Fixing things, bringing old platforms back to useful life, and learning about how technology works.
See also: Hardware Restoration projects
Raspberry Pi
The tiny-but-capable Raspberry Pi has almost infinite uses. These are just a few of our Pi projects:
Scoreboard Project
When we realized the electronic scoreboard for the youth group’s air hockey table was beyond repair, we decided to make our own using a Raspberry Pi and our new 3D Printer.
Blog Post Source
DreamPi networking for Sega Dreamcast
Ben’s instrumented IOT refrigerator
Apple II/Early Macintosh
Nerdy nostalgia at its best, the early Apple computers are a source of endless fascination — and repair projects!
Networking with modern computers (vintage computer friendly article)
Check mate
A web client for my chess themed, retro device-friendly To Do list web service. Tested specifically on OmniWeb, it works any browser, from 1997 to 2021: Try it out!
HP/Palm webOS
Ahead of its time, webOS had the potential to be a real contender in the mobile OS wars — before a series of management blunders brought about its early death. Its devices have limitations in the modern world, but are still viable for some applications — and free of the kind of spying we’ve come to accept from modern platforms. Developing for webOS helps keep the platform alive, and presents some interesting challenges.
If these are useful to you, and you want to encourage development, you can buy me a coffee!
App Museum II
Leveraging code and archives from the community, App Museum II is a digital preservation exercise, exhibiting a historical platform for archival purposes.
Download Source Discussion
MeTube
A front-end, and supporting web service, to enable legacy devices to watch short YouTube and Reddit videos.
Download Source Discussion
Check mate
A client for my chess themed, retro device-friendly To Do list web service. Beautifully leverages the capabilities of the webOS platform to bring your task management experience to life with gestures and sound. The web service can run on any browser, from 1997 to 2021, but the webOS client really shines on phones and tablets.
Download Source Discussion
SimpleChat
A tiny chat service and corresponding app for the webOS community to stay in touch — especially when the forums are down.
Download Source Discussion
Podcast Directory
A client, and supporting web service, to enable legacy devices to find and download modern Podcasts. It works by proxying requests to HTTPS encrypted feeds, shortening them to reasonable sizes, and fetching the media content on behalf of retro devices that can’t negotiate modern encryption.
Download Source Discussion
One Night Stand App
The One app you’ll need for your Night Stand. Turn an old Palm Pre into a night table clock and Hue light controller with this simple, elegant and customizable app.
Download Source Discussion
Time Crunch
Quick workouts for busy people. A cute, engaging and customizable workout app for webOS phones and TouchPad tablets.
Download Source Discussion
Nightmoves App
To bring some modern features to webOS, I built an app that controls environment settings at scheduled times.
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SDK Restoration Effort
Working from Internet Archive material, I’ve cleaned-up and modernized some of the webOS PDK/SDK documentation.
Visit Site Source
VisualStudio Code Extensions
A collection of scripts to make webOS development and testing better integrated into Visual Studio Code.
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ScummVM for webOS
The last version of ScummVM for webOS was almost a decade old, so I figured out how to compile a newer build and released it as homebrew.
Download Source
myWatch
Attempts to update and clean-up a Pebble smart watch app for webOS devices.
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Stopwatch App
I taught myself the Mojo framework to build my first app for the now-dead Palm/HP webOS platform.
Download Source Discussion
NeXTStep/OpenStep
The grandfather of macOS, iOS and everything in between, NeXT remains one of my favorite retro platforms.
NextStep/OpenStep networking with a Raspberry Pi
Resolving missing dependencies on NextStep/OpenStep
Check mate
A web client for my chess themed, retro device-friendly To Do list web service. Tested specifically on OmniWeb, it works any browser, from 1997 to 2021: Try it out!