Mark W. Kaelin

The PC Jr. was IBM’s attempt to tap into the budding home personal computer market of 1983. While the PC Jr. had many positives with regard to the general home user, it also had several limitations that doomed it in the marketplace. I bought my PC Jr. in 1985 from my older brother who never quite figured out what to do with it. Feeling nostalgic, I decided to Crack Open the IBM PC Jr. to see what was actually in the case.

The ASUS Eee 901 20G is one of the new ultra-portable PC-like devices hitting the market. It is trying to fill a niche where consumers want power and long-battery life in an ultra-small and extremely portable package. We just had to crack open our ASUS 901 take a look inside and check out its design and engineering.

The ASUS Eee Model 901 with a 20GB solid state hard drive is an ultra-portable PC-like device. It is designed to be used for Web surfing, e-mailing, and light productivity. As a PC-like device it is quite capable. This ASUS Eee is destined to be Cracked Open, but we wanted to give you a quick look before we submit it to the screwdriver.

The IBM PC Jr. is an important artifact in the history of the modern personal computer. The PC Jr. was IBM’s attempt to enter the SOHO market. In 1983, the largest computer company in the world was looking to tap a fast growing segment that it had not foreseen as even existing just a few years before. By most objective accounts it failed.

The Roku Netflix Player is a small set top box that delivers streaming video over the Internet into your living room in a manner so easy even your grandparents could understand it. We find out what makes it tick in this TechRepublic Cracking Open Photo Gallery.

The Apple Mac is one of the most famous and easily recognizable personal computers ever manufactured. In this Cracking Open Photo Gallery, TechRepublic examines just what went into a Mac Classic — and what technology was like in 1991.

The Apple Mac Classic is one of the most famous and easily recognizable personal computers ever manufactured. First introduced in 1990, the Mac Classic was Apple’s low-end under $1,000 computer, which made it very popular with the education market. In the next few weeks, we’ll be Cracking Open this classic computer to examine what makes it tick.

This is the 2008 version of my photo scrap book. This is where I publish photos, diagrams, and other imagery for blogs and articles on TechRepublic.

The Area 51 m15x notebook is latest in a long line of quality portable computers from boutique manufacturer Alienware. The m15x is also one of the most powerful notebook computers we ever had the pleasure to review. Of course, we couldn’t resist cracking open the m15x to see what makes it tick.

Contrary to common mythology, it is indeed possible to uninstall Microsoft Internet Explorer 7. Mark Kaelin shows you how in this step-by-step guide.

Rack mountable servers save space and power and are a standard part of most any enterprise communications network. The Adaptec Snap Server 520 is one of the more typical examples of this type of server, so we decided to crack it open to see what was inside.

Introduced all the way back in October 1977, The Atari 2600 Video Computer System is one of the more fondly remembered video game consoles. In this TechRepublic teardown gallery, Mark Kaelin cracks open the Atari 2600.