59 stories tagged retro-computing, newest first.
315 points by davidbarker | 56 comments
TitleArt is a browser-based WordArt-style editor with a Windows 9x interface for creating text with classic shapes, colors, shadows, and 3-D effects.
279 points by jruohonen | 87 comments
Personal blog essay recounting how BBS-era cracktros, the demoscene, and Denthor's ASPHYXIA Pascal demo tutorials inspired the author to become a programmer.
108 points by andsoitis | 59 comments
A personal phlog entry on SDF's Gopher space, viewed through a web proxy, reflecting on why someone would use Gopher in 2026 and on simpler, less commercial tech.
79 points by rex64 | 23 comments
Blog post explaining how the original SimCity ran on a 16 MHz 386SX by spreading simulation work across frames, with similar examples from Assetto Corsa and Lumen.
51 points by ibobev | 10 comments
Annual progress report on Decker, a HyperCard-like multimedia tool, covering releases 1.61 to 1.71, gamepad input, Lil language improvements, and community highlights.
108 points by utopcell | 19 comments
Blog post from Dorchester 3D describing a homemade second-version laptop case build for the ZX Spectrum Next dev board.
21 points by indigodaddy | 1 comments
A web preservation of Sanity's Edge, a 1994 Tampa voice BBS, letting visitors pick a date to hear the board's recorded prompts from that era.
103 points by ibobev | 79 comments
Blog post from The Silicon Underground explaining the history of IBM's Token Ring networking technology and its competition with Ethernet in the 1980s and 1990s.
60 points by ibobev | 39 comments
A Silicon Underground blog post recounting Nvidia's October 1999 release of the GeForce 256, which it marketed as the first GPU.
133 points by rickcarlino | 34 comments
Phreak.ing is a web-based internet phone switch styled as a retro telephone keypad, prompting users to dial an extension to log in.
93 points by kmstout | 31 comments
Telnet BBS Guide is a directory website listing bulletin board systems accessible via telnet, with options for sysops to add and manage their BBS listings.
133 points by adunk | 117 comments
A BBS-styled web page hosting classic 1990s PC demoscene productions like Unreal and Second Reality, recompiled to run natively in the browser.
![Screenshot of youtube.com: VECOS – A windows-like operating system for the Vectrex for the UVMC2 [video]](https://hn.urlbox.com/shots/renders/2026/10/7/728a0755-67b1-4144-9572-fbe2a0f8eb1d.jpg)
49 points by CharlesW | 12 comments
YouTube video by Arcade Jason demonstrating VECOS, a Windows-like operating system for the Vectrex console running via the UVMC2 cartridge.
385 points by wiso | 127 comments
A browser-based recreation of the classic Microsoft Visual Basic 6 IDE with form designer, toolbox, project explorer and properties panel.
65 points by Gorsefound | 33 comments
Homepage for Thoreau BASIC 3.2, a free 64-bit GW-BASIC-inspired interpreter with x64 JIT for Windows and bare-metal UEFI, with downloads and documentation.
51 points by paulgerhardt | 12 comments
A blog post on Behind The Code with Gerry about the Partner-N64 PC development kit used for creating Nintendo 64 games.
235 points by adunk | 97 comments
56k.rip is a website that recreates the 1996 dial-up internet experience; the capture shows only a solid teal screen.
15 points by nicoloren | 11 comments
GitHub repository for UnoDOS, a hobby operating system under active development targeting pc64 x86-64/UEFI, with Amiga and Apple II directories.
116 points by henrychannel | 46 comments
A web-based simulator of a 1996-style online service chat room (COMETLINK), linked to Windows 95 and Macintosh web desktop recreations.
263 points by hugh4life | 114 comments
A blog review of running cycle-accurate retro PC emulation in 86Box on an M6 Mac Mini, reaching an emulated 600MHz Pentium II with Voodoo 3.
120 points by eieio | 29 comments
A browser-based solitaire game with a retro PC boot screen theme, apparently letting people play solitaire together online.
328 points by giuliomagnifico | 173 comments
A blog post on The Silicon Underground recounting the Commodore 64's launch on September 1, 1982, its 64KB of memory, and its sub-$600 price.
459 points by shdon | 200 comments
Fabien Sanglard blog post about the 1996 Quake shareware CD-ROM, how id Software distributed it, and why the disc was nearly too full.
368 points by tosh | 92 comments
Project page for Decker, a HyperCard-inspired multimedia platform for creating interactive documents with sound, images, hypertext, and scripting, runnable in the browser.
327 points by gregsadetsky | 62 comments
Rodrigo Copetti's practical analysis of the original Sony PlayStation's hardware architecture, covering CPU, graphics, audio and more.
402 points by zdw | 97 comments
A blog post on Marcin Wichary's Unsung blog highlighting several modern pixel fonts, starting with Andrew Gleeson's Analog Mono, a remake of the VCR OSD Mono font.
330 points by zdw | 84 comments
Essay on the demo scene's attitude toward copying in pixel graphics, covering tracing, image conversion, and AI prompting.
497 points by todsacerdoti | 82 comments
A project page titled FrameBook showing an old black MacBook chassis apparently rebuilt with modern internals, likely a Framework laptop mainboard.
440 points by yaky | 175 comments
Blog post about reviving a Nokia N900 by building a fake battery, adding a USB-C port, and booting from SD card.
547 points by varjag | 57 comments
Homepage of Paged Out!, a free community-made technical magazine with one-page articles on programming, hacking, security, retro computers, and electronics.
356 points by chromy | 61 comments
A zoomable, regex-searchable visual archive displaying all ~100k pages of BYTE computer magazine in a single view.
380 points by Wowfunhappy | 171 comments
A personal essay and setup guide about leaving modern macOS in 2019 to keep using OS X Mavericks, with an accompanying app library.
389 points by pentagrama | 215 comments
win32.run is a browser-based recreation of Windows XP Professional, opening with a simulated BIOS boot menu screen.
385 points by todsacerdoti | 42 comments
Allison Parrish's in-depth explainer on how Game Boy cartridges work, covering the bus, memory map, and MBCs, alongside her open RP2040-based bootleg cartridge design.
952 points by decryption | 187 comments
Blog post showcasing mid-1980s MacPaint artwork found by browsing 18,000+ MacPaint images on Discmaster, including BMUG CD-ROM finds.
492 points by ayaros | 137 comments
LisaGUI, a browser-based web OS written in vanilla JavaScript that recreates the Apple Lisa Office System's 1-bit UI on a single canvas element.
520 points by joexbayer | 102 comments
GitHub repository for RetrOS-32, a 32-bit x86 hobby operating system with graphics, multitasking, networking and a C compiler for i386.
517 points by elvis70 | 272 comments
GitHub repository for Blue95, an immutable Fedora-based Linux image with an Xfce desktop themed to look like Windows 95.
638 points by wicket | 201 comments
Fabien Sanglard's blog post explaining the optimizations that make FastDOOM, a DOS port of Doom, run faster on 486-era PCs like the IBM PS/1.
490 points by tonymet | 114 comments
GitHub repository for a modern open-source Hotline client for Mac, iOS, and iPadOS, MIT licensed.
356 points by porterde | 136 comments
GitHub repository for AvaloniaVisualBasic6, a recreation of the classic Visual Basic 6 IDE and language written in C# with Avalonia.
320 points by thunderbong | 123 comments
A browser-based recreation of the Visual Basic 6 IDE, including form designer, built in C# with Avalonia.
460 points by blakespot | 111 comments
An article on Boris Vallejo's influence on demoscene pixel art, covering scene appropriation history and a walkthrough of making a four-color Vallejo-style graphic.
415 points by JKCalhoun | 193 comments
A blog post by the author of Glider recalling unfinished Mac games he wrote decades ago, recovered from old hard drives and shared as disk images for emulators.
487 points by todsacerdoti | 185 comments
Blog post on The Silicon Underground reporting that Andy Warhol's lost Amiga artwork has been rediscovered after 39 years and is being offered for sale.
852 points by wonger_ | 121 comments
JS Kid Pix, a browser-based JavaScript recreation of Craig Hickman's 1989 public-domain Kid Pix painting program for children.
385 points by martincmartin | 107 comments
Blog post by Martin C. Martin describing how he discovered a bug in Jim Storer's original 1969 Lunar Lander game's physics calculations.
610 points by smcameron | 172 comments
Lance Ewing blog post about unexpected data left on Space Quest II MS-DOS master disks that Sierra On-Line unknowingly shipped.
513 points by keiferski | 209 comments
An On the Arts newsletter interview with Filipe Cruz explaining the demoscene, the obscure but influential computer art form.
366 points by rcarmo | 117 comments
John Graham-Cumming's blog post announcing Two Stop Bits, a Hacker News-style link site for retro computing and gaming built on modified Arc HN source code.
326 points by acqbu | 203 comments
GitHub repository for Chicago95, a Windows 95-style desktop theme for Linux with GTK3, Xfce, KDE, icons, cursors, and fonts.
369 points by atan2 | 135 comments
Fabien Sanglard article explaining how Commander Keen's Adaptive Tile Refresh scrolling technique worked on EGA hardware, and what the second trilogy used instead.
488 points by lindtobias | 145 comments
Chip Player JS, a browser-based player for searching and playing over 200,000 chiptune and video game music files.
917 points by jandeboevrie | 1054 comments
Blog post by Remy van Elst about running Linux on a 24-year-old HP Jornada 720 handheld and arguing users should control their devices, unlike with iPhones.
320 points by bishopsmother | 227 comments
A blog post on McGST by Shaun McGill reflecting on using the 1993 Psion 3a handheld computer 27 years after its release.
326 points by gooseyard | 179 comments
Liliputing article about a $200 mini-laptop built around an Intel 8088 processor with 640KB of memory, blending retro PC hardware with a modern form factor.
319 points by tangue | 35 comments
Fabien Sanglard article on how Capcom developers tracked Street Fighter II's CPS-1 ROM budget using paper sheets and scissors.
398 points by tomwas54 | 68 comments
Blog post by Ben Cox about writing a userspace USB driver to get a 1999 Logitech QuickCam webcam working on modern systems.