Research

For those who like to perform various experiments, both in software and electronics, solely for the purpose of knowledge enrichment. It could be, for example, reverse engineering an old piece of hardware or to study vintage software design.

Twinhead A5020 566MHz Intel Celeron laptop

October 12, 2020May 12, 2021 ToughDev 0 Comment Twinhead

In order to play DOS and early Windows games, I searched eBay for a cheap laptop that can run Windows 98, preferably

Microsoft Office Reverse-engineer Software Development Windows Tips

Opening Office 2007 documents on Windows 98

September 15, 2020August 11, 2022 ToughDev 1 Comment microsoft office, open office, win98

On my old but trusted Windows 98 laptop, which is used mostly for DOS and early Windows games, there is an occasional

General Programming Hardware Reverse-engineer Software Development Vintage Computing

Tweaking the AlphaSmart Neo, a great portable word processor with 700-hour battery life

August 19, 2020May 15, 2021 ToughDev 2 Comments alphasmart, basic, neo

Although I really love my AlphaSmart Dana, its limited battery life which requires recharging every couple of days as well as the

General Programming Vintage Computing

AlphaSmart Dana, an almost perfect typewriter running Palm OS 4.1

July 5, 2020May 6, 2021 ToughDev 0 Comment alphasmart, dana, palmos

I love the idea of distraction-free writing, which allows me to focus on my thoughts without any of the modern

Hardware Linux Reverse-engineer Software Development

Reverse engineer the 360Eyes Pro (IPC365) wireless CCTV camera

September 9, 2019July 31, 2020 ToughDev 15 Comments 360eyes, cctv, ffmpeg, ipc365, rtsp, u-boot

Available on AliExpress, the 360Eyes Pro (also known as IPC365, from the default network host name of this camera) is

Vintage Computing Windows Tips

Exploring Tandy Deskmate on DOSBox v0.7.4

June 28, 2019July 5, 2019 ToughDev 0 Comment deskmate, dosbox, tandy

My first computer was a Tandy 1000 RSX. It has a 25MHz 80386SX processor, 4MB of RAM and 100MB hard disk

Reverse-engineer Software Development Vintage Computing

Playing Alley Cat, a classic MS-DOS game, from your web browser

March 1, 2019July 30, 2020 ToughDev 0 Comment alleycat, pcjs, pcx86

Last week I explored gabonator’s Visual C++ and Javascript port of Alley Cat, one of my favourite DOS games. The project, despite being apparently

Vintage Computing Web Development Windows Tips

Exploring PCx86, an IBM PC emulator written in JavaScript

February 6, 2019June 16, 2019 ToughDev 0 Comment pcjs, pcx86

I came across PCjs, a JavaScript-based emulator that supports many different vintage computer architectures and spent last week setting up my first web-based PC