The Bench
Hardware old and new, tested on the bench before we judge it
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Osborne 1 review: a clever suitcase with an unkeyed cable
Was the Osborne 1 any good? As engineering, yes, and rather better than the company’s finances deserved. As…
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How the Amiga 500 shares one memory bus: 226 slots a line and a CPU that gets the even ones
Why does an Amiga 500 sometimes run its 68000 more slowly than the clock rate suggests? Because the…
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Inside the Commodore PET 2001: a 6502, a TTL video board and a lot of sockets
Lift the lid of a Commodore PET 2001 and the first thing you notice is how little is…
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The Z80A on the bench: why one processor refused to become obsolete
There’s a Z80A on the bench in front of me right now, prised out of a dead Amstrad…
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The Tatung Einstein: a brilliant machine sold to entirely the wrong customer
Here is a question worth asking before you even open the case: why would a company build a…
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Dragon 32: a 6809E in a beige box, sunk by the boardroom
Open the case of a Dragon 32 and the first thing that hits you is the smell: hot…