iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 16/10/2026

Today I officially became a #miller apprentice! I'll be able to mill! With wind! And be a small part of keeping the Netherlands water under control. Yay!

A picture of the Dutch windmill "De Dog".

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

Ik heb er inderdaad wel altijd een tering hekel aan als er een getal op mijn scherm verschijnt.

A picture of a page from a Dutch computer book. It reads:

**8.3.2 Probleem: Er verschijnt een getal op het scherm**

*Verklaring.* Het getal wordt meestal voorafgegaan door twee korte piepen. Dit getal is een POST-foutcode. Het is ondoenlijk hier alle mogelijke foutcodes van alle bestaande BIOS'en af te drukken. Dit zou een boek op zich vergen. Tabel 1 geeft een kort overzicht van de meest voorkomende foutmeldingen voor het populaire Phoenix 80286 BIOS. Op die manier hebt u toch een idee van wat u precies kunt tegenkomen. Elke BIOS-maker gebruikt zijn eigen POST-codes. Normaal vindt u deze codes in de handleiding van uw computer. U kunt ook een beroep doen op het programma Post Code Master (zie eerder).

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 01/09/2026

Wow, I just got a #videocd and what do you know, there's this thing called "DVD" now?! Ripped from the VCD of "Cruel Intentions" I got at the thift store. #retro

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 19/08/2026

If you haven't played the Ur-Quan masters (star control 2) you absolutely should! It's a somewhat strange combination of adventure game, RPG, and space sim. I cannot recommend it enough! I have not played any of the sequels, as far as I'm aware they were […] [Original post on mastodon.tmm.cx]

A screenshot of the Ur-Quan masters title screen.

In the center is an alien with multiple eyes menacingly hovering over a pile of skulls.

It's a bit tacky. Yet effective in conveying that this alien is, perhaps, not a friendo.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 08/08/2026

Answer my riddles three if you want to get in the building. #computers #bios

A picture of a building entrance system. The screen is showing a BIOS setup screen for a PC.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 09/07/2026

This is what everyone's mastodon permissions look like on #firefox, right? #gopher #retrocomputing

A screenshot of a Firefox permissions tab for "mastodon.tmm.cx" on my local system.

Permissions for mastodon.tmm.cx
* Autoplay: Block Audio
* Send notifications: Allowed
* Open applications
- gopher:// links: Allowed

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 05/07/2026

They really knew how to do packaging in the 80s. #retrocomputing

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 03/07/2026

Don't you hate the cleaning sprays that only clean vertices?

A label of a bottle of cleaning spray. It reads

Hygienic.cleaning spray
Bio alcohol 69%

For surface cleaning
Fresh floral fragrance

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 17/06/2026

You know, I never thought I'd cram so much hardware in my O11 Dynamic XL that it would feel cramped.. But here we are. #computers #pcbuilds

A very large computer case entirely filled up with cards.. The giant cpu fan as well.as two oversized video cards dominate the scene.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2026

@Migueldeicaza I don't know what you're talking about I'm sure.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 11/06/2026

Remember when that was a good thing?

A close up of a CD player, it proudly announces "computer controlled mechanism".

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 07/06/2026

Nobody wants these old-fashioned mice, and yes, please tell me EVERY TIME I BOOT MY COMPUTER. I might forget how much fun my new touchpad is! #retrocomputing

A picture of an old computer screen.. It says "your computer is equipped with a synaptics touchpad. Your touchpad has many more features and capabilities than an old-fashioned mouse.

Please take a moment to learn about the useful, and fun, features of your touchpad.

There's a checkbox to show this at each startup

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 07/06/2026

For anyone who thinks I'm exaggerating... 30 more minutes! #retrocomputing

A picture of the .net installation still going.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 07/06/2026

This #fujitsu #siemens LiteLine laptop followed me home from the #thriftstore today! A very competent little 98 machine, with a pretty much entirely SB compatible sound chip, nice 800x600 LCD, 5GB harddisk, CD-ROM, and floppy drive. An AMD k6-2 450, and 32MB […] [Original post on mastodon.tmm.cx]

A picture of a Fujitsu Siemens Liteline laptop. It is black. It looks like an old laptop, I don't know what to tell you.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 07/06/2026

You know? I just didn't remember how long this took. It's been an hour now... #retrocomputing

A photo of a windows 98 laptop installing .net framework 2.0

CPU is pegged at 100%

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 06/06/2026

The Trident CyberBlade display drivers take this very seriously. #retrocomputing

A photo of a Fujitsu LiteLine installing Trident CyberBlade drivers.

In big red letters it says "DO NOT INTERRUPT!"

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 23/05/2026

I've been making increasingly smaller #origami boats. I feel that for the next step down I'm going to need tools... (monster can for scale)

A picture of a paper boat sitting a tweezer

A picture of a tiny paper boat, sitting on tweezers, sitting on a can of monster energy drink.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 22/05/2026

#adaptec were really ahead of their time when they put RGB on their #SCSI controllers in 1998! Well, "R", but it was 1998. It fits PERFECTLY with my threadripper workstation! #retrocomputing

A picture of an Adaptec AHA-2940UW on a PCI to PCIe bridge standing in front of a modern computer. The SCSI controller has a red activity LED. The modern computer has a lot of red LEDs inside of it as well.

A wide shot of someone's desk. The desk is full of computer stuff, there's several tape drives as well as a hard drive. There's a SCSI card connected to a modern computer.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 10/05/2026

Starting with a piece of A4 paper, cutting it in half each time, I can make 9 little boats!

A picture of 9 paper boats. Each progressively smaller.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 30/04/2026

Hello fellow #laserdisk and/or #electronics nerds. I bought a #pioneer CLD-2700 today for scrap pricing. It does not turn on, at all. No standby light, no nothing. I found a suspiciously rusty looking screw in the psu area that looks suspiciously like […] [Original post on mastodon.tmm.cx]

A picture of a partially disassembled laserdisk player

A close up of a power supply with a rusty screw in the center

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 30/04/2026

Whatever will they think of next! 120 MEGA byte #floppies That is like almost TEN copies of doom! #retrocomputing

A picture of two maxell LS-120 "super disk" floppies.

The packaging is kinda gold colored.

It prominently says "120 MB Windows/DOS Formatted" on the front.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 29/04/2026

The instructions for my adhd meds have one fun extra function! Is this #origami? 😅

A picture of 8 origami boats, each folded from a piece of paper half the size as before.

Next to the third smallest boat is a pistachio shell, it is roughly the same size. The two smallest boats are significantly smaller.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 27/04/2026

It's always best to, when you create debug messages, you show them to your users. That way your users don't have to GUESS whether you give a shit or not! #ebay #ux #computerswereamistake

A screenshot of an email by ebay, at the top there's a yellow box which reads:

WARNING: Maximum recommended length of data.title.text is 55 characters (inserted 58)

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 25/04/2026

If you've ever wondered how they mount those motion sensor paper towel dispensers without visible wiring. Well, they are battery powered! #themoreyouknow

A picture of a wall mounted automatic paper towel dispenser. A tray holding what appears to be 4 D cell batteries.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 15/04/2026

@CursedSilicon I bought the sun one, and one more... I couldn't help myself

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 13/04/2026

I just want to come out that in 2026 I still don't recommend Multitasking. Or Windows NT #retrocomputing

A picture of a PC game box for "Flaker 2.0", the system requirements are as follows (I kept the formatting as on the box. I hope that was the right decision)

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
* Pentium 200 MHz IBM PC or compatible * 32 MB of RAM
Windows® 95 or 98 - NOTE: This is a Windows 95 game and cannot be played on Windows® NT systems. Multitasking is not recommended when playing Flanker 2.0
* An uncompressed hard drive with at least 600MB free * 8 X CD-ROM drive or faster
* A DirectX compliant 3D accelerated video card with 4MB of memory and a Colour
SVGA Monitor * A 100% Microsoft (or Logitech) compatible mouse
* Microsoft mouse driver version 9.00 or higher or Logitech mouse driver version 6.24
or higher * 100% DirectX Compatible Sound Card

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 11/04/2026

The perfect #SSD doesn't exi.... (They probably spent more on the printing than the flash controller) #computing #hardware #packaging

A picture of SSD packaging.

It is a black cardboard box, with gold lettering.

XrayDisk

Solid State Drive

Nothing can stop better

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 04/04/2026

Is this one of those "Soundblaster or 100% compatible" devices the cool kids are always talking about? #retrocomputing #soundblaster

A picture of a USB DAC that is branded as "Creative Sound Blaster"

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 28/03/2026

A true fedi milestone! I'm so happy y'all like my nonsense! ♥️

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 26/03/2026

Does this ever happen to you? You dig through some boxes and you find out that one of your PCI sound blasters was pregnant and now you have two? You can see the family resemblance, she has her mom's SoC but her dad's passives. #retrocomputing #soundblaster

A picture of two PCI creative sound blasters.

They are almost the same.

But not exactly

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 18/03/2026

Oh wow! Real VGA™ cables! For Video & Digital Graphics! I wonder how they plan to do the digital part... 🤔 #retrocomputing #VGA

A short VGA cable in a bag.

The bag has in big letters VGA™ Video Graphics Array printed on it

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 18/03/2026

I was today years old when I realized why it is called a hard disk "Cylinder" in CHS addressing. The heads are stacked on top of each other, and each trace out a circle on the spinning platter, this is called a track. (I did know this) If you stack up these […] [Original post on mastodon.tmm.cx]

A schematic of a harddisk. It shows 3 platters and 3 heads. And has explanations on each part.

It shows that a cylinder is made up out of the 3 tracks on each of the platters, stacked on top of each other.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 17/03/2026

MPU-401AT + MT-32 playing #sierra's Thexder II (badly) Testing my capture setup and video editing rig. I'm pretty happy with it! #retrocomputing #rolandMt32 #mpu401

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 13/03/2026

Foiled by pokemon again. Damn you team rocket. #retrocomputing #sun

A screenshot of "marktplaats", Dutch craigslist.

It shows a search query for "Sun Ultra", the results are all Pokemon cards.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 11/03/2026

I bought a pile of boards from someone online thinking I was doing THEM a favor by overpaying a bit. The pictures were all terrible, I thought this was one of those dime-a-dozen PC Radio cards... #retrocomputing

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 11/03/2026

It just occurred to me that 6 months before #windows95 came out, you could buy a brand spanning new #Commodore64. Possibly in the same store you bought your PENTIUM 90?! #retrocomputing

A picture of a commodore 64

Grabbed from wikipedia

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 10/03/2026

The exact moment software went downhill was when #mozilla changed away from this. #retrocomputing

A screenshot of the Mozilla 1.0.4 splash screen., It is an angry lizard spewing flames, under a flaming text "Mozilla".

The screenshoot is from an SGI 4DWM desktop.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 07/03/2026

Don't be like this person. A quick little insult right before blocking. Be better than this person.

> You don't get to make a statement without any qualifiers about your experience

I see... I assumed the problem was some misunderstanding on your part, but it's just you are not very bright.

No worries, have a nice day anyway.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 06/03/2026

Finally got a memory upgrade for my #hp #b2000 #hpux machine. I'll be rocking 2 whole gigabibbles. Is HP shipping out memory modules or dinner plates?! #retrocomputing

A picture of a memory module in between a monster energy can and a banana. The memory module has about the same footprint as the can.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 26/02/2026

Reading the #linux "make menuconfig" is a real treasure trove of old Linux lore sometimes. I think this is my favorite one today. #opensource

CONFIG_COMPAT_VDSO:

Certain buggy versions of glibc will crash if they are
presented with a 32-bit vDSO that is not mapped at the address
indicated in its segment table.

The bug was introduced by f866314b89d56845f55e6f365e18b31ec978ec3a
and fixed by 3b3ddb4f7db98ec9e912ccdf54d35df4aa30e04a and
49ad572a70b8aeb91e57483a11dd1b77e31c4468. Glibc 2.3.3 is
the only released version with the bug, but OpenSUSE 9
contains a buggy "glibc 2.3.2".

The symptom of the bug is that everything crashes on startup, saying:
dl_main: Assertion `(void *) ph->p_vaddr == _rtld_local._dl_sysinfo_dso' failed!

Saying Y here changes the default value of the vdso32 boot
option from 1 to 0, which turns off the 32-bit vDSO entirely.
This works around the glibc bug but hurts performance.

If unsure, say N: if you are compiling your own kernel, you
are unlikely to be using a buggy version of glibc.

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 22/02/2026

I went #thrifting in Austin today. Ran across this beauty. Nobody at Kensington saw the somewhat fatal flaw in this design, ey? #retrocomputing #cdrom

A CD Jewel case, black and purple, with a picture of a person placing a cd in a cdrom drive

Kensington
CD Drive Cleaner
with On-Disk Voice Instructions

A picture of a purple and black cdrom which reads:

Kensington CD Drive Cleaner
* Cleans CD Drives and CD Audio Players
* Insert Arrow Forward
* On-Disc Voice Instructions

A picture of the backside of a cd. It has a little brush on it

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 20/02/2026

A maybe slightly more reasonable thing to be doing on my #sgi #indigo2 #retrocomputing #unix #simcity

A screenshot of an IRIX desktop playing SimCity

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 20/02/2026

I regret to inform all of you I am back on my bullshit. #retrocomputing #unix #irix

A screenshot of an IRIX desktop with a copy of SoftWindows 95.

Microsoft Bob is running in the Windows session, with a "Great greetings" card that reads "I would say I am sorry but we both know I'd be lying"

It is pretty sweet

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 19/02/2026

Oh no... Maybe I should have heeded the warning that for out of support systems the new kernel might cause problems. #irix #unix #retrocomputing

An IRIX kernel crash

PANIC: KERNEL FAULT
PC: 0x88298918 ep: Oxffffc3as8
EXC code: 16, ‘Read Address Error ’
Bad addr: 0x37, cause: 0x10<CE=-2010152216

Dumping to /hw/node/io/gio/hpc/scsi_ctir/@/target/2/1un/@/disk/partition/1/block at block 0, space: 0x18000 pages
Dumping low memory...
Dumping static kernel pages.......
Dumping backtrace pages...
Dumping dynamic kernel pages.....
Dumping remaining in-use pages......
Dumping free pages..................
Flushing out buffers...
Updating dump header...
Dump complete.
[Press reset to restart the machine.]||

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HP van Braam @hp.tmm.cx.ap.brid.gy · 19/02/2026

#IRIX is just addicted to requickstarting ELF files... But now from within IRIS #retrocomputing #unix

An IRIS dialog showing "Requickstarting ELF files"

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