Retro Computers

[J4CKO]

Anyone else into retro computers?

I keep finding myself browsing eBay looking for a C64 and/or a Spectrum to relive my youth, Emulators dont seem to cut it any more, too much messing with settings for controllers and the like.

What is the going rate for a working one ?

Any pitfalls in buying them (apart from being ancient and a bit rubbish)

Anyone tried the SD card add ons and plugged on into a modern monitor ?

[dundarach]

Yes, all sorts, a small bit of mine...

[colin_p]

I've got a Dragon 32 which has been gathering dust (in it's original battered box) in the loft since the mid 80's.

Whilst others got Spectrum's and BBC's etc, I ended up with a Dragon 32 and that is probably why I never turned into an IT geek.

[timmymagic73]

colin_p said:

I've got a Dragon 32 which has been gathering dust (in it's original battered box) in the loft since the mid 80's.

Whilst others got Spectrum's and BBC's etc, I ended up with a Dragon 32 and that is probably why I never turned into an IT geek.

Retromancave on youtube has just started a new trash to treasure episode on a Dragon 32 you might enjoy. Never too late to become an IT geek... :-)

I have a selection of old computers - couple of C64s, pimped out Amiga, BBC model-B - but sadly no spare time to tinker/play at the moment.

[mike9009]

Hi

I still have my ZX81 (plus wobby 16k RAM pack) and my Spectrum + 48k in an old box at home. They have not been fired up since the 1980s so not sure how well they would work now. The ZX81 used to get a very hot keyboard which meant the keys would not work very well - as a seven year old the solution was to hit the keys (membrane) harder


I seem to remember the prices of these old computers are not very high, at least last time I looked on ebay - probably everyone is holding onto them in the hope they will be worth something in the future.


Mike

[J4CKO]

colin_p said:

I've got a Dragon 32 which has been gathering dust (in it's original battered box) in the loft since the mid 80's.

Whilst others got Spectrum's and BBC's etc, I ended up with a Dragon 32 and that is probably why I never turned into an IT geek.

Ahh, the cool kids had 64's and the Spectrum owners were similar but with less money, then there were the BBC ones, usually the rich kids and we forgave the education aspect, but the Dragon 32 kids, well there was only one, he was a bit of a lonely character.

[littlebasher]

I've got a VIC-20 and C64 lurking in the loft

A couple of years ago, i bought one of those SD card floppy emulators which works on both machines. As a result of this, i pushed the boat out and bought a 16K ram expansion for the Vic, to take advantage of the SD game library.


In about 2005 a colleague gave me an Amiga 600 complete with hundreds of games, drives, monitor, printer etc for nowt. He also wondered if i fancied a boxed C128 that he had lurking around his loft, so i had that too. They fetched a handsome sum on Ebay !

[littlebasher]

J4CKO said:

Ahh, the cool kids had 64's and the Spectrum owners were similar but with less money, then there were the BBC ones, usually the rich kids and we forgave the education aspect, but the Dragon 32 kids, well there was only one, he was a bit of a lonely character.

So true

Dragon 32 owners were pigeon holed along with those who had;

C16 or +4
Acorn Electron
Any Amstrad
Atari 800

Not necessarily anything wrong with those machines, but if you weren't in the Commodore or Sinclair camps you were definitely out in the cold!

[colin_p]

littlebasher said:

J4CKO said:

Ahh, the cool kids had 64's and the Spectrum owners were similar but with less money, then there were the BBC ones, usually the rich kids and we forgave the education aspect, but the Dragon 32 kids, well there was only one, he was a bit of a lonely character.

So true

Dragon 32 owners were pigeon holed along with those who had;

C16 or +4
Acorn Electron
Any Amstrad
Atari 800

Not necessarily anything wrong with those machines, but if you weren't in the Commodore or Sinclair camps you were definitely out in the cold!

Yes, having a D32 was lonely. It did have a few stunning games though like Donkey Kong which was almost arcade quality.

....but nothing compared to the hankering I had to have a Spectrum and play Manic Miner / Jet set Willy, like my friends did!

[boxst]

I’ve just been looking to buy an Atari 130xe from my youth. More accurately it was an Atari 800 but those are too expensive. I learnt to program on them and just have a weird tang of nostalgia recently.

I missed a couple on eBay as they seem rarer than the C64.

[jeremyc]

Somewhere I've got the Tandy TRS80 Model I I had as a teenager.




I guess I'm a bit older than others here ...

[shed driver]

littlebasher said:

So true

Dragon 32 owners were pigeon holed along with those who had;

C16 or +4
Acorn Electron
Any Amstrad
Atari 800

Not necessarily anything wrong with those machines, but if you weren't in the Commodore or Sinclair camps you were definitely out in the cold!

Even more lonely was having a Ti99/4a.

SD.

[droopsnoot]

I was working in a computer shop while a lot of these things were being sold. The TI99/4a was a nice machine with decent power, but the software let it down a bit, until they released "Parsec", an arcade game on cartridge that became the main selling feature for a bit. It was an old machine really - the TI99/4 but with a nice new keyboard, but little in the way of expansion unless you bought the expensive expansion chassis. I think we sold one expansion chassis.

We sold a few Spectrums, but I seem to recall there wasn't much margin in them (I wasn't involved in that side of things). We sold BBC Micros, and Electrons, and there wasn't a lot in them either - we sold two of the "Torch" Z-80 / floppy disc upgrades for the BBC, which allowed them to run CP/M software. We sold a lot of Dragon 32, and a smaller number of Dragon 64, and I always thought it was a more serious machine that the Spectrum. I think we were an authorised repair centre for Dragon at one point.

There seemed to be a lot of things that we tried to sell but maybe ended up keeping - the Oric-1, Micro-Professor MPFII, we had a Nascom for a while, a Commodore Vic-20 and C-64, and something other things I've forgotten about. Oh, and we sold quite a lot of Video Genie and Colour Genie as well.

Interesting times. The other side of the business sold Apple products, and also wrote bespoke business software for multi-user systems, and I moved into that side as the demand for home computers started dropping.

[anonymous-user]

I had a Jupiter Ace that used Forth as the programming language.

Then a BBC B and eventually an Amiga.

Used them all loads.

[UpTheIron]

Keep getting tempted to buy myself an Amiga, having first had an A500 back when they launched, then. B1000? after that.

[iwantagta]

Think my parents still have my old Amstrad CPC 464 and a load of old games in the loft. How much are these worth now? - colour monitor version - we weren't paupers.
Think the tape deck doesn't eject properly. Other than that i remember it working. Many many years ago!

Edit - just looked on eBay & the answer is - not a lot .

Edited by iwantagta on Monday 8th April 19:16

[ruggedscotty]

Have this in the garage, pretty nice thing it is too, likes a game of chess from time to time and keeps on about some guy called Falken…..

[J4CKO]

dundarach said:

Yes, all sorts, a small bit of mine...

Ah, your name makes sense now !

[dundarach]

J4CKO said:

dundarach said:

Yes, all sorts, a small bit of mine...

Ah, your name makes sense now !

Yes...finally someone gets it

have www.dundarach.com too, never done much with it sadly...

[jjones]

Got all nostalgic around 15 years ago and bought a VIC-20. Was fun for around 90 seconds, it was then put back into the box and into the loft where it has remained ever since.