Welcome back!

Welcome to the new and improved Technology Rewind. We used to be Computer Collector, publishing each week from Jan. 2004 to March 2006 as an email newsletter, and reaching about 1,000 subscribers at our peak. Now we're trying life in the weblog format. We know some readers prefer the old format, but we believe the new format will reach many more people, which is vital to the health and growth of the vintage computing hobby.

Throughout the next few weeks we'll be uploading old articles, fixing broken links, adding some new features, and tinkering with the site design. So please be patient as we make this transition, and email us with your comments or suggestions. Happy vintage computing!

- Evan Koblentz, editor

(P.S. - Wondering how we mastered time travel? This message is not really from the future date of Dec. 31, 2007. We post-dated it to keep it on top.)

(P.S. #2 - Who is this "we" that I keep mentioning? There's a whole team of experienced collectors and journalists behind the scenes. Read all about 'em here or email me to join us.)

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Hacking Robot Vacuums and other Thoughts on Personal Robotics

As a lifetime technophile primarily interested in computers and videogames, another area that has always intrigued me, but been generally hands-off due to the various barriers to entry, is home robotics. There were some delightful robots and kits in the early to mid-80's to go along with the personal computer boom. However, the personal robotics boom was short lived and ultimately a much smaller niche than even the fledgling personal computer business at the time, dooming them to the domain of the truly hardcore. Today, toy and personal robots and robot kits from the likes of Tomy and Heathkit are still very much in demand. Much more recently, Lego made a strong impact in the home robotics and hobbyist field with their Mindstorms technology and Radio Shack carries an aggressive line of kit robots and accessories. Bottom line, today hobbyist robotics is stronger than ever and more practical than ever, though is still awaiting that "killer app" to truly push it into the mainstream.

(Read the rest here)

Made some more changes

As you can see, I made some style changes, based on gobs of reader feedback. I changed the style to traditional black text on a white background, instead of the inverse, and I made the page width dynamically resizable to the window.

Still working on an email updates solution.