When a Computer Cost Less Than a Company Car: The Dynabyte Throwback

This ad is such a great snapshot of the early days of personal and business computing. It’s promoting the Dynabyte computer system, which was marketed as a practical, affordable way for businesses to fully automate their bookkeeping, payroll, and reporting. The copy really leans into the idea that this system could replace piles of manual work with simple programs, and it even highlights compatibility with popular programming languages of the time like BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, and PASCAL. Back then, having a machine that could handle accounts receivable or inventory control felt like a huge leap forward for small companies.

What stands out most visually is the retro look of the equipment and the woman using it. The system has those classic wood-paneled units stacked on top of each other, and she’s loading in a disk—likely one of the 5¼-inch or 8-inch floppy disks that the ad brags about. It’s almost funny to see them tout "up to 2 million words" of storage as a big deal, when today even the smallest flash drive can hold thousands of times more. Still, in its time, this was cutting-edge technology that made computer power more accessible outside giant corporations or universities.

The tone of the ad really drives home how computers were starting to become more mainstream in the business world. They talk about overnight service, modular expansion, and affordability “for less than a new company car,” which shows they were trying to frame the purchase as both practical and forward-thinking. Looking at it now, there’s a certain charm in the optimism—this idea that installing one of these big, clunky machines could modernize your whole business almost overnight. It’s a mix of nostalgia and a reminder of just how quickly technology has evolved.

The Kenbak-1: The First Personal Computer You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

 When people think of the first personal computer, names like the Apple I or the Altair 8800 often come to mind. But before those machines made waves in the mid-1970s, there was the Kenbak-1. Released in 1971 by John Blankenbaker of Kenbak Corporation, the Kenbak-1 is widely recognized as the world’s first personal computer. It was a modest-looking machine housed in a metal case with rows of switches and lights for input and output, but it set the stage for the revolution that followed.

The Kenbak-1 was powered by small-scale integration TTL chips instead of a microprocessor—since the first commercial microprocessors hadn’t been released yet. It had just 256 bytes of memory and relied on toggle switches to enter instructions. Users would program it in machine code, flipping switches to input binary instructions and watching LEDs blink out results. It may sound primitive today, but in 1971 this was groundbreaking. It offered individuals—mainly students and hobbyists—a way to directly experiment with computing without needing access to a massive mainframe.

Only about 40 Kenbak-1 units were ever built and sold, making it incredibly rare today. Its commercial failure was due in part to its high cost ($750 at the time, roughly $5,000 today) and its complexity for casual users. Still, it represents a critical “proof of concept” moment: that a computer could be personal, small, and affordable enough for a single individual, rather than a corporate or academic institution, to own.

Looking back, the Kenbak-1 is a fascinating piece of computing history that deserves more recognition. While it never achieved widespread adoption, it laid the groundwork for the personal computing movement that would explode just a few years later. For collectors and enthusiasts, it remains a holy grail artifact—a reminder that even the biggest technological revolutions often begin with small, overlooked experiments.

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WAN-na Test Your Network? Just Copy Some Files, Dude!

When it comes to testing your WAN links, people often overcomplicate things. They bust out fancy monitoring tools, graphs that look like stock charts, and dashboards with more colors than a bag of Skittles. But here’s the deal: sometimes the best way to know if your WAN link is healthy is to just… copy a file. Yup. Old school, drag-and-drop style. Think of it like kicking the tires on a car—except the tires are digital, and the car is your bandwidth.

Copying files across your WAN is like asking your network, “Bro, can you handle this?” And the network either flexes and moves that file like a champ, or it wheezes like a smoker running a marathon. You’ll see the truth instantly—no need for a PhD in network analytics. If that file transfer crawls slower than a sloth on NyQuil, you’ve got a problem. And if it zooms across like your buddy’s new fiber line, congratulations, your WAN is feeling strong today.

Here’s the beauty of the file-copy test: it’s real-world, relatable, and brutally honest. No synthetic numbers, no simulated packets—just raw, everyday file transfer action across real equipment, using real servers and clients. It’s the same activity your users are probably doing anyway (and then complaining about when it doesn’t work). By mimicking real behavior, you’re testing not just the WAN, but also whether your users are about to storm your desk with pitchforks and support tickets.

And let’s be honest, it’s kind of satisfying. Watching that progress bar race to 100% feels like victory. Watching it stall at 2% feels like despair. Either way, you’ll know whether your WAN is ready for battle or in desperate need of reinforcements. So before you go spending thousands on some “enterprise link validation software,” try writing and reading a chunky file as well as a bunch of small files and see what happens. It’s cheap, easy, and occasionally hilarious. WAN testing doesn’t have to be rocket science—it just has to work. 

I've written a few posts already how to calculate the theoretical time it takes to transmit data, but you can never account for processing latency, so develop your own baselines.

When you get the hang of it you can always write a batch file schedule it and save your results.

Google Is Turning Chrome into an AI Browser

The web browser war is heating up again, and Google is raising the stakes. Chrome, the world’s most popular browser, is being transformed into something much bigger than a simple tool for accessing websites. With artificial intelligence woven directly into its core, Chrome is evolving into the first true “AI browser,” promising smarter, faster, and more intuitive ways to navigate the internet.

Google is taking its flagship browser, Chrome, into a new era by weaving artificial intelligence directly into the browsing experience. Long known as a fast, reliable, and user-friendly browser, Chrome is now evolving into what some are calling the first true “AI browser.” This transformation goes far beyond cosmetic changes or speed optimizations—it’s about making the browser itself smarter, more intuitive, and capable of handling tasks that once required separate apps or add-ons.

One of the most exciting aspects of this shift is Chrome’s integration with Google’s Gemini AI. Features like AI-powered tab organization, smart summaries of web pages, and intelligent writing assistance are being baked directly into the browser. For example, instead of manually wrangling dozens of open tabs, users can let Chrome automatically group them by context. Reading a long article but short on time? Chrome can provide a concise summary on the spot. Drafting an email or blog post? The browser can now lend a hand with clear, context-aware suggestions.

Beyond convenience, Google is framing this as a way to redefine productivity online. Chrome will act less like a static window into the web and more like an active assistant. The addition of natural language interactions means users can soon “talk” to their browser in a conversational way, asking it to dig up information, streamline research, or even generate creative content without needing to jump between multiple tools. This AI-first approach positions Chrome not only as a web navigator, but as a powerful everyday partner for work, study, and leisure.

Of course, these advancements also raise important questions about privacy, data handling, and the balance between automation and user control. As Google rolls out these features, it will need to prove that the benefits of an AI-enhanced browsing experience outweigh concerns about how much the browser “knows” about its users. Still, the direction is clear: Chrome is no longer just a browser—it’s evolving into a dynamic AI platform. This shift could reshape how billions of people interact with the internet, making browsing more intelligent, personalized, and seamless than ever before.

Google’s AI-powered Chrome could be the biggest browser upgrade in over a decade. If successful, it will blur the line between search, productivity, and creativity—right inside your browser. While questions about privacy and data control remain, one thing is certain: the future of browsing is no longer just about speed—it’s about intelligence.

Google — Chrome: The browser you love, reimagined with AI blog.google

Cabling: The Silent Speed Killer

When troubleshooting network performance, one of the most overlooked culprits is bad cabling. In a recent test, I connected a device that should have been running at 1 Gb speeds, only to find it dropping down to 100 Mb. At first glance, the problem seemed like it could be related to the switch, the device, or even a configuration issue, but the real problem was hidden in the cable itself. A poorly terminated connector or a damaged pair inside the cable can easily force devices to negotiate at lower speeds.

This drop in speed isn’t just a number—it directly affects how a device performs in real-world use. File transfers take longer, streaming can stutter, and latency-sensitive applications like VoIP or online gaming suffer noticeable performance hits. The worst part is that many users assume the issue lies with their internet service provider, when in reality the fault is right in the physical cabling between their device and the network. A simple cable swap often brings the connection back to its full potential.

The key takeaway is that network cabling matters just as much as the equipment it connects. A cable that looks fine on the outside can still have flaws that impact speed and reliability. That’s why it’s important to test and verify your cables with the right tools or, at the very least, replace questionable ones before chasing other fixes. In my demonstration, as soon as I replaced the faulty cable, the device immediately returned to running at gigabit speeds—a simple solution to what could have been a frustrating problem.

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