Dual 5.25" floppies and a FH hard drive?
I thought ATs only had space for 3 HH drives, two accessible outside and one below them?
I like Microsoft Sam better.
The first computer that I ever owned was a Machintosh IIci that I recieved new in either 1991 or 1992. I still have it and it still works!!! Unfortunately my monitor for it died years ago so I can't use it =(
You don't need to get an old Mac monitor for it. Just get an adapter and you can use it with just about any analog computer monitor. The converter has the Mac-style monitor connection on one end and a regular SVGA jack on the other - plus lots, and lots of DIP switches!
Belkin and a couple others sold them.
Hmm... I think I will look into that, thanks! :)
I had never even thought of that!
I must admit thougth it would be really nice to have that same monitor on it though, I really dug it, you know... for nostalgia =)
Thanks again, I really appreciate it =)
If I had more than just the one I'd send one to you, but it's all I've got at the moment for my older Macs. Guess I should have picked up that spare a couple weeks ago when I spotted it in a parts bin.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380164308963&rvr_id=&crlp=1_263602_263622&UA=W2I7&GUID=6875a0ec1260a040b10698c6ffcd2950&itemid=380164308963&ff4=263602_263622
apparently so.....
late adopter.
little did I know what a life-changing gift this would be
Sir Clive Sinclair snagged a lot of us that decade.
Apple IIc. I remember it costing $1300. I played Lemonade Stand.
Apple IIc. I remember it costing $1300. I played Lemonade Stand.
PIECE OF GARBAGE. I HATE LEMOADE STAND. I think I threw that game out.So, uh, have you noticed that you're the only guy in this thread who's trashing other people's memories about their first computers. You are truly one first class act. Grow up.
All the good games back then were on DOS, the only things on apple computers were typing applications and other "educational" things due to it being adopted in schools (and me having to use macs at school).
TI-99/4a
Had both silver/black and beige. Think the silver/black came first but not 100% sure. Collected a lot of the expansion stuff at swaps and clearance sales but gave it all away many years ago.
...what kind of controllers did those take? Did they work with Atari plugs?
When I was a kid, my next door neighbor had one of those. All I remember about it was that he had some funky Abominable Snowman game and that the cartridges loaded in on a plastic runway.
I can't remember, what kind of controllers did those take? Did they work with Atari plugs?
Are you insane? All the best games back then were on Amiga. PC games absolutely SUCKED in comparison. Before the Amiga, all the best games were on Atari. (arguably C64)
Games on PC only improved in early 90's when they got high-colour graphics cards and good sound cards.
Show Image(http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/5270/picture124p.jpg)
No I'm not insane, I'm referring to the 1994-1999 era. Amiga was already DEAD by then.
C64 was *okay*, but nothing that impressive. It was mainly about the music than the games. And playing the last ninja looks exceedingly annoying waiting for everything to load on 1 Mhz.
Anyone play around with the Cambridge Z88?
ftp://ftp.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/company-pics/SinclairResearchLtd/SirCliveSinclair-HoldingTheZ88.jpg (http://ftp://ftp.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/company-pics/SinclairResearchLtd/SirCliveSinclair-HoldingTheZ88.jpg)
Another brainchild of Clive Sinclair ... it's relatively innovative, with lots of amazing functionality packed into such a small package for the time, got a couple dozen hours of life from only a few AA cells. The bizarro rubber keyboard was both a boon (quiet, interesting action, waterproof) and a curse (wears down over time, key response on large keys (shift, space) was lacking). I played around with one of these for a while and it was really fun, but nothing I could use for practical work, particularly because file-transfer was cumbersome, and the keyboard and I just didn't get along.
Sorry if I'm turning this into another retrocomputing thread ...
I thought it already was a retrocomputing thread.
I liked the look of the Z88 and always wondered how good the keyboard was. I suspected it was nice and quiet, but crap to type on - and it's good to hear from somebody who actually tried it and find out I was right.
I just got a 1983 TRS-80 Model 100, which is similar, but has a very nice keyboard (with double-shot keycaps). File transfers are no problem because I've got a SD card reader for it.Show Image(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=10223&stc=1&d=1274519778)
My mom n dad gave me a old Inspiron 1100 for my birthday last yr. Its a littl slow but it still totelly r0xx0rs becuz its a Dell dude!
b4 I wus using there Dimension 4600. Such a tight box its so fast and it plays counter strike but I keep gettin killed by camper ***s. :( Its even faster after i got my mom n dad to get more ram for it n i put it in myself!
Consumers who purchased this machine entered a new dimension all right, the altered dimension of Dell Hell. The Dimension 4600 was only a middling machine when new, but after about a year--or shortly after the standard warranty expired--power supplies in some machines began to fail. Worse, Dell's customer support misdiagnosed some of these problems as motherboard failures.
Dell's support forums filled up with complaints from similarly powerless users, but the company refused to admit to defects with the power supply. (Dell politely declined to comment for this article.) The Dimension 4600's problems were yet one more reason why the "Dude, You've Got a Dell" tagline became a joke--though not a particularly amusing one for some customers.
I just got a 1983 TRS-80 Model 100, which is similar, but has a very nice keyboard (with double-shot keycaps). File transfers are no problem because I've got a SD card reader for it.Show Image(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=10223&stc=1&d=1274519778)
Hey, I have one of those as well. Since it's solid state, no moving parts and runs on AA batteries, those should work forever. Long after many other vintage systems will have bitten the dust
Likewise, I'm the original owner of a Model 100, which I received for my 16th(/17th/thereabouts) birthday back when RS was blowing out the 100 to make room for the new (and not much different) 102. I regard this as one of the coolest technogizmos ever made, but honestly I just can't get myself to do much with it anymore. It's been collecting dust and I've been considering letting it go.
Yes, it can be tricky finding useful purposes for vintage computers, but... this post was completely typed using the 1983 TRS-80 in that picture. Neat, eh? (pointless, but neat)
Agreed.
Just for kicks, I made an acoustic Model 100 modem cable, connecting from the DIN modem jack to a 1/8" phono plug. This way I can plug the M100 into a mobile phone and get a modem connection from nearly anywhere. I tested it once for the gee-whiz factor -- dialed into my ISP and browsed the web via Lynx in the middle of nowhere ... totally cool! -- but again, haven't used it that way since. It was a fun diversion, though.
Example: I took all my TRS-80 CoCo 2 programs, which were on dying cassette tape, sampled them on my Amiga 500, converted them to MP3 and put them in a playlist on my iPod ("album art" is a screenshot of the program). Now, I've got every program I ever wrote for that computer safely stored and easily accessed on my iPod - without screwing around with tape positioning. (Anybody out there old enough to have saved programs on cassette tape? It wasn't fun, let me tell you.)
By the way, I like your avatar. Ballblazer (a.k.a. Ballblaster) is one of my favourite 8-bit games. I still play it occasionally on my 800XL - loaded from SD using the SDrive Nuxx.
I thought it already was a retrocomputing thread.
I liked the look of the Z88 and always wondered how good the keyboard was. I suspected it was nice and quiet, but crap to type on - and it's good to hear from somebody who actually tried it and find out I was right.
I took all my TRS-80 CoCo 2 programs, which were on dying cassette tape, sampled them on my Amiga 500, converted them to MP3 and put them in a playlist on my iPod ("album art" is a screenshot of the program).What do they sound like? :-)
What do they sound like? :-)
Sinclair ZX81 followed by a Commodore Vic20.Show Image(http://www.guenthoer.de/bilder/sinclair-zx81.jpg)
...I took all my TRS-80 CoCo 2 programs, which were on dying cassette tape, sampled them on my Amiga 500, converted them to MP3 and put them in a playlist on my iPod ("album art" is a screenshot of the program). Now, I've got every program I ever wrote for that computer safely stored and easily accessed on my iPod - without screwing around with tape positioning. (Anybody out there old enough to have saved programs on cassette tape? It wasn't fun, let me tell you.)