Reviving old computers
Doghouse – New/Old Computers

Computer architectures from the 1960s and 1970s are given new life via modern kits.
The first computer I programmed (or saw in real life and not on TV) was one that used punched cards. It had a fairly primitive "Disk Monitor System" that would allow storage of programs and data on a very small (by today's standards) disk.
I do not remember much about the machine because computers were really not my interest at the time. I was studying to be an electrical engineer, and during the cooperative education part of my program at Drexel University (née Institute of Technology) I took a course in "How to Program the IBM 1130 in FORTRAN" just for fun. And it was fun. But so were electronics.
I went back to Drexel and found another computer in the electrical engineering labs. It was a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-8 computer, with 4,096 12-bit words of core memory. This computer was programmed through a terminal, the ASR-33 Teletype with a paper tape reader and punch. This was the machine I fell in love with, and I spent most of my waking hours (when I was not flunking out of electrical engineering [1]) programming it in assembly language.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
-
USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
-
Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
-
KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
-
AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.
-
AerynOS Alpha Release Available
With a choice of several desktop environments, AerynOS 2025.08 is almost ready to be your next operating system.
-
AUR Repository Still Under DDoS Attack
Arch User Repository continues to be under a DDoS attack that has been going on for more than two weeks.
-
RingReaper Malware Poses Danger to Linux Systems
A new kind of malware exploits modern Linux kernels for I/O operations.