[OT - only slightly] Do you own other retro equipment

[pjduplooy]

Hi guys

 

I have started this poll to get a feel of how deep you are into retro computing. I would like you to give us a list of equipment you own, and tell us a bit of how you came into this equipment, how you use this, and basically anything about it you would like to share.

 

Also please take the time to answer the simple poll questions.

 

Although this is a TI forum, TI's don't count

 

I hope this will become some interesting reading.

 

Pieter

[Chuck D. Head]

Yep! I am into anything, especially media related. Some examples are old radios from 70's novelty stuff to radios from the 30's to 50's including a big Zenith radio with tuning eye; record players including a cylinder player and a cool portable Japanese unit from the 30's; CED (RCA disk) player, 8-tracks, some old appliances, probably a lot of stuff I am forgetting.

 

Edit: Haha! I see I really misread your intent, but the above still stands. As far as computing, I am into almost any of it, the more obscure the better; I have all the Coco's and TRS-80 1 and MC-10, I am really into and active with the Aquarius; Apple IIc; I have a PS/2 PC I want to restore; Commodore 64 / 128 and would love to come across both a PET and a TRS-80 model 3.

Edited July 10, 2014 by Chuck D. Head

[am1933]

I have quite a lot that is still packed away due to lack of space but on my shelves at the moment are Ti99/4a(obviously!) Atari800XL, Atari 130XE, Dragon 32, BBC master128, BBC b+64K, Acorn Electron, CBM64, CBM +4,CBM VIC20, Mattel Aquarius, Tandy CoCo, Sinclair ZX81, Spectrum, Spectrum+, Spectrum 2, Spectrum 2a, Toshiba HX10 MSX.

 

Some of my more prized machines that are in storage(and I hope still work) are-Colour Genie, Spectravideo SV318, Radofin Aquarius II and a Memotech MTX512.

 

On the console front- 2600, 2600 jnr, Intellivision and a Colecovision.

 

Quite a bit of associated hardware and software for most of the above.

 

I have a set of shelves that contain a few dead units that I use for spares/repairs.

 

The only two machines that I keep constantly set up are my 4A and my BBC master128.

 

I also still have a passion for 35mm film photography and have a good selection of cameras such as-Canon AE1 program, Canon A1, Olympus OM10, Olympus OM40, Pentax Me Super, Zenit E and a Nikon f65.

[krslam]

Oh, I've got tons of old computers: Commodore 8-bitters (VIC20, C64, SX64, C128, C16, Plus4, and a few PETs) and Amigas (even a couple C= dosboxes), Apple II's, Atari 8-bits and STs, Most of the TRS-80 8-bit line (I,III,IV, CoCo, CoCo2, CoCo3, MC-10), TI-99/4 and CC-40, a few Sinclair and Timex/Sinclair models, Tomy Tutor, Mattel Aquarius, a Spectravideo SV-something-or-other, various cp/m machines (Kaypros, Osborns, even a Zorba), a Heathkit, a Hewlett-Packard HP85 desktop, and various others I can't remember ATM. I've also got 200+ old calculators ranging from Friden electro-mechanicals up to mid-90s TI and HP LCD models. Plus most of the popular gaming consoles.

 

Some of these just fell into my lap as people heard I collected old computers, others (like the Kaypro II and C64) were daily-use machines at one time in my life so I'm fairly knowledgable about them. Being a C64 user back in the day, I was always curious about the capabilities of the competitors so started picking them up and playing with them when they were cheap and plentiful at the thrifts.

Edited July 10, 2014 by krslam

[Mad Hatter]

XT clone, 486DX2/66 (is that "vintage"? I built it myself in 1994), and a working Digital Group computer (w/8 cards, keyboard and printer) from circa mid-70's.

Atari 2600, 5200 and a CV console. The XT is the only one up and running but does not see much use.

[20ohm20]

This is what I currently have "hooked up" at my home (excluding my TI-99/4A, everything else is at work - mostly packed away - I rotate some things in and out every 18 months or so):

 

Apple ][e w/128KB RAM (unenhanced), disk ][ card, two Disk ][ floppy drives, 80 column card (w/64KB RAM), Apple Super Serial Card, Grappler + printer card, Novation Cat acoustic coupler modem (used with a circa 1970 GTE/Automatic Electric rotary phone converted to DTMF), Amdek monochrome amber monitor, Citizen 120D dot matrix printer

 

Apple Mac SE FDHD w/4MB RAM, internal Quantum 250MB SCSI hard drive, external Hayes Smartmodem 9600, System 6.0.8

 

Atari 800 w/48KB RAM, two Atari 810 (MPI) floppy drives, Atari 850, Atari 830 modem (used with late 1970's Western Electric made Mickey Mouse phone) , Atari 410, Panasonic P-1090 dot matrix printer, SIO2PC (serial), Commodore 1702 monitor

 

Commodore 64 w/JiffyDOS, two Commodore 1541's w/JiffyDOS, Commodore datasette (older PET style), Aprotek 2400 baud modem, ZoomFloppy, uIEC/SD, 64NIC+, Commodore 1702 monitor

 

Commodore VIC-20, VIC-1541 floppy drive, generic "made in Mexico" datasette that looks a lot like an Atari XC12, VICModem, Mega-Cart, RF output to a circa 1996 Sylvania 13" CRT TV/VCR combo

 

i486DX4-100, 32MB RAM, generic 2MB VESA video card, Sound Blaster 16, 2 serial/1 parallel port card, Sony 4X IDE CD-ROM drive, Connor 540MB + Western Digital 1GB IDE hard drive, 5.25" and 3.5" HD floppy drives, 15" MAG SVGA CRT monitor, Windows 95 and MS-DOS 6.22 (dual boot)

 

Game consoles: Atari Video Pinball, Atari 2600 (Sears "light sixer"), Atari 5200 (two port), Intellivision, Sega Genesis w/32X - all used on a 27" Sony Trinitron CRT TV (that weighs about 70-80 pounds)

[RobertLM78]

There should have been an N/A option for everything after the first question, since my answer for that is 'No' (for now). However, I'd like to get into another old system eventually when time and money are more available. I lean towards the C64 and the CoCo 3, but I haven't completely made my mind between the two as it isn't a high priority at this point .

[Ed in SoDak]

I got my start with a Timex in '83 I think. I did quite a bit with it, considering it's flaky and persnickety nature. I moved to TI in '84 when my dad and I both picked up cassette-based systems. Back then, he wintered in Mesa AZ, and he hit the huge flea markets hard to find us both a PEB with drives and lots of whistles which arrived here in '85. Along with a fairly complete vintage woodworking power tool setup. All of this stuff is still here and much is still in use. Our mutual interest in the TI really helped us bond in his later years.

 

Around '92, I began to lean towards Mac, starting with a 512k that had a 10meg hard drive 3rd party upgrade that ran using the Mac's serial port. By then, I had my TI on the early internet using Delphi as the link and co-hosted on a chat or two about fossils through Delphi's TI roundtable.

 

I've gathered quite a pile of stuff for a lot of different systems over the years. Like others here, I became a rescue, repository or haven for discarded hardware. I'd convinced my old bosses to go Mac back in '87, and I became the recipient of much of their discarded hardware when they upgraded. I never lacked having a cheap or free but still good Mac or three after that, lol!

 

General vintage stuff, yeah got that too. Antique radios back to late 1920's, Zenith, vintage stereo, thousands of old magazines, yada yada. Not a hoarder, though, nope, not me! People `gave` me this stuff to save it from the landfill, how can I just toss it???

-Ed

Edited July 11, 2014 by Ed in SoDak

[+Ksarul]

I tend to collect TI99xxx computers in general. I have TI-99/4s, TI-99/4As, TI-99/8s, Geneve9640s, Tomy Tutors, Tomy Pyuutas, Tomy Pyuuta Jrs, Tomy Pyuuta Mk IIs, Powertran Cortices, and a Marinchip S9900. I also have a couple of Mattel/Radofin Aquarius computers too, along with some Kaypro II and Kaypro IV machines, some TI CC-40s and a TI-74, and lastly, a pair of Sage IIs.

[+arcadeshopper]

99/4a's buncha orig and a v2.2, Geneve.. Aquarius, Trs-80 model 4 and 100, Apple II+ clone, Apple IIc, many pc's from 8088 to i7.. amiga 500, 1000, 1200, 2000 and 3000. many consoles too.

[Willsy]

I have a ZX Spectrum, a ZX81, a Sinclair QL, and two Commodore Plus/4's. Oh, and an Atari ST.

[+RetroElectroDad]

I’m a compulsive collector / hoarder and I hadn’t made an inventory until now for this post. Many of the computers and consoles have expansions / add-ons for CF/SD mass storage and mini software collections. Computers often have disk drives etc. so there’s lots of extra equipment lying around. Most come from eBay over the last 13 years of active collecting if I’ve not had them since new. I think it was all kicked off when I wanted to buy an Atari VCS because I’d not been able to have one as a kid - it was kind of a gateway drug that led me on to basically wanting anything I’d ever seen a magazine advert for back in the day. These days I just tend to get a machine out once in a while for a session and take a picture for Instagram or sit and gaze at the machines and boxes when I'm supposed to be working!

I’d say the TI-99/4a was my first real programming platform, though I moved on to the Atari XL to be able to (cost effectively) learn to program in assembly language as I was jealous of other machine’s being able to PEEK and POKE. I’d say the TI (especially with Extended BASIC) was great to learn on initially because it didn’t use those hardware access instructions and made you concentrate on program structure and efficiency. I did have the ZX81 before the TI, but only typed programs in from magazines and quickly moved on for colour and sound.

The list of computers and consoles is below (all UK PAL unless stated), except for the handhelds. I think I may have a problem and have just prevented myself from compulsively buying a CoCo 2 on eBay.

Computers:

TI-99/4a PAL silver (x2) and a beige NTSC with PEB

Atari - 400, 800, 1200XL NTSC, 600XL, 800XL x 3, 65XE, 130XE, 520STE x 2, 1040 STFM, Falcon 030

Commodore - VIC-20, 64 (x2), 64C, SX-64, Amiga 500, Amiga 500 plus, Amiga 4000.

Sinclair - ZX81 (x2), Spectrum 48K (x2), Spectrum+, Spectrum 128, Spectrum +2A, Sinclair QL

Acorn - Atom, Electron, BBC Model B (x2), Archimedes 3010 (x2)

Apple - IIe (x2), Mac LC, Mac LCIII, Powerbook G4, iMac 17” (2006), iMac 27” (2010), MacBook Pro 15” (2006)

Tangerine - Oric 16K, Oric Atoms

Sord M5

EACA Colour Genie

Memotech MTX512

Mattel Aquarius

Sharp MZ-711

MSX - Yamaha CX5M (x2), Toshiba HX-10 (x2)

Philips NMS8250 MSX2

Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer

Tatung Einstein

Dragon 32

Amstrad CPC 6128

Sam Coupe

Consoles:

Atari VCS (x3), 2600Jr, 7800

Nintendo NES (x2), SNES (PAL and NTSC), 64 (x2), Game Cube (Japan and UK), Wii (x2), Wii U

Sega Master System I and II, Mega Drive (Japan and UK), Mega Drive II (with Mega CD), Saturn (Japan and UK x2 ), Dreamcast (x2)

Sony PlayStation, PS2, PS2 Slim, PS3 60GB, PS3 Slim, PS4

Microsoft XBox, Crystal XBox, XBox 360 (original version), Xbox 360 (black)

Neo Geo CD

NEC TurboGrafx and PC Engine Turbo Duo

Amstrad GX4000

Philips G7000 (Odyssey II) and CDi-210

Fairchild Channel F (Grandstand)

Intellivision

Colecovision

Acetronic MPU1000 (x2)

Winthronics Academy (Pong clone)

3DO

[+Vorticon]

I see some massive collections here, and a couple of decades ago I too had quite the collection. My problem was that I liked to use the computers rather than having them sit forlornly on a shelf, and by use I mean program rather than just run pre-packaged software, so I end up spending small fortunes collecting programming books and additional hardware for them with the delusion that I will have the time to actually divine their secrets. This was a fool's quest, and so most got sold or given away...

Every once in a while, I succumb again to the urge to buy a particularly attractive retro system followed by a feverish period of upgrading and gathering necessary system documentation, only to sell it a few months later (almost always at a loss) for similar reasons, systems like a CBM PET 2032 with dual disk drives, Spectravideo 328, Commodore SX64, Amiga 500 and Apple IIc... I did break the mold with the Kaypro II and the Radio Shack TRS-80 model 4 on which I did some extensive programming in Pascal under CP/M, but their fate eventually joined that of their predecessors.

What I have left, aside from the TI of course, is a Kaypro IV, and IBM XT portable (used only to generate CP/M disks for the Kaypro) and a fully decked out Amiga 1200. The latter I have not touched in several months and it's looking increasingly likely that I will have to separate from it in the near future, which will be an awful shame given that it is such a gorgeous system.

Over the past few years, I have developed an inexplicable attraction to single board computer kits, primarily because one learns a lot about a system by building it and also because this is mostly bare metal programming which shares many features across platforms and thus minimizes the learning curve. Now I have replica kits of Elf (Membership Card and Elf2K) [RCA 1802], Altair 8800 [intel 8080A], KIM [MOS 6502], and Apple I [MOS 6502], as well as trainers like the Heathkit ET-3400 [Motorola 6800], the Gakken GMC-4 (and its cousin the Radio Shack Microcomputer Trainer) [TMS 1000], the P112 (Z80) and the MM8000-K [intel 8085]. They take little space have their own integrated LED displays except for the Apple I and P112 which I connect to an external terminal.

And so the adventure continues Enough rambling...

[sometimes99er]

I only have a Sega Mega Drive (4th Generation). Everything else (20+ systems) is emulation only.

 

Edit: Oh, I might have forgotten a PlayStation 2 (6th Gen) and the Wii (7th Gen), but then that's not really retro.

 

Edited July 11, 2014 by sometimes99er

[Willsy]

@trev: you have a Falcon? ??!!!! Swoon....!

[+arcadeshopper]

99/4a's buncha orig and a v2.2, Geneve.. Aquarius, Trs-80 model 4 and 100, Apple II+ clone, Apple IIc, many pc's from 8088 to i7.. amiga 500, 1000, 1200, 2000 and 3000. many consoles too.

 

ok ok lets see

atari 2600 w/svid &stereo mod, sega cd, saturn*, 3d0, vectrex, nes, snes, n64, wii, xbox, xbox360, ps, ps2, ps3, odyssey 2,

 

arcade games & pinball machines: http://www.arcade-museum.com/members/member_detail.php?member_id=381324

[InfernalKeith]

I'm in the same boat as Vorticon, only I haven't hit the "realizing it's a fool's errand" stage yet. I still hold out fond hopes of learning enough to convert all my games to multiple platforms, and eventually make some nice old-school packaged releases of them, just as homebrews for fun. The fact that I never even have time to finish programming the original 99/4A versions of those games is beside the point.

 

Besides my 99/4A I have:

 

Commodore 64

Commodore Vic 20

Commodore 128

Colecovision (modded)

Atari 2600

Intellivision (never hooked up)

Bally Astrocade

Odyssey 2

Mattel Aquarius

Timex Sinclair 1000

Apple IIe

Commodore Plus/4 (never hooked up, got it as a 'bonus' in a trade)

 

I also own at least two Atari computers and several boxes of gear for them. I bought the lot off a guy on Craigslist 2-3 years ago and have never taken any of it out of the box.

 

I still persist in the delusion that I'll have a fully functional "war room" set up one of these days, with all this stuff set up, cleaned up and ready to play with. Right now, I have the TI, C64, Vic 20, and Colecovision hooked up, amid piles of hoarder stuff and not enough shelving.

 

Now I'm depressed. :/

[Ed in SoDak]

My Timex TS-1000 as I was using it when I upgraded to the TI. Hey, it had a TI keyboard at least and check out the tinfoil hat! IBM stood for I Built Mine.

 

Edited July 12, 2014 by Ed in SoDak

[InfernalKeith]

I bought a really nice lot of T/S 1000 stuff off a guy a few years ago. It had packaged software, some newsletters and magazines, a few books, the tape recorder and printer, a really nice starter kit. The thing was so unstable and hard to use, I never got more than a few minutes into any session with it before giving up in frustration. I really wanna give it another go sometime. I have an adventure game for it called (I think) Black Crystal that take up six cassettes, that I want to delve into.

[am1933]

I bought a really nice lot of T/S 1000 stuff off a guy a few years ago. It had packaged software, some newsletters and magazines, a few books, the tape recorder and printer, a really nice starter kit. The thing was so unstable and hard to use, I never got more than a few minutes into any session with it before giving up in frustration. I really wanna give it another go sometime. I have an adventure game for it called (I think) Black Crystal that take up six cassettes, that I want to delve into.

When you say it was unstable-are you talking about the infamous RAM pack wobble?, the Timex/Sinclair RAM packs were incredibly bad in terms of connecting to the machine, the Memotech RAM packs were much more stable and they do come up on Ebay every now and again.

[Stuart]

When you say it was unstable-are you talking about the infamous RAM pack wobble?, the Timex/Sinclair RAM packs were incredibly bad in terms of connecting to the machine, the Memotech RAM packs were much more stable and they do come up on Ebay every now and again.

 

Wasn't the RAM pack wobble solved with a sausage-shaped piece of blu-tak?

[+Ksarul]

I remember that one, Stuart! Blu-Tak, the geek-style replacement for Duct Tape. . .

[InfernalKeith]

That was my issue, and the display seemed really crappy, too. I couldn't tell whether I was doing something wrong or it just looked that bad all the time. It's been quite a while since I tried to hook it all up. I've just started a sort and "excavation" of my cluttered-up basement room, so I'm hoping to have all my old systems up and running (or, for some of them, packed up and sold/traded) soon. I've been programming a lot lately in Classic99, and I enjoy the freedom and mobility, but I wanna get back to work on "real iron" again.

[+InsaneMultitasker]

Geneve and TI, both get used for programming and the TI system is also used for my repair workbench, with duplicates of most repair-worth cards for testing.

 

My Intellivision is connected to a 30" monitor for those times I need a quick game or two Finally there is the C64 that I putz with now and then.

 

I don't collect much any more. Decided to give most of my other retro gaming stuff to good homes within the family, where it can be used versus collecting dust.

[TI-Sissy]

i only have my lil ti and a pc. the other questions i had to fudge.

Edited July 13, 2014 by TI-Sissy