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weasel fierce
November 11th, 2010, 11:39 PM
Any of you guys have retro computers out there that you tinker with or still fire up on occasion?

Pre-pentium PC's, C64s, 8 bit ataris, amigas, zx spectrum, atari ST or whatever


I spend quite a lot of my time messing with my beloved amiga 1200 :)

drawkcab
November 11th, 2010, 11:57 PM
I'll never forgive my mother for selling my Atari 2600 at a rummage sale while I was away at college.

benerivo
November 12th, 2010, 12:03 AM
I love older hardware. It did so much with so little, and the Spectrum and Amiga are my favourites. No matter what OS i'm running today, it seems that my comp is just IBM PC Compatible junk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_compatible#The_IBM_PC_compatible_today)

Paul820
November 12th, 2010, 12:05 AM
I have been looking on ebay at Amigas, i used to have a 1200 but i sold it as i never used it. Well, as with most thing you get rid of, you always seem to want to use it again but it's too late :P

I have played a few of my favourites with UAE but it's just not the same. :(

Spice Weasel
November 12th, 2010, 01:20 AM
Anyone ever find themselves always going to car boot sales and looking on ebay for the occasional epicly rare old PC? :)

forrestcupp
November 12th, 2010, 03:16 AM
I was a pro at the C64. Unfortunately, I don't still have one.

Someday, I hope to start a collection of retro CPUs to display. I don't have the cash to waste on that yet, though.

samalex
November 12th, 2010, 04:11 AM
Any of you guys have retro computers out there that you tinker with or still fire up on occasion?

Pre-pentium PC's, C64s, 8 bit ataris, amigas, zx spectrum, atari ST or whatever


I spend quite a lot of my time messing with my beloved amiga 1200 :)

Oh yeah.. Now that I'm married with kiddos i don't have nearly enough time to play with my older systems, but I still have my stash of systems that hopefully will get some playtime soon. Unfortunately most of my systems went to Goodwill last year when we moved, but I still have my Commodore Amiga 500, Apple Macintosh (yes, the original one from 1984), Apple II (and yes the original one from 1977), Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer 2, TRS-80 Color Computer 3, and my Tandy 8088 XT laptop.

I used to have an original IBM 5150 system with system, monitor, and keyboard, but that's one that went to Goodwill, along with several XT's, and pre-pentium systems.

Also do you listen to Retrobits Podcast? It's an awesome podcast on retro computing that's amazing. Also if you're from the US you probably remember Computer Chronicles. They have most of the episodes on Archive.org and i could watch those all day.

And of course BBSing is still very much alive. I ran one back in the day, and I'm hopefully going to get a Telnet board up very soon which will be my 3rd or 4th one to setup since around 2001.

Too much fun :)

Sam

Dustin2128
November 12th, 2010, 04:12 AM
Right here. I'm planning to do a cheap knockoff of that Z80 project that sporkman posted. That plus a kinda side project to integrate my humongous 27 inch 100 pound HD CRT monitor with a case that enables fast swapping of motherboards- one is a pentium 3, the other a 2 (both running debian) and a vintage 286 running freedos. Last one isn't built yet and I'm considering swapping to a 386 or maybe even a 486 to enable some of the latter day DOS gaming.

jcolyn
November 12th, 2010, 04:18 AM
I still fire up an old Vic 20 and C 64 just for fun.

My Apple II is still residing in the closet though. Maybe someday I'll take it out for a spin..

johntaylor1887
November 12th, 2010, 04:42 AM
Any of you guys have retro computers out there that you tinker with or still fire up on occasion?

Pre-pentium PC's, C64s, 8 bit ataris, amigas, zx spectrum, atari ST or whatever


I spend quite a lot of my time messing with my beloved amiga 1200 :)

Computer Chronicles (http://www.archive.org/browse.php?field=subject&mediatype=movies&collection=computerchronicles) It brings me back. I feel a renewed vigor after watching a couple episodes. Just go to "Episode Year 19**" on the list, and enjoy.

MisterGaribaldi
November 12th, 2010, 05:10 AM
Yeah, you know what I want... I'd love to get an old Mac II or maybe a TRS-80 Model 3 or 4. Wonder if I could still get BASIC-A for it. Heh...

Nah, even if I had something like that, what the heck would I do with it?

But it'd be cool.

timbo59
November 12th, 2010, 05:19 AM
Actually, if there's one thing I miss about older PC's it's my inability to play some old game favorites that simply won't function on more modern OS systems. I'm talking about games that were designed for Win 95 and Win 98. With a little tinkering some will work, but not often.

Besides, let's face it. For most applications PC's were practically where they needed to be ten years ago at least. It's only high end games and graphics that continue the need for increases in power and speed.

Dustin2128
November 12th, 2010, 05:45 AM
Besides, let's face it. For most applications PC's were practically where they needed to be ten years ago at least. It's only high end games and graphics that continue the need for increases in power and speed.
Plus windows' ever ballooning hardware requirements. One way or the other, it beats stagnation.

juancarlospaco
November 12th, 2010, 06:17 AM
I got this fan of a retro computer:

http://www.makemilk.com/pic_hosting/s1495/diy/cpu_fan_replacement/cpufan000.jpg

endotherm
November 12th, 2010, 06:26 AM
yes and no. I have a few very modern computers inside very old cases, just for kitsch.

witeshark17
November 12th, 2010, 06:29 AM
Retro computers :guitar:

endotherm
November 12th, 2010, 06:50 AM
Yeah, you know what I want... I'd love to get an old Mac II or maybe a TRS-80 Model 3 or 4. Wonder if I could still get BASIC-A for it. Heh...

Nah, even if I had something like that, what the heck would I do with it?

But it'd be cool.

and in walks Mr. Garabaldi. the universe has been telling me it's time to rewatch Bab5 for the last few weeks. I think you may be the deciding factor.
cheers

mips
November 12th, 2010, 10:25 AM
I spend quite a lot of my time messing with my beloved amiga 1200 :)

I wish I still had mine.

I'mGeorge
November 12th, 2010, 10:29 AM
I got this fan of a retro computer:

http://www.makemilk.com/pic_hosting/s1495/diy/cpu_fan_replacement/cpufan000.jpg

Oooh man, I know it's old but what happened to it. It seams it's missing some pales. I didn't knew computers go to war too :-)

bouncingwilf
November 12th, 2010, 10:34 AM
No! Things have moved on so should we. I never want to see a bdos error ever again!



Bouncingwilf

Schrute Farms
November 12th, 2010, 08:51 PM
I have a functioning Commodore 64 out in the garage with both the 1541 5 1/4" floppy and 1571 3 1/2" floppy drive. I have probably about 50 or so total discs for both. I don't have the adapter to hook it up to the TV. Not a big deal to get one, I know, just never think about it.
I'm also afraid that the disks may be shot after spending 10+ years out in my garage going through Michigan summers, where the temps in the garage go well over 100 deg. F, and go below freezing in the winter.
I want to bring it out sometime, just to show my 11 year old kid what we had to use way back when. "We didn't have a mouse, or any fancy internet...and we liked it!"

Zzl1xndd
November 12th, 2010, 08:58 PM
I have a Mac Classic, an Apple IIE and a Boxed copy of OS2/Warp (I know its not hardware but its still awesome).

wolfgangmcq
November 12th, 2010, 08:59 PM
Mostly, I play with emulators, but I have an old Macintosh 156K, a Mac Plus, a Mac SE, and a bunch of other stuff, and a TRS80 that has a video display problem.

donkyhotay
November 12th, 2010, 09:15 PM
I used to have a C64 but it died about 10 years ago or so. I don't currently use any retro computers but I am fond of and have good memories of my C64.

Lancro
November 12th, 2010, 09:20 PM
I have an Amstrad CPC 6128 in the garage, the power of basic and 128K.

Old_Grey_Wolf
November 12th, 2010, 10:13 PM
I had a TRS-80 Color Computer I that I would play with at times. My children liked to play with the old games they had when they were very young, even after we got our first 186 PC clone.

But alas, the chips started to fail. I couldn't find replacement parts.

I have attached a picture of a TRS-80 Color Computer I.

When I bought it, it had 32KB of RAM. After the warranty ran out, I was going to replace the nine 32K bit chips with 64K bit chips. When I open the case, to my surprise, the computer already had 64K bit chips and all I had to do was remove a jumper to get the full 64K. Back in those days, memory chips were often defective. The TRS-80 had a jumper to select the high or low 32K that was working. As memory production yields improved, perfectly good chips were used. I have attached a picture showing the jumper.

weasel fierce
November 12th, 2010, 10:15 PM
I had a TRS-80 Color Computer I that I would play with at times. My children liked to play with the old games they had when they were very young even after we got our first 186 PC clone.

But alas, the chips started to fail. I couldn't find replacement parts.

I have attached a picture of the TRS-80 Color Computer I.

When I bought it, it had 32KB of RAM. After the warranty ran out, I was going to replace the nine 32K bit chips with 64K bit chips. When I open the case, to my surprise, the computer already had 64K bit chips and all I had to do was remove a jumper to get the full 64K. Back in those days, memory chips were often defective. The TRS-80 had a jumper to select the high or low 32K that was working. As memory product yields improved, perfectly good chips were used. I have attached a picture showing the jumper.

Free upgrade! :)

Old_Grey_Wolf
November 12th, 2010, 10:21 PM
Free upgrade! :)

Hahaha.

Yes it was. I was expecting to use my soldering iron, flux, and solder sucker in order to replace the RAM chips. It seems that they didn't think of using sockets to facilitate upgrades at the time.

:)

Old_Grey_Wolf
November 12th, 2010, 10:43 PM
I have a Mac Classic, an Apple IIE and a Boxed copy of OS2/Warp (I know its not hardware but its still awesome).

There is an Apple I at auction.

For just $160K. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20022691-37.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=News-Apple

:lolflag: