Reply to: Old computers

[Spacecadet]

I sold my Amstrad CPC 6128 back in the 90's...

Posh git

We had a 464 with a green screen

[Churchill]

I've a ZX81, with 16K RAM pack sitting in my cellar. Last time I check (about 8 years ago) it was still working.

3D Monster Maze, Fungaloids and Mazogs were favourites. I know some geek somewhere managed to hack the display routines to get user-defined graphics.

May I refer the learned audience to Fred Nachbaur's ZX81 Page

[Le Rosbif]

Having a bit of a clear out at the weekend I happened across my old Commodore 64 and (loads of) games from my childhood.

Got me thinking if there is any value in keeping it or if I should sell or dump it.

I also had an as new Texas Instruments computer but dumped it a few years back - really should have tried eBaying it.

What's the oldest computer you still have?

I sold my Amstrad CPC 6128 back in the 90's...

I still have my TI-99 - plug it sometimes to have game of "parsec" or "car wars"
Brilliant!

[Churchill]

Still got my Microtan 65 - and some of the soldering iron burns from building it.

The 6502 is still my favourite processor.

The ARM is second, I like the idea of having a bit shift and conditional operator as part of most instructions and only losing a clock cycle if that instruction isn't executed.

[NotAllThere]

I've a ZX81, with 16K RAM pack sitting in my cellar. Last time I check (about 8 years ago) it was still working.

3D Monster Maze, Fungaloids and Mazogs were favourites. I know some geek somewhere managed to hack the display routines to get user-defined graphics.

[v8gaz]

Still got my Microtan 65 - and some of the soldering iron burns from building it.

[DodgyAgent]

Jesus, I bet the evenings just fly by!

Anyone for 3D Monster Maze?

[Churchill]

Actually, I've still got my Sinclair Cambridge Programmable, which used a 4-bit instruction set.

I had the Sinclair Enterprise Programmable. There were a few games in the "General Finance and Statistics" program library - Moon lander, supertanker and an electronic dice program.

If you powered on the calculator while holding down certain key sequences there were some rather strange effects. One of them was like a countdown timer that just kept decrementing digits. Not sure it was a test sequence or even whether it had anything that sophisticated built in.

Not a bad toy though ;-)

[Cliphead]

Got rid of all the old kit over the years but still have a Sparc 5 lying around somewhere.

[NickFitz]

Actually, I've still got my Sinclair Cambridge Programmable, which used a 4-bit instruction set.

[Churchill]

Sideways, do you mean? Yes, one of my colleagues had a lot of hassle with the sideways scrolling playing area with fixed control panel on Action Force because of weirdness in the video circuitry. In the end he was able to get it working by setting one of the registers of the 6845 CRTC to some ludicrously out-of-range value, which somehow caused it to pick up on the new values written to the display address registers pointing at the control panel bitmap.

Yep.

Sometimes it was better to use software sprites to simulate things like parallax scrolling as in "Short Circuit".

[NickFitz]

Scrolling was a f*cker though!

Sideways, do you mean? Yes, one of my colleagues had a lot of hassle with the sideways scrolling playing area with fixed control panel on Action Force because of weirdness in the video circuitry. In the end he was able to get it working by setting one of the registers of the 6845 CRTC to some ludicrously out-of-range value, which somehow caused it to pick up on the new values written to the display address registers pointing at the control panel bitmap.

[OwlHoot]

.. Still have my casio programmable graphing calculator though )

Me too - My 12 digit solar powered Casio, a big chunky looking thing that will probably last for decades.

and my dozen or more slide rules.

[Churchill]

To be fair, the CPC range were very good for the time. Knocked spots off the Dragon 32, IMHO

Scrolling was a f*cker though!

[NickFitz]

I was a late comer to the game, my Amstrad CPC 464 is still in the loft somewhere, if only I knew then what I know now about Lord Sugar and his scum tendencies!

To be fair, the CPC range were very good for the time. Knocked spots off the Dragon 32, IMHO