Floppy Days Vintage Computing Podcast

FLOPPY DAYS 158 - Interview with David Kay, KayPro - Part 2 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics  Arcade Shopper and https://thekeep.net  FutureVision Research  Tuc's Workbench  Hello, and welcome to episode 158 of the Floppy Days Podcast for November, 2025.  I'm Randy Kindig, your host.  We are currently covering computers introduced in the year 1982 and, to that end, this month I'm beginning a series of podcasts about the Kaypro line of computers.  Kaypro had a rich and varied family of computers; certainly much more so than I ever realized.  In researching Kaypro, I discovered that while Andrew Kay, the founder of the computer company, was no longer around, it turns out his son David, who ran the company for some time, was still around.  I was able to contact David and he graciously agreed to talk with us for the podcast.  Kaypro has a very interesting storyline and I hope you enjoy this.  We talked so long that I decided to break the interview into 2 parts, so you'll hear part 2 this month, and part 1 was last month.  Following that, we'll delve into episodes covering history, tech specs, etc. on the Kaypro.  All the usual topics.  It looks as though I'll have 2 episodes covering those topics. I will have a video for this posted to the Floppy Days Podcast on YouTube.  One note here.  This is one of the last videos where I used a videoconferencing tool that just didn't do a great job.  It has a tendency to not keep up with video and you may note that the mouth doesn't stay in sync with the audio sometimes during the interview.  In addition, audio-wise, you may hear some low clicks throughout the interview.  I've since switched to Zoom and it seems to do a better job of audio and video quality, albeit more expensive.  In the meantime, friend of the show Brian Cox offered to improve the audio quality using some high-end tools he had, and thanks to him, you benefit from his work.  Hopefully, the clicks are gone and the sound from both David Kay and myself is better for the interview section. Thanks, Brian! You will hear ads from some great vintage computer stores, themselves vintage computer fans, throughout the early part of this podcast.  For all of these storefronts, when you place an order, please mention Floppy Days in the notes or comments of the order.  Doing so will help support the podcast.  Many thanks!! I also wanted to mention those listeners who appreciate the show enough to donate through patreon.com.   I really appreciate you guys and it helps offset the cost of running the podcast. Regarding that, I've created some tiers for paid members and have come up with some ways to reward those who are generous enough to monetarily support the Floppy Days Podcast on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays ), such as early access to videos of interviews like the being brought to you in audio form in this episode.  Visit Patreon to see more details concerning the rewards for supporters . I just want to say that it is my intention to always make all content available to everyone at no cost, while at the same time providing some benefits for those generous enough to support the podcast. I hope you agree I've come up with a good compromise Please let me know your thoughts. Enjoy!! What I've Been Up To Byte 50th Anniversary Event - https://www.facebook.com/events/853596483843378  Byte 50th Anniversary tribute mini-podcast on the Floppy Days YouTube channel - ​​https://youtu.be/ANR1fYicwxI  New Acquisitions Porta MC-10 - https://portacoco.com/   TRS-80 MODEL 4P GOTEK VERTICAL SLED - https://www.ebay.com/itm/157418076045  Upcoming Shows Vintage Computer Festival Montreal - Jan. 24-25, 2026 - Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC - https://vcfed.org/vcf-montreal/  Tandy Retro Show 2026 - Jan. 24-25 - virtual - tandyretroshow.com  Vintage Electronics Expo - Jan. 31, 2026 - Oakland Expo Center, Waterford, MI -  https://www.thevee.org/  Vintage Computer Festival SoCal - February 14-15, 2026 - Hotel Fera Events Center, Orange, CA - vcfsocal.com  Indy Classic Computer and Video Game Expo - March 20-22 - Wyndham Indianapolis Airport Hotel, Indianapolis, IN - https://indyclassic.org/  VCF East - April 17-19 2026 - InfoAge Science and History Museums, Wall, NJ - https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/  Midwest Gaming Classic - April 24-26 - Baird Center, Milwaukee, WI - https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/  The Annual "Last" Chicago CoCoFEST! - April 24-25, 2026 - Holiday Inn & Suites Chicago-Carol Stream (Wheaton), Carol Stream, Illinois - https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/  Schedule Published on Floppy Days Website - https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSeLsg4hf5KZKtpxwUQgacCIsqeIdQeZniq3yE881wOCCYskpLVs5OO1PZLqRRF2t5fUUiaKByqQrgA/pub  Interview Links "The Word Processing Book" by Peter McWilliams - https://amzn.to/3M6zJks  Andrew Kay at Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Kay KayPro at Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaypro

FLOPPY DAYS 157 - Interview with David Kay, KayPro - Part 1 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics  Arcade Shopper and https://thekeep.net  FutureVision Research  Tuc's Workbench  Hello, and welcome to episode 157 of the Floppy Days Podcast for November, 2025.  I am Randy Kindig, your host. We are currently covering computers introduced in the year 1982 and, to that end, this month I'm beginning a series of podcasts about the Kaypro line of computers.  Kaypro had a rich and varied family of computers; certainly much more so than I ever realized.  In researching Kaypro, I discovered that while Andrew Kay, the founder of the computer company, was no longer around, it turns out his son David, who ran the company for some time, was still around.  I was able to contact David and he graciously agreed to talk with us for the podcast.  Kaypro has a very interesting storyline and I hope you enjoy this.  We talked so long that I decided to break the interview into 2 parts, so you'll hear part 1 this month, and part 2 next month.  Following that, we'll delve into episodes covering history, tech specs, etc. on the Kaypro.  All the usual topics.  It looks as though I'll have 2 episodes covering those topics. I will have a video for this posted to the Floppy Days Podcast on YouTube.  One note here.  This is one of the last videos where I used a videoconferencing tool that just didn't do a great job.  It has a tendency to not keep up with video and you may note that the mouth doesn't stay in sync with the audio sometimes during the interview.  In addition, audio-wise, you may hear some low clicks throughout the interview.  I've since switched to Zoom and it seems to do a better job of audio and video quality, albeit more expensive. You will hear ads from some great vintage computer stores, themselves vintage computer fans, throughout the early part of this podcast.  For all of these storefronts, when you place an order, please mention Floppy Days in the notes or comments of the order.  Doing so will help support the podcast.  Many thanks!! Please let me know your thoughts. Enjoy!! What I've Been Up To Byte 50th Anniversary Event - https://www.facebook.com/events/853596483843378  New Acquisitions A2Pico - https://jcm-1.com/product/a2pico/  PicoMicroMac - https://jcm-1.com/product/picomicromac/  Upcoming Shows World of Commodore 2025 - December 6-7 - Admiral Inn, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada - https://www.tpug.ca/world-of-commodore/world-of-commodore-2025/  Vintage Computer Festival Montreal - Jan. 24-25, 2026 - Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC - https://vcfed.org/vcf-montreal/  Tandy Retro Show 2026 - Jan. 24-25 - virtual - tandyretroshow.com  Vintage Electronics Expo - Jan. 31, 2026 - Oakland Expo Center, Waterford, MI -  https://www.thevee.org/  Vintage Computer Festival SoCal - February 14-15, 2026 - Hotel Fera Events Center, Orange, CA - vcfsocal.com  Indy Classic Computer and Video Game Expo - March 20-22 - Wyndham Indianapolis Airport Hotel, Indianapolis, IN - https://indyclassic.org/  VCF East - April 17-19 2026 - InfoAge Science and History Museums, Wall, NJ - https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/  Midwest Gaming Classic - April 24-26 - Baird Center, Milwaukee, WI - https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/  The Annual "Last" Chicago CoCoFEST! - April 24-25, 2026 - Holiday Inn & Suites Chicago-Carol Stream (Wheaton), Carol Stream, Illinois - https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/  Schedule Published on Floppy Days Website - https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSeLsg4hf5KZKtpxwUQgacCIsqeIdQeZniq3yE881wOCCYskpLVs5OO1PZLqRRF2t5fUUiaKByqQrgA/pub  Interview Links "The Word Processing Book" by Peter McWilliams - https://amzn.to/3M6zJks  Andrew Kay at Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Kay KayPro at Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaypro

Floppy Days 156 - Interview with Paul Schindler, Computer Chronicles Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics  Arcade Shopper and https://thekeep.net  FutureVision Research  Tuc's Workbench   Hello, and welcome to episode 156 of the Floppy Days Podcast for October, 2025.  I'm Randy Kindig,  your host for this "retro"spective covering vintage computers of the late 70's through the 80's and the people who were on the forefront of that incredible revolution. This month, I'm bringing you another interview episode with a tech media personality that was involved with the Computer Chronicles TV show (among many other things): Mr. Paul Schindler.  Paul has a big personality and has a lot of great stories about Computer Chronicles and about the tech industry in general in those days.  I really enjoyed talking with Paul and he made me laugh a lot! As you know, if you're a regular listener, I was able to interview Stewart Cheifet some ago about Computer Chronicles.  Computer Chronicles was a great way to get information about computers in those early days and I've always wanted to do some follow-up.  Thanks to S.M. Oliva, who is mentioned in the resulting interview, and who runs a blog called "Computer Chronicles Revisited", I was able to get in contact with Paul. Next up for Floppy Days will be a series of podcasts on the KayPro line of computers, for which I was able to line up an interview with a key figure from that company and was also able to find someone who knows a lot about the computer line to help me discuss the technical topics.  Stay tuned for that series. As usual, I will begin this podcast going through new acquisitions and what I've been up to, upcoming vintage computer shows and more. Video version of the episode at YouTube:  New Acquisitions/What I've Been Up To Tandy Assembly - https://www.tandyassembly.com  TRS-80 LED sign - https://techdungeon.xyz  TS2068 mailing list - https://ts2068.groups.io/g/main/topics  Compute!'s Gazette - https://www.computesgazette.com  Atari Tricky Tutorial #7 Disk Utilities by Jerry White - https://www.atarimania.com/documents/Tricky-Tutorial-7-Disk-Utilities.pdf  TenoxVGA for Atari TT - https://www.legacypixels.com  Call-A.P.P.L.E. - https://www.callapple.org/  News Compute's Gazette article from the October, 2025 issue about Floppy Days written by Brian Cox of FutureVision Research - https://shop.computesgazette.com/product/computes-gazette-issue-4-digital-edition-october-2025/  Upcoming Shows Ami West - November 1-2, Sacramento, CA - https://www.amiwest.net  Atari Party 2025 - Nov. 22, 2025 (noon to 4) - Quakertown, PA Train Station - http://atariparty.org/  World of Commodore 2025 - December 6-7 - Admiral Inn, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada - https://www.tpug.ca/world-of-commodore/world-of-commodore-2025/  Vintage Computer Festival Montreal - Jan. 24-25, 2026 - Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC - https://vcfed.org/vcf-montreal/  Tandy Retro Show 2026 - Jan. 24-25 - virtual - tandyretroshow.com  Vintage Electronics Expo - Jan. 31, 2026 - Oakland Expo Center, Waterford, MI -  https://www.thevee.org/  Vintage Computer Festival SoCal - February 14-15, 2026 - Hotel Fera Events Center, Orange, CA - vcfsocal.com  Indy Classic Computer and Video Game Expo - March 20-22 - Wyndham Indianapolis Airport Hotel, Indianapolis, IN - https://indyclassic.org/  VCF East - April 17-19 2026 - InfoAge Science and History Museums, Wall, NJ - https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/  Midwest Gaming Classic - April 24-26 - Baird Center, Milwaukee, WI - https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/  The Annual "Last" Chicago CoCoFEST! - April 24-25, 2026 - Holiday Inn & Suites Chicago-Carol Stream (Wheaton), Carol Stream, Illinois - https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/  Schedule Published on Floppy Days Website - https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSeLsg4hf5KZKtpxwUQgacCIsqeIdQeZniq3yE881wOCCYskpLVs5OO1PZLqRRF2t5fUUiaKByqQrgA/pub  Interview Paul's general Website - https://www.schindler.org  Paul Website about the Computer Chronicles - http://compchron.com/  S.M. Oliva's Computer Chronicles Revisited  Paul's long-running blog  Paul's podcast, PS A Podcast on Things  Paul recounts some tales from his Chronicles days  Paul's YouTube channel  Computer Chronicles at archive.org  Computer Chronicles episodes on YouTube  

Interview with Karl Hornell - C64 Game Developer, Cartoonist, Author Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics  Arcade Shopper  FutureVision Research   Hello, and welcome to episode 155 of the Floppy Days Podcast for September, 2025!  I'm Randy Kindig, your host for this podcast, where we talk about the computers that got many of us started in our careers and which still hold a lot of interest for us today. This month, I'm bringing you another interesting interview with someone who at an early age started developing commercial-grade software for the Commodore 64, which started him on an amazing trajectory with his career in software development, cartoonist, and more.  His latest efforts include branching out into writing science fiction, which we will also discuss today. The person I'm referring to is Karl Hornell (Her-NELL). It's also an interesting story around how this interview opportunity came to me.  I'm not used to getting contacted by an ad agency.  This one indicated that their client, Karl, had just recently published a book and was looking for ways to advertise the book.  They suggested that Floppy Days would be a great fit based on Karl's background and could be beneficial for both.  I was skeptical at first, as I always am when I receive unsolicited, possibly spam email.  However, once I researched Karl's background it became clear that he was an accomplished Swedish developer for the C64 back in the day, with some notariety.  I felt his background might indeed be of interest to you, the listeners, and so happily agreed to interviewing Karl for the podcast.  I hope you enjoy Karl's story and will consider taking a look at his new book. New Acquisitions and What I've Been Up To Atari Bit Byter User Club (ABBUC) - https://www.abbuc.de  VCFMW - https://vcfmw.org/  Atari TT030 at Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_TT030  David Anderson's Timex Sinclair sites: https://andertone.com/  https://www.timexsinclair.com/  News Stan Veit's History of the Personal Computer - https://archive.org/details/stan-veits-history-of-the-personal-computer/mode/2up  David Greelish's YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@TheComputerHistorian  Early chapters (1-9) of Stan Veit's book via audio - https://www.classiccomputing.com/CCPodcasts/Stan_Veit/Stan_Veit.html  Floppy Days YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@floppydayspodcast  Upcoming Vintage Computer Shows Tandy Assembly - September 26-28 - Courtyard by Marriott Springfield - Springfield, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com/  Portland Retro Gaming Expo - October 17-19 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/  Chicago TI International World Faire - October 25 - Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL - https://www.chicagotiug.org/home  Ami West - November 1-2, Sacramento, CA - https://www.amiwest.net  World of Commodore 2025 - December 6-7 - Admiral Inn, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada - https://www.tpug.ca/world-of-commodore/world-of-commodore-2025/  Vintage Computer Festival Montreal - Jan. 24-25, 2026 - Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC - https://vcfed.org/vcf-montreal/  Vintage Computer Festival SoCal - February 14-15, 2025 - Hotel Fera Events Center, Orange, CA - vcfsocal.com  Indy Classic Computer and Video Game Expo - March 20-22 - Wyndham Indianapolis Airport Hotel, Indianapolis, IN - https://indyclassic.org/  Schedule Published on Floppy Days Website - https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSeLsg4hf5KZKtpxwUdQgacCIsqeIdQeZniq3yE881wOCCYskpLVs5OO1PZLqRRF2t5fUUiaKByqQrgA/pub  Interview Links Karl at Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_H%C3%B6rnell  Vic-Rapport Magazine (Wikipedia) - https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIC-rapport  "Generation 64 - How the Commodore 64 Inspired a Generation of Swedish Gamers" by Bitmap Books - https://amzn.to/3YUUlQ5 (affiliate link) Karl Hornell's Applet Center - http://www.javaonthebrain.com/  Retro Gamer Magazine #130 with Karl interview - https://archive.org/details/retro-gamer-raspberry-pi-buenos-aires/Retro%20Gamer%20130/page/92/mode/2up  "Singularity Minus Twelve" book - https://amzn.to/3S8Yr3r (affiliate link) Savage Dragonbert - https://wiki.savagedragon.com/comics/savage_dragonbert_full_frontal_nerdity_01/   

Floppy Days 154 - Interview with Chuck Mauro, Part 2 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays Sponsors: 8-Bit Classics  Arcade Shopper  FutureVision Research   New Acquisitions and What I've Been Up To TI-55 9-Volt Battery Mod  9V Battery Clip Connectors from Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Clip-Hard-Electronics-I-Type/dp/B0DRZWN3BN  YouTube video that talks about and shows the modification - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G-OucjNgTk  New Compute's Gazette - https://www.computesgazette.com/  C64 Ultimate - https://www.commodore.net/  Chroma81 - http://www.fruitcake.plus.com/Sinclair/ZX81/Chroma/ChromaInterface_Availability.htm  Upcoming Vintage Computer Shows VCF Midwest - September 13-14, 2025 - Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL - http://vcfmw.org/  Tandy Assembly - September 26-28 - Courtyard by Marriott Springfield - Springfield, OH - http://www.tandyassembly.com/  Portland Retro Gaming Expo - October 17-19 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/  Chicago TI International World Faire - October 25 - Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL - https://www.chicagotiug.org/home  Ami West - November 1-2, Sacramento, CA - https://www.amiwest.net  World of Commodore 2025 - December 6-7 - Admiral Inn, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada - https://www.tpug.ca/world-of-commodore/world-of-commodore-2025/  Schedule Published on Floppy Days Website - https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSeLsg4hf5KZKtpxwUQgacCIsqeIdQeZniq3yE881wOCCYskpLVs5OO1PZLqRRF2t5fUUiaKByqQrgA/pub  Order Chuck's book - https://books.by/Chuck-Mauro