History – www.chrisrcook.com

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!

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.

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.

Inside the Globus INK: A Mechanical Navigation Computer for Soviet Spaceflight

Righto.com has a rather delightful introduction to and teardown of a Globus INK – a Soviet-era mechanical navigation aid for spaceflight.

The FAA/NASA animation of the closing of US Airspace on 9/11

A NASA animation of the FAA’s continental US flight logs from the morning of September 11^th, 2001.

24 bloody years…

Netscape Navigator User Demographics circa 1996

So this lunchtime Period Sites in Period Browsers (PSPB) threw up an interesting bit of history – a brief overview of Netscape Navigator users circa 1996.

York Minster, West Front / James Valentine (between 1860 and 1879)

An old photo of what was, back then, a rather new view.

The cost of a PDP-11 circa 1971

Whilst trying to track down the cost of memory for a PDP-11 I stumbled across The PDP-11 FAQ and it’s rather excellent collection of early 70s PDP-11 price lists. It’s a fun little list, rammed through of interesting little nuggets – today it’s hard to imaging it but in 1972 a line printer would have set you back at least 12,000 USD. That’s almost 92,000 USD in 2025 prices!

Demons, Exorcisms, and the Scientific Method

This is interesting; Heresy, witchcraft, Jean Gerson, scepticism and the use of placebo controls covers a late 16th Century French attempt to apply a proto-scientific method to demonic possession and, in effect, implement a placebo-controlled trial.

The First Longships Lighthouse at Land’s End, Cornwall

A lovely shot of the first Longships Lighthouse taken in the 1860s by William May. The long exposure fuzz on the ocean is an artefact of the then-available photography process rather than an artistic choice.

Tag: History