Welcome to the *asterisks* zone.
As a reminder from the introduction: All links enclosed by asterisks are external links.
I also wrote a short description to each link and whenever HTTPS is required.
Links marked with "Wayback Machine" are mirrors hosted by the Internet Archive which sometimes are a little slow to load, similar are the links marked with "Mirror" which are hosted by other servers.
*Internet Archive* (The mainpage can only be viewed via HTTPS, other parts via HTTP may work)
The No.1 place to find digital treasures and other historical information/downloads.
*Hackaday* (HTTPS)
The Blog features many random hacks every day, I especially love it when someone digs up some very old but interesting educational film.
*The Old Net*
A neat starting point about the classic Internet before the damn JavaScript (ab)use got out of control.
*retrohax.net* (HTTPS)
A Blog featuring the most unbelievable repairs and restorations of old computers and other related stuff.
*Flashlight information*
The best place to get serious information about batteries and chargers, very helpful measurements and graphs.
*The Cutting Room Floor* (HTTPS)
A huge Wiki that focuses on hidden or unused content of video/computer games. This sometimes gives a good idea how some games were made and what challenges the developers went through.
*HiFi Archiv* (HTTPS)
A huge collection of consumer electronics catalogues and other related printed media such as manuals and other adverts.
*WINDOWS 93*
A modern twist on the classic Win32 environment, a highly trippy and yet familiar experience.
*ELPiS*
A interesting zine covering retro technology and the small web.
*Falstad circuit simulator applet*
My favorite circuit simulator that's also a Java application, I used that to design many analogue circuits.
*Internet & Text Slang Dictionary & Translator* (HTTPS)
Useful site if you have trouble understanding commonly used abbreviations on the Internet.
*SS64 Command line reference* (HTTPS)
Minimalistic online reference about several commandline interfaces and it's built-in commands.
*CRT Database* (HTTPS)
A new Wiki about CRT TVs and monitors.
*Obsolete Technology Tellye Web Museum*
A clearly overdesgined Blog about old TVs, has way too much text but the pictures are neat to look at.
At least I fully agree to the authors statement: Real televisions have tubes.
*pouët.net* (HTTPS)
The most demoscence releases for all platforms can be found here as well as the upcoming events.
*Starring the Computer*
Wanna know which Computer appeared in what movie or TV series?
Mainly focused on Mainframe and Microcomputers. I myself own four of these computers in that list.
*0x2hub web portal*
What a neat collection of links. This is simple HTML at it's finest.
*Just fucking use HTML* (HTTPS)
Oh boy. What a lovely anti JS-Framework rant that highly amused me, then I saw that they had a *German* translation as well which got a good laugh out of me.
*VOGONS* (HTTPS)
The name of this forum literally stands for "very old games on new systems", but playing old games on old systems is also covered as well.
*MSFN* (HTTPS)
The forum focused on Microsoft products, especially the older versions are supported well there.
*Operating System Revival* (HTTPS)
A very well organized place about software, drivers and other utilities for older Windows versions.
*PCGamingWiki* (HTTPS)
This place helped me countless times to play old games on new hardware with maximum performance.
PROTIP: If you have trouble navigating the top menus then click the menu item and press the tab key.
*NirSoft*
Neat freeware tools developed by Nir Sofer, very useful and a few of them even run under Win9x.
*GitHub - tumagonx/XomPie* (HTTPS)
This method of patching applications to run under XP worked countless times for simple apps designed to run on newer Windows versions.
*GitHub - MovAX0xDEAD/NTOSKRNL_Emu* (HTTPS)
Similar principle as XomPie but this used to patch kernel drivers. I personally use USB3 driver from Win8 under WinXP.
*SAC* (HTTPS)
A huge selection of old shareware and freeware. Unfortunately the most programs are behind installers and the file descriptions never mentions if it's crippled shareware, freeware or opensource.
*JDownloader* (HTTPS)
The best downloader ever written in Java, supports way too many sites. I mostly use this to download YouTube videos to my harddrive for watching on a videoplayer with proper HW acceleration.
Still works on WinXP, except the bundled FFmpeg, just replace the binaries with XP compatible ones.
*AutoHotkey* (HTTPS)
The ultimate tool to automate literally everything in Windows. Intercepting Shutdown or Standby is possible, even the creation of GUIs and communication with COM ports can be done with this magic thing.
Last version known to work on Win9x is 1.0.48.5
*SteelBytes* (Wayback Machine)
I use FileGateway to transfer files between my PCs over my local network, this doesn't require SMB.
I also use FileCompare to verify entire directories that I copy over to external drives.
*WinWorld* (HTTPS)
A nice source to download old commercial computer software in many languages.
The newest Windows that can be downloaded from there is 2000 and the newest MS-Office is 97, both are excellent versions that are very capable and useful.
*The Commodore 64 Scene Database* (HTTPS)
The Commodore scene database to get the latest stuff. Cracked games are also available.
*Aminet*
Software and other stuff for all kinds of Amiga computers.
*Club 100*
The right place if you need software or information about TRS-80 Model 100, 102 or 200.
*WEB 8201* (HTTPS)
And this is about NEC PC-8201 and PC-8300, highly related to the TRS-80 Model 100.
*Bitchin100*
Even more information for the TRS-80 Model 100 and other related 8-bit laptops such as NEC PC-8201.
*GameBrew* (HTTPS)
Very well sorted Homebrew along with a gallery view.
*NesDev.org* (HTTPS)
Development and Hardware research for the NES and SNES as well, there's also a comprehensive Wiki.
*SNES Development wiki* (HTTPS)
Contains some information that's not on SNESdev Wiki.
*DogP's Nintendo Super System page*
Useful troubleshooting information with screenshots for the Nintendo Super System which also applies to the SNES as well.
*N64brew Wiki* (HTTPS)
A technical Wiki about N64 hardware.
*Jeff Frohwein's Software/Hardware Dev'rs*
This is quite an oldie but is still online, mainly known for the Gameboy stuff but covers some other handhelds as well.
*Game Boy Development community* (HTTPS)
Only covers the entire 8-bit Gameboy range (DMG-GBC) so far.
*the Website of Reiner Ziegler* (Wayback Machine)
This oldschool website is about early Flash carts for GB&GBA, also contains instructions how to make your own carts and programmers.
That's where I learned a long time ago how game cartridges actually work.
*ROM Laboratory* (Mirror)
Another classic website about making Flash / EPROM carts, but this is more for old consoles.
*Cinemassacre*
James Rolfe's channel alias the Angry Video Game Nerd, my favorite (web)series.
*Adrian's Digital Basement*, *Adrian's Digital Basement ][*
Adrian Black makes a lot of interesting videos about vintage computers and other tech. Quite impressive that he uploads one video on both channels every Wednesday and Saturday.
*The Retro Collective*
They run a cool retrotech Museum in a over 100 year old mill which is just an amazing feat on it's own.
Also half the little TVs used as computer monitors are Sony Trinitrons, pretty much the same ones I own myself.
*LGR*
A lot of interesting videos about old computers (mainly PCs), games and peripherals. The unboxing of NOS is nicely shown in great detail.
*The 8-Bit Guy*
Another channel about retro tech but the restoration videos were quite educational because I tried it myself to clean plastic cases with glass cleaner and baking soda with great results.
*shango066*
I do watch these super long videos where a redneck "professional" technician repairs super old and dirty TVs and radios while diagnosing the actual faults. The condition of these devices never fail to amaze me.
*ElectroBOOM*
An entertaining channel by Mehdi Sadaghbar with a big focus on electronics and physics.
I used to describe it as an great mix between MTV's Jackass and electrical engineering.
*CuriousMarc*
This tech channel is mostly focused on very heavy stuff that's beyond my personal level, but never the less I'm fascinated with the tech used by NASA and cool early equipment that Hewlett-Packard manufactured before they switched over to produce lousy PCs and printers only.
*Technology Connections*
Explanation and showcase of common and obscure tech in a entertaining way, the hour long videos about kitchen appliances surely exceeded my expectations.
*Techmoan*
My favorite videos are about the obscure video and audio devices/formats, some Wikipedia articles about these simply exist because he made a video about it.
*Retro Recipes*
This retro focused channel is rather cheesy but interesting nonetheless, the amount of effort that went into the final editing is mighty impressive.
*Retro Game Mechanics Explained*
Great visual explanations about the quirks and bugs in several classic videogames.
*Kaze Emanuar*
The absolute madman when it comes to Super Mario 64 hacking and a serious wizard in low-level N64 programming.
