October 2024

Recapping a Samsung 204B monitor

In September 2006, I purchased a Samsung 204B SyncMaster monitor for $320+tax. It was a 4:3 monitor, and for certain tasks like my Logic Analyzer Cart, it’s perfect.

It failed in July 2024, and would no longer power on. There was a VERY faint blue flashing happening on the blue power led on the right-hand side of the unit. I figured it was a power-related problem.

Amiga QB Extract recently updated

There was a HDD backup utility for the Commodore Amiga called Quarterback, part of a suite of tools called Quarterback Tools. This utility allowed you to backup existing files on your HDD, compress and/or encrypt them, and split them across multiple floppy disks.

This backup tool stores a catalog, which contains a number of directory entries at the beginning of the backup file, and then contains file markers for either compressed (CFM + 0x90) or uncompressed (FMRK) files.