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What is your retro computing most "irrational want?"


rpiguy9907

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Yeah, the text says "light blue" which probably is the off-white in some lighting conditions. The phosphor table can be sorted by wavelength, which suggests the following ranges:

 

295 - 368 nm = ultraviolet

400 - 504 nm = blue (sometimes blue-green)

504 - 546 nm = green (sometimes blue-green or yellow-green)

550 - 588 nm = yellow (sometimes yellow-green)

590 - 602 nm = orange (sometimes orange-yellow or yellow)

610 - 660 nm = red (sometimes orange-red or orange-pink)

 

White doesn't have a clear wavelength, as it is a combination of all colours?

 

This one looks blue, but I'll blame it on poor lighting.

 

Some DEC Rainbows also appear to have light blue text, and so can TRS-80:

 

 

The problem here is the AWB function in the camera in combination with the CMOS/CCD sensor gamut. Those blue images are more white than blue when you see them in person.

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I have a Timex Sinclair 2068, it does 512*200 graphics! It's very cool.

 

I always wanted a 1500 in the special executive briefcase they used to offer. It has a space for the 1500 and tape drive all sold together in the leather briefcase! Drool.

I had a 1500 in the case. It wasn't a leather briefcase, it was some sort of hard material (plastic?) with a cheap latch.

Basically a TS-1000 with 16K RAM and a better keyboard. It's probably what Timex should have sold initially.

Maybe Timex would have been able to stay in the market if they had done that.

 

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Is that a case of extremely uneven yellowing, or were some of the keys in a slightly different colour on purpose?

Keep in mind that some keycaps may come from a different run than others, and the plastic may be slightly different.

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  • 1 year later...

So yeah...

 

That irrational "want" is now an irrational have....

 

post-10949-0-42744600-1533836567_thumb.jpg

 

Not sure what I am going to do with this. It came with a few cassette games which might still work...

 

Job 1 will be a gentle clean to get that gunk off the case and keyboard.

 

Job 2 will be to organize a US power supply for it. A Mean Well RT50A should do the job.

 

Job 3 will be to make a Lynx RGB to Commodore 1084 monitor cable. I've seen two different pin outs for the Lynx RGB port so this will require some testing. Also the Lynx 5-pin RGB port has a pin arrangement I've not seen before, like a 6-pin DIN layout but with pin 6 deleted. Might have to grab some 6-pin male connectors from Vetco and practice removing the center pin.

 

Job 4 will be to see if I can get TAP files to convert to WAV files and see if I can get the Lynx to load them from something pretending to be a cassette deck. I guess I could try recording the WAV files to actual cassettes and then loading them from my TI cassette deck. More investigation required on this one.

 

Job 5 will be to see if I can recreate a joystick interface using the schematics shown on Russel Davis' site.

 

If I get really ahead of myself I might even see about recreating the disk interface. There is a schematic for that too, although I was surprised to see that the "disk interface" pack that attached to the back of the Lynx does not include the disk controller chip, only the Lynx DOS ROM, the WDC1770 chip being located inside the actual Lynx disk drive.

 

It would be amazing to get this thing talking to the HxC2001, but that's a longer term goal.

 

Still, I've wanted one of these since I was 12. Now I have one, what next?

 

Maybe a Mattel Aquarius.....

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I suppose the 5-pin DIN connector you describe is a 240 degree variant?

 

Also the Camputers Lynx has at least 1 feature that makes it stand out. Its BASIC allows for floating point line numbers:

 

10 PRINT"HELLO WORLD"

10.1 GOTO 10

 

It should mean you nearly never need to renumber lines in order to insert more code, just add decimals to the line number up to the point they're significant.

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i guess the most irrational 'want' for me would be a complete MBX system for my TI 99 4A. (headset, joystick, console, etc)- theyre pretty pricey, though, and im not entirely sure *where* i would put the darn thing to hook it up, lol.

 

but heck if it doesn't look cool! (plus nostalgia)

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i guess the most irrational 'want' for me would be a complete MBX system for my TI 99 4A. (headset, joystick, console, etc)- theyre pretty pricey, though, and im not entirely sure *where* i would put the darn thing to hook it up, lol.

 

but heck if it doesn't look cool! (plus nostalgia)

When I first moved to the States back in '96 I bought a TI99/4A from a thrift store in Peoria, IL. which included the 10" Color Monitor and a complete boxed MBX system. I don't remember what I paid for it, but it was the cash in my wallet, so not much.

 

The MBX came with no games, so after fiddling with it for a while, I sold it on this new website called "Ebay". Used a polaroid camera and a flat bed scanner that connected to the PC via the parallel port to take some pictures and upload them. Damn that was hi-tech!

 

I got $250 for the MBX even back then. Wonder what they'd fetch, complete in the box today.

Edited by oracle_jedi
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https://youtu.be/ngFrvOFw7nc?t=37m6s

 

See that computer in the background? That's a Burroughs B-205, a real computer from the 50's.

 

It was obsolete by the 60's.

 

It had no RAM; it used a spinning magnetic metal drum for memory.

 

It had no screen, only flashing lights.

 

And I want it. I hove no use for it. But I want it.

 

Primarily because it was used in a lot of movies: http://www.starringthecomputer.com/computer.html?c=45

 

Oh, look. I can rent one: http://woodysprops.com/item.php?uid=195&page=1:) As I understand it, these were gutted & rewired decades ago, so they're not working computers anymore. :(

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https://youtu.be/ngFrvOFw7nc?t=37m6s

 

See that computer in the background? That's a Burroughs B-205, a real computer from the 50's.

 

 

It was obsolete by the 60's.

 

It had no RAM; it used a spinning magnetic metal drum for memory.

 

It had no screen, only flashing lights.

 

And I want it. I hove no use for it. But I want it.

 

Primarily because it was used in a lot of movies: http://www.starringthecomputer.com/computer.html?c=45

 

Oh, look. I can rent one: http://woodysprops.com/item.php?uid=195&page=1:) As I understand it, these were gutted & rewired decades ago, so they're not working computers anymore. :(

Lol

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https://youtu.be/ngFrvOFw7nc?t=37m6s

 

See that computer in the background? That's a Burroughs B-205, a real computer from the 50's.

 

It was obsolete by the 60's.

 

It had no RAM; it used a spinning magnetic metal drum for memory.

 

It had no screen, only flashing lights.

 

And I want it. I hove no use for it. But I want it.

 

Primarily because it was used in a lot of movies: http://www.starringthecomputer.com/computer.html?c=45

 

Oh, look. I can rent one: http://woodysprops.com/item.php?uid=195&page=1 :) As I understand it, these were gutted & rewired decades ago, so they're not working computers anymore. :(

Scrolling down the list of Burroughs machines on that site, the only thing I could really see were all the DAMN HOT WOMEN! Some of those women are hotter than hell!

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Hotness eh. I take it you're a fan of 60's hair?

 

My most irrational want is for there to still be a large online posting community that gets their jollies with DOS/Windows 3.1 computing and gaming. I mean going back to the days of Compuserve/Genie, where you could post a single question about Maniac Mansion or the amazing 80287 math co-processor, and get a massive conversation going. I can kinda-sorta get the same amount of action these days, if I combine Atari Age, Reddit and a whole mess of other sites. But following 20-30 threads that get an occasional reply here and there, just isn't the same as following 2-3 hyper-active threads and enjoying the resulting mayhem.

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You know that Famicom Disk System and Family BASIC are mutually exclusive? As for tape deck, any will work, You don't need a special Nintendo tape deck for functionality, only if you are completionist collector. Even a MP3 player or smartphone works fine if you're only loading programs into BASIC with no need of saving.

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A TRS-80, a Commodore monitor, and a TI-99/4a floppy disk drive.

 

None of these strike me as irrational.

 

Commodore monitors - especially the 1701s, 1702s and 1084s were pretty awesome.

 

A TI99/4A is a different computer entirely once you add 32K of RAM and a floppy disk drive.

 

Don't know much about TRS80s, but a friend of mine back when I was a kid had an EACA Video Genie II, and I loved that behemoth of a computer with its faux wood finish side panels.

 

You should get all three...

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