iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 07/04/2026

Working on some ANSI art drawing software for CGA/MDA, thought it would be appropriate to give the computer I've nicknamed 'Protogen' a #protogen face!

Image of a Compaq Portable with a green monochrome CRT displaying an ANSI art rendition of a protogen face looking directly at the viewer.

511529

Reposted by The BombSquad

Frixuu @frixuu.fyi · 04/04/2026

You've been permanently banned in CMake by Valve Anti-Cheat.

111622

Reposted by The BombSquad

Lliy @bokieiey.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

i fucking hate windows dev

732558

Reposted by The BombSquad

Rai ‼️ @retroriley.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

This fish finder is actually a full Z80 computer with ram and rom and a crt character generator

0133

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 21/03/2026

Finally 3D printed a programmer's key for my Macintosh Plus.. I'm a real programmer now, supposedly! A third shade of beige for my mismatched Plus - platinum keyboard, beige chassis, and now a bone white PLA switch... #MARCHintosh

Image of a Macintosh Plus with a 3D printed 'programmer's key' inserted into the side. The Macintosh Plus is beige, the keyboard is a more modern platinum color, and the switch is somewhere in-between the two colors.

282

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 20/03/2026

There's a fox trapped inside my Macintosh Plus!

Image of the Macintosh Plus logic board, showing a FOX-branded crystal oscillator.

1171

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 18/03/2026

Has anyone made 3D models of *all* of the gears in the Macintosh floppy disk eject mechanism? I have a 3D printed replacement for the one that *usually* breaks, but not the one that I've removed here... which is the one that broke in another 800k drive I have! #retrocomputing

120

Reposted by The BombSquad

nivs @nivrig.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

04825

Reposted by The BombSquad

Retro Theory @retrotheory.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Sometimes my Macs just wont Appletalk to each other. SE/30 gets quite cross with its older sibling. #MARCHintosh

1143

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 13/03/2026

Eternally surprised by how far miniaturization has come... I guess we can fit USB-C ports, charging circuitry, a status LED, and a lithium ion battery inside a AA battery now. And it's charged by this absolute hydra of a USB-C cable... all with a cute fennec mascot??

Four AA batteries connected to a single USB cable that splits off into 4 USB-C connectors, next to its packaging with a cute large-eared fennec on it wearing green and white clothes.

130

Reposted by The BombSquad

Twilight @twilightpb.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Billboard character textures are now live in browser monkey ball. You can find the template download and upload your own in the multiplayer settings. Huge thank you to @bombsquad.dev for this awesome PR!

8491153

Reposted by The BombSquad

Matthew Sparby @cloudscout.com · 08/03/2026

This is some serious 80s productivity right here. #Marchintosh

Apple Macintosh Plus with a Radius Full Page Monitor.

3587

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 05/03/2026

The Hardcard 20 was made with high quality precision-engineered parts and topped off with 'rubber bumper that turns to goo after 20 years and also turns blue for some reason'

The Hardcard 20 opened up, showing a rubber bumper that is disintegrating, turning sticky and blue for some resaon

120

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 05/03/2026

I have nearly a 0% success rate at finding vintage computers or floppy disks or anything of the sort at thrift stores, but weirdly a 100% success rate at finding things like sealed and filled Coca Cola bottles from 50 years ago. Wish my luck was a bit better

010

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 04/03/2026

20 minutes and multiple lacerations later, I've found that the strongest glue of all time is actually hiding underneath the lid of the Hardcard 20. No wonder so many people break the lids trying to get them off. Bonus dragon

130

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 28/02/2026

The Hardcard 20 when the Harder Card 40 walks in #retrocomputing

Two card-based hard drives, the Hardcard Plus 20, and a TR41 hard drive from a PC-98.

021

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 26/02/2026

Hey, that's me! Thanks so much!

030

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 25/02/2026

Always found it a bit strange that the floppy drive on my desk has the logo of a company that I've always associated with cars all over it! They even made some of the 7400-series logic chips on it! Guess Mitsubishi was a bit like Yamaha and did a little bit of everything.

020

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 23/02/2026

Kept noticing my Compaq Portable's still showed an afterimage in a pitch black room... decided to take a long exposure photograph of it an hour after turning it off, and was really impressed by how much was still readable! You can even see the speed of the serial port I was using! #retrocomputing

A long exposure photograph of a Compaq Portable's CRT, taken an hour after the computer was shut off. A large assortment of mostly unreadable text is still visible, along with the shapes of the UI of Turbo Pascal and LapLink. On the right, the text "COM1 (115,200)" is clearly visible in two places. The illuminated areas are mostly concentrated towards the left.

182

Reposted by The BombSquad

castpixel ⚧️⚢ @castpixel.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Due to popular demand, here is a demonstration video of how to make 3D printed PCBs using just vector drawing software, a 3D printed (PETG filament for mine) and self-adhesive copper tape. Any questions, let me know!

34777294

Reposted by The BombSquad

hyphen @in.terl.ink · 11/06/2025

2024 09 10 Dorumon loves the FM Towns UX-20!

215631

Reposted by The BombSquad

Ken Shirriff @righto.com · 14/02/2026

In 1980, Intel released the 8087 floating-point chip, making math much faster. I'm reverse-engineering this chip, 46 years later. Most of its instructions are implemented in microcode, but some are implemented in hardware. Let's look at the circuitry that decodes instructions and decides what to do.

A die photo of the 8087 chip, with the main functional blocks labeled. The chip is a tan rectangle with complex patterns in dark brown. Many of the patterned regions are textured rectangles. One of the largest rectangles is the microcode ROM in the middle. The bottom half of the chip is the datapath, performing operations on floating-point numbers. The instruction decoding happens in the upper left. Around the edges of the chip, bond wires connect the chip to the 40 external pins, but the pins are not visible, just short segments of the bond wires.

213829

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 13/02/2026

Vim is actually quite a pleasant experience on an 8088 with 640k of RAM, especially with turbo enabled! The last version of Vim to support MS-DOS was 7.4, but an install of that version would take up nearly half of my 25 megabyte hard drive... so I'm using version 4.6 instead. #retrocomputing

A photograph of Vim 4.6 running on MS-DOS, on a 8088 computer. The 8088 computer has an amber CRT displaying the default .vimrc file.

1111

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 20/06/2025

I printed a new bottom shell for my SNES. Early models seem fairly prone to plastic degradation, especially the bottom half of the enclosure. It can become so brittle that even manipulating the screws causes breakage. I think I did a pretty good job color matching with airbrushing. #3dprinting

Picture of an SNES with a Super Mario World cartridge inserted. The bottom half of the SNES has been replaced with an identical 3D printed version. Paint has been applied to the bottom half to match the color to the top half.

050

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 30/01/2025

I wonder what the most recent C compiler that still runs on the 8086/8088 is. Apparently Open Watcom still exists and receives regular updates, but has a minimum requirement of an 80386, while capable of targetting the 8086/88. #retrocomputing #programming

101

Reposted by The BombSquad

Retro Computers @retrocomps.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

I could make a whole sub-bot based just on programming books with dragons on the cover. (Source.)

01058

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 25/01/2025

I've been teaching myself CAD lately, so I designed and 3D printed a proper enclosure for my Greaseweazle floppy disk archiving setup! #retrocomputing

150

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 17/01/2025

This luggable XT clone is a restoration project I've been working on. Still needs some retrobriting as the top of the case is heavily yellowed. My best guess is that this is DTK branded based on the BIOS & RTC card, but it lacks any brand markings on the case at all. #retrocomputer #retrocomputing

260

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 15/01/2025

'Reverse Screen' by Darin Adler from 1986 is an early example of what we call 'dark mode' today, inverting the entire screen - even the mouse. It really takes the eye strain out of working with a compact Mac in the dark! #retrocomputing #VintageApple

161

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 14/01/2025

While I'm not the original owner of my Compaq Portable, I do happen to have the original invoices. It was purchased from ComputerLand in 1986, an Illinois computer retailer franchise, for use in a grocery store's back office. Adjusted for inflation, it cost approximately $5,600! #retrocomputing

An invoice for a Compaq Portable. The invoice is dated May 1st, 1986. The unit cost of the Compaq Portable was $1,693.23, with the memory upgrade costing $138.24. The total cost with sales tax was $1,945.94. The personal information of the original owner and signatures were edited out of this image.

241

The BombSquad @bombsquad.dev · 13/01/2025

Hello, world! Not very used to posting on platforms like this, but I thought it would be nice to document interesting things that I find or little projects that I'm working on. Here's a 'Hello World' program I wrote to help familiarize myself with Turbo Pascal, running on my Compaq Portable!

1336