iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 13/07/2026

When you're a child in the 1980s, angry, and in possession of crayons, but don't yet know how to spell.

Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 14/04/2026

I guess Apple Orchard went to press later than Softalk. Because as far as I know, August 1984 was the last issue published of both magazines. Here's the editorial from Apple Orchard, Aug/Sep 1984, lamenting (and incredulous at) the loss of Softalk (and of Peelings, but less surprised by that).

The Shakeout Cometh. Apple Orchard 1984, Aug/Sep, Planting a Seed column.

Softalk is gone. Peelings is gone. And, contrary to rumor, Apple Orchard yet lives.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 08/04/2026

I'm pretty impressed by what Photoshop can do when processing a scanned book page that a prior owner has written all over. Good job that he wrote all over it in blue ink. But the writing is just... gone. Nice.

Side by side before and after of a book page scan, with blue pen writing all over it and with just the pen removed by Photoshop.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 27/01/2026

I don't remember ever seeing a SwyftCard ad. But even if I have, this one's kind of interesting because it's targeting elementary schoolers(' teachers). In Teaching & Computers April 1986.

"I put a SwyftCard in every Apple in my school because it makes using a computer actually easier than using a typewriter."

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 24/11/2025

JVC FlashPath MMC to floppy disk adapter, manual.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 24/11/2025

I have one of these, but for MMC cards (unsure if SD cards generally would work in it). Takes two coin batteries.

Flash Path floppy adapter for MMC cards, front

Flash Path floppy adapter for MMC cards, back, showing two spots for coin adapters, and a slot for the MMC card.

Flash Path floppy adapter for MMC cards, angle, revealing how much like a floppy disk it is.

Flash Path floppy adapter for MMC cards, back with one coin battery door open.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 22/10/2025

Also Bob from North Easton thinks it is good. archive.org/details/pcte...

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 22/10/2025

Summit placed an ad within that Creative Computing review, quoting the author of review.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 22/10/2025

\o/ I have finally reconnected with Summit Software's BetterBASIC, a variant of BASIC for the IBM PC that I—but apparently nobody else—used extensively in the mid-1980s. For years and years it has been nowhere on eBay. Until it was. And now it's here.

BetterBASIC binder out of its slipcover.

BetterBASIC disks (backup copies, but, still, disks).

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 25/05/2025

It's pretty interesting. Guidance on ads and how to make effective ones. Generally a program where Apple shares the advertising cost for local advertisers. Comes with handy clip art too.

Clip art featuring Macs and Macintrosh XLs

Clip art of Macintosh accessories (bag, printers, drives, keypads, mice)

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 06/05/2025

I made a 1-line snake game in Applesoft. IJKM controls. 1GR:S=0:COLOR=1:FORY=0TO38:X=RND(1)*39:PLOTX,Y:NEXT:COLOR=9:HLIN0,YAT0:HLIN0,YATY:VLIN0,YAT0:VLIN0,YATY:FORZ=0TO1:COLOR=7:PLOTX,Y:K=PEEK(49152)-201:I=(K=2)-(K=1):J=(K=4)-(K=0):M=I<>J:X=X+I:Y=Y+J:C=SCRN(X,Y):S=S+(C=1):Z=M*C>1:?S:NEXT:GETA$

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 25/02/2025

Sinclair ZX-81, but the US model. Not a Timex-Sinclair 1000. Still has a £ in the lower right of the keyboard though.

Close-up of back reads:
FCC IDENTIFICATION DATA.
Model No. ZX81 USA.
Personal Computer.
Made in Engliand.
No user serviceable parts inside.
Use only Sinclair approved AC adapter.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 13/02/2025

I learned this because there is a PIC for the IIc on eBay, and I was curious what it was specifically. www.ebay.com/itm/11543659...

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 12/01/2025

FB reminded me that 13 years ago, I decided to do what seemed a kind of quaint and odd thing: I bought an Apple IIGS. Whether that turned out to have been a good move is debatable. But it’s been kind of a fun slide down the slope at least.

An Apple IIGS set up on a desk. The caption of the Facebook post reads “I decided to start 2012 with a new computer…”

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 31/12/2024

Perhaps balanced by the gratuitous hostility of this parking sign.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 29/12/2024

A couple of years ago I got a fresnel lens on a stand to make the Osborne 1 screen more readable. #computersaremyforte

Osborne 1 with the lens off to the side ("before")

Osborne 1 with the lens in front of the screen ("after")

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 23/12/2024

While it isn’t great that our heat is out, it does give me a chance to use my surprisingly friendly space heater.

Space heater, with its display reading “HI”

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 23/12/2024

The images in the copy on the facing page are also weird in the same way. Colors are different on the badge and cassette logos, but the company logo at the bottom is in the proper/final form. Idea to make the leaf green must have come later.

First 2-page magazine ad for Apple II, from Byte magazine.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 08/12/2024

Troubleshooting step number one: ensure that the dartboard is plugged in.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 25/11/2024

And if you hold Random while powering it on, you get to the Forth interpreter. Shows a directory of programs available, and you can add new ones to your SD card if you want. You can also enable a serial port. I tried Calc and Line.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 25/11/2024

The touchscreen keyboard allows you to search. Snow Leopard is the most current version of macOS.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 25/11/2024

There's a SD card inside that holds a portion of the sum of all human knowledge.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 25/11/2024

Meet WikiReader. One screen. Three buttons. All the answers. It's a handy device for reading Wikipedia offline and on the go. (And it has a Forth interpreter.) I opened mine today to try it out briefly.

Opened, showing WikiReader and the manual

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 20/11/2024

Nobody ever got around to opening this box of 8" disks. Not convinced I will either. Similarly abandoned box of 3.5" disks for scale.

Front view of unopened box of 3M 8" floppy disks.

Back view of unopened box of 3M 8" floppy disks.

Unopened box of 3M 8" floppy disks next to unopened box of 3M 3.5" floppy disks.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 20/02/2024

Also Beautiful Girls (1996) has some shots in Stillwater too (Stillwater plays a Boston suburb, they put a Boston Globe mailbox on the street near Water Music, that leads down to the bridge).

Timothy Hutton and Noah Emmerich hug by a Boston Globe mailbox on a Stillwater, MN street in Beautiful Girls (1996).

They drive away from the Boston Globe mailbox in this "Boston suburb" of St. Paul.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 07/08/2023

Maybe this will work as a movie. Otherwise: trust me, it tilts, and it's cool. :D

AppleColor Monitor 100 tilting in response to hitting the tilt oscillator button.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 07/08/2023

One of the coolest things about this monitor is that it has a tilting screen, but because it's so heavy, there's a motorized tilt oscillator. (The thing on the screen was just what my Apple /// booted into, a game I'm working on. Main thing here is the tilting screen.)

AppleColor Monitor 100 with tilt oscillator button pressed, tilting up and down.

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Yesterbits @yesterbits.com · 22/05/2023

Bluesky is asking me hard questions.

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