Wes Ellis./ a personal notebook
Technology. Stories. Side projects.
A few things worth writing down.

A thread · 5 notes · Retro Tech

The retro workbench.

Old TVs, old Macs and an arcade cabinet: projects that make old hardware useful again.

  1. 1
    Retro Tech5 min read

    Building a FieldStation42 Cable Box

    A build log for a Raspberry Pi cable box that runs FieldStation42 on a CRT, with a keypad, an LED channel display, a guide channel and a WeatherStar weather channel.

  2. 2
    Side Projects4 min read

    WeatherStar 4000: The '90s Weather Channel on a Raspberry Pi

    My open-source Python and pygame recreation of the WeatherStar 4000, built for Raspberry Pi and CRT TVs, with live weather data and 26-plus display modes.

  3. 3
    Retro Tech5 min read

    An Arcade Cabinet With a 4:3 Monitor, and Why I Went With CoinOPS on a PC

    Notes from an arcade cabinet build in progress, on why the monitor is 4:3, and why a PC running CoinOPS won out over a plug-and-play Pandora-style board.

  4. 4
    Retro Tech5 min read

    Organizing Vintage Mac Software: How I Name and File a Classic Mac Archive

    The folder layout and naming rules I use for a pile of old Mac software, and the small PowerShell script that does the renaming without losing the original names.

  5. 5
    Retro Tech4 min read

    Making a Mac OS Extended (HFS+) USB Drive on Windows with TransMac

    How I format and load HFS+ USB drives for old Macs from a Windows PC, plus the retro-specific catches that trip you up on the Mac side.