iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

By popular request, bouncing DVD logo mode

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icm.museum may have a CM-2 but they haven’t been able get their hands on a HyperQuadra yet

Me standing next to the “friend sized” CM-2 computer, 8 black cubes about 2 feet in size each, with red blinkenlight LEDs on the front face of each cube.

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Dimming the screen for the screen saver on #PicoIDE was boring so I added flying toasters as an option. Sprites borrowed from the PicoPOST project

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I loooove this coffee mug I got at @connections.museum

A coffe mug with the text “connections museum seattle” sideways in Helvetica with tight tracking and an illustration of tall buildings with 5ESS “V5” logos on them

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And one more very nice view: from the train platform on the way to the airport. What a great trip! I hope to visit again!

A nice view from an elevated train platform, looking out on lovely hills an trees and water.

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The next morning on the way to the airport I stopped at Re-PC’s Kent location. They had a lot of great stuff, old and new! Prices a bit high but relatively fair.

A table with several iMacs and a CRT Studio Display. Lots of other computers are around too, like some TI 99/4as in the background

An Atari ST 520 connected to a CRT. It’s not on yet but they turned it on later, and it was working great.

An AT clone case on a shelf. The price tag says “ATX style case” and it’s $100. Not actually ATX, and it’s not in great shape, but ok.

I then went back the the VCF event and got up to some Unix shenanigans on @adriansdigitalbasement.com’s Plexus P/20 and after the show watched a Commodore SX-64 get wired on in the hotel lobby.

A terminal connected to the Plexus. I and another person are using the “banner” and “wall” commands to annoy each other. The last two exchanges are “nice hat” and “*tips hat*”

A beat up looking Commodore 64 with two space bars for some reason. The second one is above the keyboard.

An opened up SX-64 on a high top table in a hotel lobby. Aaron is working on it while Mike looks on.

I then went up to Snoqualmie Falls, which was also ridiculously pretty. If it looks familiar, it’s the site of the fictional Great Northern Hotel from Twin Peaks

Selfie of me in front of the falls, which are flowing pretty well. A lodge that looks like it’d be great to stay in is perched on the cliff next to the falls.

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I also went to Ada’s Technical Books, Pino Gorilla Games, and drove around some neighborhoods with ridiculously pretty views (it was sunny with clear skies the whole time I was there, BTW)

Inside the bookstore with a fireplace flanked by tall bookshelves, filled with books. A portrait of Ada Lovelace is above the fireplace

A Neo Geo in a display case, price marked at $600. A Turbografx 16 is next to it at $250

A view out onto part of the sound, with houses and trees and boats and a beautiful blue sky.

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The next day I took a break from the VCF show and visited the Connections Museum. What a place!! I’ve watched their YouTube channel for a while.

A relatively open area of the Connections Museum, which is in a phone company central office. Racks of equipment go all the way up to the ceiling. Sarah, the head engineer, is high up on a ladder fixing something. The ladder can glide back and forth which was really cool.

More very tall racks, this time with a Panel Machine Switching System which dates back to 1915!

Someone using a 1960s era videophone. It has a black and white CRT in a relatively compact enclosure. The video quality was surprisingly good!

A Stowger switching system. Gray cylinders which hold the switches line the wall.

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Day one at the VCF event. It was crowded!

A room with a lot of people and old computers in it. In the foreground are several black and white terminals where people are logged into and playing a MUD running on a MicroVAX

One of the terminals - a Hazeltine 1500. This one is close to my heart as I used one to log into BBSes when I was grounded from the family computer. A friend helped me sneak it into my room.

An Apricot F1, a very compact computer with a green monochrome screen. It is very cool looking in my opinion - the computer is pretty small and the keyboard and trackball have a very futuristic look.

The ICM has a Thinking Machines CM-2!! And even more amazing stuff! And most of it is working in some fashion!

Me, who can hardly believe he’s touching a Connection Machine (the CM-2, from 1987). It’s a “friend sized” computer made of 8 cubes, all of which have matrixes of red LEDs, each one representing a processor in the machine

The control panel of the CM-2, with buttons and knobs cryptically labeled as α, δ, β, γ

Stephen Jones operating the front panel switches of a DEC PDP-7, a computer about the size of two refrigerators. The panels are open, revealing the wire wrapped interior. Adrian Black is standing next to it.

The screen and keyboard of a Symbolics XL400 Lisp machine. It’s a very large and high resolution screen for its time. It’s showing the startup screen for the Symbolics Genera 8.3 operating system. The keyboard has fun keys like square, circle, and triangle

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Ian Scott @polpo.org · 26/04/2026

I went to Seattle for #vcfpnw last weekend and it was pretty great! A thread of pictures (read the alt text for extra commentary detail, btw!), starting with a visit to the Interim Computer Museum

A small warehouse like area with a cream/brown Digital Decsystem 20 with lots of stickers. Next to it is a blue DEC PDP-10.

A Seattle Computer Products Gazelle, a “deskside” minicomputer. It’s pretty big compared to the IBM 5150 on the desk next to it. This is one of the computers SCP originally wrote 86-DOS for, which became MS-DOS

The same warehouse environment, with the PDP-10’s doors open. Lots of people are standing around. Shelves with even more vintage computers, terminals, and other parts are stacked high on the room’s walls

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I’ve been playing maptap.gg recently and my proudest moment so far is nailing the location of McMurdo Station in Antarctica

Antarctica on a 3D globe, with a marker dot saying McMurdo Station - distance 67 km - score 99 (x3) - Impressive!

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Ian Scott @polpo.org · 24/04/2026

Picked up shiny #PicoIDE stickers at Sticker Giant!

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Ian Scott @polpo.org · 24/04/2026

I don't have POWER-SPACE but I do have SPACE-O-MATIC®

A very brown Smith Corona typewriter with nice oval-ish shaped keys. The space bar says SPACE-O-MATIC® on the front of it

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Ian Scott @polpo.org · 23/04/2026

Nice. I also did the 3-drive Greaseweazle setup for the same reason! Used a 3.5"/5.25" combo drive to save some height in the stack, though.

A 3D printed enclosure with 3 floppy drives, two of which are in a single drive bay sapce.

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Ian Scott @polpo.org · 20/04/2026

Took an absolutely lovely road trip today to pick up a rare Roland CM-32L that was on Marketplace. I was stretching the range of my 1st gen Leaf but taking the back roads meant prettier views and fewer kWh

A black Nissan Leaf parked in front of an old building, maybe a railroad depot? It says Parker Lake on it. The skies are blue and some scrubby hills are in the background

A yellowed Roland CM-32L midi module sitting on top of a black Roland MT-32. Both are the size of large books

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Ian Scott @polpo.org · 13/04/2026

Thanks for reminding me of this, as it turns out I can't use the ADPCM code in DOSbox or 86Box as-is because they're GPL, so I used your excellent comments as a reference. Seems to work great!

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Ian Scott @polpo.org · 02/04/2026

The PicoGUS in SB16 mode works in Windows XP

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Ian Scott @polpo.org · 01/04/2026

Last night I installed Windows XP from a PicoIDE so I could test the PicoGUS’s new Sound Blaster 16 support (which should be releasing imminently) in XP

My semi cluttered workbench with a motherboard with the PicoIDE device connected to it with a ribbon cable, and a red PicoGUS board plugged into an ISA slot

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Ian Scott @polpo.org · 28/03/2026

@bigbadbiologist.bsky.social is currently streaming a board repair through a Power Macintosh 6200 and period-appropriate cameras. Love it! www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQW3...

A very 90s-tastic video capture setup showing a PCB being worked on and a grainy black and white video of BigBadBiologist working in the corner.

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Ian Scott @polpo.org · 26/03/2026

You're remaking the Sega power strip, aren't you