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The Worst-selling Microsoft Software Product of All Time: OS/2 for the Mach 20

Raymond Chen at ‘The Old New Thing’ has a lovely tale about what could be Microsoft’s worst selling product ever – OS/2 for the Mach 20.

According to that person’s memory (which given the amount time that has elapsed, means that we should basically be saying “according to legend” at this point), a total of eleven copies of “OS/2 for Mach 20” were ever sold, and eight of them were returned.
Raymond Chen, The Old New Thing.

I’ve seen a few expansion cards as part of choosing images for ‘Retro Computer Adverts‘, but the Mach 10| 20 is not one I’ve yet stumbled across. And as for ads for ‘OS/2 for Mach 20’? Not a sausage!

CERN Animal Shelter for Computer Mice

I don’t usually do this kind of thing but sometimes you just have too…

CERN Animal Shelter for Computer Mice is a noble and important cause and, after their 2012 tragedy, is probably one you should pay attention too.

Stable / Kathleen Herbert (2007)

I think I first mentioned Kathleen Herbert’s Stable back in mid August when I posted the video for Melanie Manchot’s Cornered Star.

Getting a Random Post at Compile Time in Jekyll

While pure Jekyll cannot do true random links to posts at page access, it is possible to insert a link to a random post at site compile time.

At it’s most basic, this can be done with the following liquid snippet which will select a random post from the ‘site.posts‘ collection and then insert that post’s title into the page. This can be expanded to extract other pieces of data from within the ‘post‘ object as you desire.

Retro Computer Adverts – End of Month One

It’s now been a month since I first (quietly) launched ‘Retro Computer Adverts | Your daily dose of retro computing adverts!‘ and, so far, it’s remained a fun little project.

Xibalba / Clint Mansell with the Kronos Quartet (2006)

Clint Mansell’s really rather delightful ‘Xibalba’ from the soundtrack to 2006’s The Fountain. I remember really enjoying The Fountain at the time and I should probably go back and give it another watch.

The Middlecave Yard Demolition and Rebuild – Mid September 2025

See more of the Middlecave work here!

Time for another round of photographs from the Middlecave Yard demolition and rebuild.

I’ve also managed to dig out a target site plan, something that should help contextualise some of the pictures below. As always, bigger images are just a click away.

HM Treasury Web Server Statistics (1994 – 1997)

Period Sites in Period Browsers has just thrown up another interesting little oddity – very early server stats from HM Treasury’s web server.

Minitrue

The Ministry of Truth building as represented in the 1954 Nigel Kneale adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

It’s a lovely bit of matt painting that really emphasises the scale of the Ministry of Truth when compared to the wreckage of the Houses of Parliament.

It also feels like a useful image to have kicking around.