Retro-Computing on Phil Wheat

Mike Stewart

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 11:48:00 -0500

Mike Stewart restores and preserves historic spaceflight hardware and software: testing a scrapped Apollo Guidance Computer module, powering up a Lunar Module thrust meter, Apollo command-module talkback switching and translational hand-controller teardowns. If CuriousMarc is the flagship of this niche, Mike Stewart is its most careful technician — 245K subscribers, uploads every few months (last one about three months ago).

Nostalgia Nerd

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 11:41:00 -0500

Retro computing with a liberal amount of dry humour: software, hardware, games, toys, and magazines from the 70s through the 90s, with the main focus on 80s/90s machines. Recent uploads keep the format varied — “When a Hard Drive got Massive for No Reason,” “This Shouldn’t Work,” machines that “need to be studied.” 593K subscribers, uploads every week or two.

RETRO Hardware

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 11:28:00 -0500

A hardware collector filming his own collection: builds, overclocking, repairs, and unboxings spanning ISA, AGP, and PCIe eras — classic ZALMAN and EXOS water-cooling systems, acrylic cube cases, weird Lian-Li and AeroCool chassis. Self-deprecating and unprofessional in the best way (“don’t try this at home, both hands left”). Uploads have slowed to a stop over the last five months, so it’s an archive for now.

The 8-Bit Guy

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 11:09:00 -0500

Retro technology from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, made educational and engaging — with the once-or-twice-a-year “totally out there” project as the reward for subscribers. Recent: sci-fi tech that came true, five monitors on a Commodore 128, and something “very different.” 212K subscribers, uploads every few weeks. A long-running staple of the retro-computing community.

Usagi Electric

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 11:01:00 -0500

Old-school technology with vacuum tubes at the center: computing circuits inspired by the legendary machines, built with deliberately low plate voltages so they’re safe and followable at home. Recent: the PDP-11 gaining dual 8-inch floppy drives, a TM990 running Conway’s Game of Life, a first journey into high vacuum, and a Tony Sale Award win for the Colossus-adjacent work. 145K subscribers, weekly uploads. The tube-computing niche’s best active channel.

Usagi Workshop

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 11:00:00 -0500

The companion to Usagi Electric: the Friday Night Live repair streams, unedited and collaborative. The current serial is a TI-980 mainframe revival — seventeen bad LEDs, hunting a bad IC on the RAM board, running code for the first time, and getting a serial line running for a Bomem spectrometer. If Usagi Electric is the finished film, this is the making-of. Weekly, 2.9K subscribers.

VCF Southwest

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 10:58:00 -0500

The recorded talks from the Vintage Computer Festival Southwest: Activision legends David Crane, Dan Kitchen, and Garry Kitchen telling war stories, the personal-computer revolution years told through BASIC, the FujiNet state of the union, the TMS340 family as the first programmable graphics processor, and life before IoT. Uploads cluster around the event (last batch about three months ago); 2.9K subscribers, and the retrocomputing-talk format is the draw.