About the Show

RetroAxis.info is a supporting website to the video channel which explores hardware and software from various computing eras.

About the Presenter

Chris Tusa : In the early 80’s, the Apple II was introduced into the local school system where I grew up. My grammar school invested in several labs where I had an opportunity to learn on the platform. My parents purchased an Apple IIe as did my next door neighbor. Games like Conan, Lode Runner, Congo Bongo and others were some of my favorite ways to use these machines. I also began learning how to program in BASIC and my neighbor and I would exchange floppies and work on our programs together. Several years later, we upgraded to a PC, an i386 computer with a 1200 Baud modem. I can recall a family friend bringing over a bunch of floppies and talking about logging onto a BBS. He installed Telix, a popular comm program for DOS, and setup a few bookmarks. After spending a few months learning, searching, and downloading various BBS software programs, I opened my board as a young system operator. I continued to develop my programming skills and joined the modding scene for several of the popular BBS software programs.

In the 90’s, I worked at CompUSA in the repair shop, getting familiar with hardware and began to experiment with UNIX systems. FreeBSD was the operating system I really embraced, and abandoned a goal to obtain the MCSE. As the internet was made available, I started a local webhosting & design company running entirely on FreeBSD systems. For the next 15 years, I stayed in the hosting and datacenter industry where I helped to architect, develop and deploy enterprise infrastructure and software at several colocation and managed service providers.

Today I work for an open-source software company working on various projects. Despite how far our technology has grown, there is something amazing and nostalgic about the computers and software that I spent so much time with in my youth. I created Retro Axis as a way to share my knowledge and passion for all things computing. Thank you for your support.