. If there is underpower issues you'll see the modem output text indicating a soft reset in the terminal.
@@TheOldNet Ok so it should be possible to have a 9pin miniDin onboard, cool. speaking of boards, why do you have 3? is the DB9 one an existing breakout board or is it some physical issue?
@@francoisrevol7926 The reason for 3 boards is because of simplicity and cost. This modem is based off a popular project that's been in the wild for quite some time. It's a NodeMCU married to an RS232 to TTL adapter. Generally you will see this project done with a nest of wires between the two boards. People typically assemble the modem in a T formation which means there will be ugly wiring along the bottom. This is totally fine if you want to make one yourself but not really appropriate as something to sell with pride.
I wanted to come up with a design that hides the wiring and looks a little more sleek. So I spent many hours doing experiments and eventually came up with this stacked design. Some months later I learned how to make PCBs and I had a company manufacture some for me. This is the board in the middle. I'm quite proud of it. No wires, a smaller foot print and the power comes out the back instead of the side.
I am working on an all in one design, I have a working prototype designed in KiCad already. There's a lot of surface mount components, such as capacitors which serve as charge pumps for the TTL chip. So what I need to do is find a manufacturer that can do pick and place surface mount for a reasonable price. I have some other features on this new modem which will make it special. I don't think I'll be releasing this until next year though.
@@TheOldNet ok I see, I guessed quite right then :-) Yeah putting SMD parts yourself can take some time and it's not as easier indeed.
Now thinking about it, the 9pin minidin for the geoport is non-standard, hard to find, and cables for it as well, since the Apple serial cables are only 8pins… it'd be simpler to have pads available on the board to solder wires directly for people wanting to attach a geoport cable to it. If you have some spare room on the board… that might also be useful for people using other non-standard serial ports.
The keyboard on that PowerBook 165 looks heavenly, why can't we have keyboard keys like that on everyday laptops now?
Can you still get PCMCIA wifi cards? But it seems PowerBook didn't have expansion slots until the 500s and the 1400?
That face when the BBS you logged into back in the 90's in high school is featured on a youtube channel in 2021... O_o
Amazing
I'd love to see some web browsers working with it!
HE HAS THE REAL MINI GENDER CHANGER OMG
Apple Mac to ImageWriter I cable with DB-25 to DB-9 converter is what I use on my Mac SE/30
4:49 did you build the RS422 to RS422 cable or the RS422 to RS232 adapter in the pinout guide?
I used a PB 165 through much of college. Wish I still had it. Not to use, but just to have around.
LOL. I freaking love your Chan. But dude, that's the sh@t I had to put up with every time I wanted to get online to a good BBS back in the day. Enjoy your old Macs. Thats when they were good. They're just another computer now a days. Oh yeah, the Pismo absolutely was the best Mac ever conceived. Nuff Said.
Lol, yes much less suspicious and more respectable with the zip tie.
If this thing had an Irda header it would be perfect.
So I decided to skip the whole "phone" portion of the setup and wire a USB cable to the ADB port on the back of my PowerBook 165. With that plus my rebuilt battery, I'm full on mobile with my PowerBook now. Good times
TLDR: It's probably OK to use that cable with a newer low power RS232 device, but don't plug it into anything old, or anything industrial.
I know it's an old video but it just popped up on me. Most people don't understand that RS232 is a protocol and electrical standard while RS422 is just an electrical standard. The reason the cable adapter you bought does not work is because it's just a connector conversion, not an actual "RS422-RS232 adapter", like the 3rd diagram in your link. The DB9 connector also has an RS422 standard pinout, just like a DB25 has an RS232 Standard pinout. Your purchased adapter probably would have worked for a DIN8 RS422 to DB9 RS422 connection. The cable you made is actually cheating, RS422 is a differential signal and the cable you made is pulling the RX+ to ground and using RX- as a single ended receiver. It obviously can work, and it's probably OK because the RS232 chip on the little board you're using is a MAX3232, which is a low voltage RS232 chip. RS422 has a 0 to +5v swing while the original RS232 signal was -15v to +15v, so plugging that cable into an old device can blow the RS422 receiver in the Mac. The max3232 typically outputs -5v to +5v depending on how the charge pump caps are set and that's just above the minimum swing for RS232. To actually be on the safe side, you need to use an active RS232 to RS422 converter that actually does the voltage level conversion
It's kind of chinsey that they make a custom PCB and then attach a $3 Amazon RS232 BOB to it when they could have just stuck the chip on the PCB, then offered another PCB with an RS422 transceiver chip on it. Converting UART from the ESP to RS232 then finagling it to RS422 isn't all that awesome IMO.
cool build
Lol the powerbook 1400, i first connected mine to the internet with a Dell TrueMobile 1150 PCMCIA card.
I've still got a Phone Modem with the cups to put the handset into. I used to love dialing into BBS systems. I had massive phone bills back then. I don't miss long distance charges. I wonder if FidoNet is still running?
Could you use PPP with this modem? Are TCP and PPP implementations available for any system 7 version? System 6? I seem to have forgotten most of what I know about System 7 internet access :( ... I guess the modem itself would have to implement the ppp server, or forward to a relay on the internet that did.
I am working on the next version of this modem which will have a PPP server on board. Plug and play dial up networking is the goal. I don't expect to release this next version until 2022, in the mean time version 3 is a great device that's priced to move!
system 7 has some sort of internet access, I recall being sent a 68k virtual machine that automatically logged into their AOL account.
@@DoctorWhom yep I had a Mac SE very similar to the Mac Plus running System 7.5 VERY SLOWLY with the SLIP/PPP stuff. There was also a very ancient version of America Online that would work on the Mac Plus era stuff, only painfully slow.
The oldest laptop I've got is a Toshiba Libretto 50CT. All I'd need to get it online is a PCMCIA WiFi card... or a dongle for my 3com ethernet card
Doesn't the PS2 connector supply 5V power? You could technically connect to that instead of USB power and have a proper powered-by-the-laptop, wifi-capable vintage dos/windows laptop.
Obviously doesn't work with vintage macs though.
@Jack Carlquist Yes, that’s why I said at the end: “Obviously doesn’t work with vintage macs though”
Would be neat if you could couple it with a coin battery so you could just swap the battery when it runs out. All in one case.
Anazing to think your channel popped up a year ago!
you need a null-modem adapter for the apple dongle
Any way to get PPP running and browse TheOldNet or download from Macintosh Gardens?
You cannot do PPP with it but that is important to me. I will make a device that can do this, I just can't say when.
Thats pretty cool.
I wish I had something like this 10 years ago lol
But, all my retro gear is long gone now lol
Emulators.
I don't have laptops, so my old PCs have ethernet cards and I use a wifi to ethernet bridge that is USB powered to connect them wirelessly to my network.
michael mjd did a video about theoldnet
nice I use to us bs on c64 back in early 90s