Retrofuturism - Anachronistic Technology and HAM Radio

The figure above may seem rather silly.  It shows WordPerfect 8.0 for UNIX running - roughly the equivalent of WordPerfect 4.2 for MSDOS - mid to late 1980s.  WordPerfect 6.0 for MSDOS is shown running in the DOSBOX, an emulator for MSDOS - late 1990s).  Finally WordPerfect X.13 is shown running in a virtual machine that is running Windows 7.  All of these are running under Linux Mint 21.x.  The laptop on which they are running is an old ASUS X55U, with motherboard manufactured in 2013. 

This laptop used to be my most modern laptop running Windows 8.1.  Recently I was surveying my "graveyard" of laptops and discovered that support for Windows 8.1 had ceased on January 10, 2023.  I could not update the security features.  I tried to upgrade to Windows 10 and ended up with a message from Microsoft indicating that my hardware could not support that operating system - and Microsoft provided a list of proposed alternative laptops that I could purchase.  

In a previous article, I outlined what I was doing with an old HP laptop from 2006.  This time I decided to wipe the hard drive and install Linux Mint (a derivative of Ubuntu, which in turn is derived from Debian Linux).  The laptop could handle it (not so much with the 2006 laptop - although it was actually a 32 bit machine not a 64 bit one).  Rather than partitioning the hard drive with a Windows system, I chose to install a Virtual Machine application.  Initially I installed Windows 2000 - and it worked.  Then I installed Windows 7 (64 bit) and it worked.  I then installed WordPerfect X.3 and it worked.  I then installed WordPerfect 8.0 for UNIX, and it worked.  I then installed WordPerfect 6.0 using the DOSBOX application.  It took a while to figure out how to mount the drives and to install them using DOSBOX, but it worked!  The UNIX and DOS versions run lightning fast as does the Windows 7 version.  I have not used the DOS version in decades (and do not recall the commands).  But that was not a problem as, after some searching on the Internet, I was able to download the instruction manuals.  Basically 30-40-year-old (or 11-year old)  software has come back to life!  This is a new area of hobbyist computing known as retro computing.

From an amateur radio perspective, this ties in nicely to the underlying philosophy of amateur radio operators - to repurpose and recycle junk and e-waste into useful technology.  It is the realm of an artistic/literary (i.e. science fiction) movement called "Steampunk".  Wikipedia describes Steampunk as follows:

Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or the American "Wild West", where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.

It is a literary genre that appears in many comic books including Japanese manga comics with a provenance going way back.  The Space Battleship Yamato (1974) is considered part of this genre as would be HG Wells' The Time Machine, Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The League of Extra-ordinary Gentlemen, Doctor Who or even Fritz Lang's Metropolis.  

Returning to HAM radio, this opens up a whole host of interesting projects - including electronic projects using modern controllers, small board computers and, well, "junque".  Christine Thompson has posted a very interesting photo slide show of her construction of a "Steampunk radio" at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeeLoqGYSLQ , replete with moving gears, tubes and all sorts of lights and knobs.  MICROWAVE1 has posted a two-part video of a Steampunk 1930s HAM radio receiver at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of9uYP3c8FA and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bHkg8MJ9og .  Of course that radio is not actually Steampunk but rather actual 1930s technology (1933).  There are plenty of videos of old radio equipment being restored and brought back to life.  I suppose the difference between Steampunk and the amateur radio hobby is that amateur radio enthusiasts have the technological ability to actually make the Steampunk devices work!  They are able to cross that boundary between art and technology.  

The history of tinkering, experimentation and repair/repurposing is a fundamental part of the amateur radio hobby.  At one time, radio equipment was incredibly expensive.  Is this what is happening again with computers and software?  On top of that, are privacy issues now coming to the fore as the large IT companies increasingly monitor one's browsing habits and one's use of a computer (for instance saving of screens and sending information back to the vendor for development, customization and sale to third parties - marketing).