What computer would you recommend for people who are just getting into the hobby of retro computing?

[Keatah]

45 minutes ago, potatohead said:

Maybe that happens on real machines.  I think probably not, unless they are super serious.  But, having one real machine can be the anchor for making the FPGA projects, for example, or emulation as another example, relevant.

One should not do emulation or fpga alone on its own. Aside from real hardware acting as a reference and starting point, anchoring through RH is important for setting the tone of the experience. All that's needed is one or two classic rigs.

 

It's not any different than an aerospace engineer having model airplanes on the desk.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Keatah

[christo930]

2 hours ago, AtariNostalgia said:

The prices on eprey for Apple IIs are out of this world. Even 800XL are going for higher prices now. I still think the TI is a good bet, but so is the VIC-20

 

It might just be the area that I'm in, but Apple II was never easy to find. Atari and Commodore were fairly regular finds for me at the flea markets and thrift stores. But Apple II, I don't think I ever saw one except a IIIc I saw once that was overpriced for me then, but probably a total steal in today's prices. I would do the flea markets at least twice a month. I had friends and my dad that liked doing it.  For whatever reason they just never ended up floating around the flea markets.  Perhaps there wasn't a path from the schools to the flea markets.

[christo930]

3 hours ago, potatohead said:

Oh I don't know about that.  

 

These days, setting an Apple up isn't terribly difficult.  One gets a drive emulator, and a lot of the good stuff is packaged up, ready to go!  Total Replay is a labor of love that really does present a great retro experience in an easy way.  For many, it's connect all the bits together, make sure the package is on the card, turn the machine on, and select from the menu, go!

 

https://archive.org/details/TotalReplay

 

I've put kids and other adults on mine, and they had a blast!  

 

It's a different kind of games machine.  Somewhat like the Beeb, or Spectrum.  Bitmap games.  DOS.  

 

Now make no mistake, I keep a VCS and an Atari 8 bit or two for those frame locked experiences.  People, who experience that today, notice!  Low latency and all that.  But, in the scope of gaming, a whole lot happened on the Apple.  And Apples were used to develop for other machines due to being "a real 8 bit computer", in the sense of having a high density text display, fast storage and flexible, simple hardware that made building interfaces fairly easy.

 

RPG type games are excellent on Apple computers.  And some arcade ports are amazing!  Try both the DOS and Apple 2 ports of ROBOTRON, for example.  Killer!  

 

There is a lot out there.  We all have our faves.  For me, it's been interesting.  I played a ton of Atari and kind of stalled.  Went back to the Apple and it's a whole new round of fun, and I've enjoyed the machines for the last decade or so now.  

 

People, who get into this, are gonna start somewhere.  As was said by several, myself included, it really depends on what sparks their interest really.  Whatever that is gets them going.  If they are into it at all, they will want to check the era out and when they do, others will need to help out some.

 

Maybe that happens on real machines.  I think probably not, unless they are super serious.  But, having one real machine can be the anchor for making the FPGA projects, for example, or emulation as another example, relevant.

 

It's all getting simpler across the board.  An Atari, with FujiNet is looking sweet!  Apples have their game server, audio connection which just isn't all that hard, and many different storage devices people can drop files onto and go.  I have not kept up with the C64 options, but I do see similar devices for that one that look pretty easy too.

 

Frankly, if someone is interested, I'm game.  Let's hook it up and do some stuff, learn some stuff, play some games, whatever.  If we want this hobby to endure at all, that's what it will take.

 

In any case, the Apple is totally a competent gaming machine.  All of these computers have a sweet spot.  For some, it's pretty big, others smallish.  But, they all nail a couple things and it's the differences from there which made the era so damn much fun in the first place.

 

 

 

 

I wasn't aware of such ease of use options.  I suppose if you know exactly what you want and you have played around with emulation long enough before taking the dive into real hardware, that takes some of the steep learning curve out of it.  I guess too if you have enough money, anything is possible.

[potatohead]

It isn't as bad as it was for our parents.  We are all old enough now to have shown people the ropes.  I did.  My Apple, and maybe Atari setup will be a little playground for my grand kids here soon.  One is almost 5 and wants to do stuff.

 

The MECC programs for the Apple are great for that kind of thing.  Why not?  I tried paddle games this year.  Not quite there, but they can do touch and use a mouse!  Weird.

 

For us, it was Atari and misc consoles.  That is what I had.  My kids saw Apples in school.  Where I lived, they kept them running for primary school into the 00's.  Oregon Trail, typing, vocab, numbers...

 

A whole bunch of people used earlier PC"s too.

 

Anyone who has done that on say a 386 will have little trouble with an Apple.

 

And there are the cards!

 

It has been a pretty great time to be into Apple 8 and GS machines.  It was a bigger PITA a while back, and I stayed with my Atari and CoCo3 for programming fun, and I really did not share that with many people.

 

And that is a factor too.  This stuff gets warm and cold.

 

Like I have a CFFA 3000 card.  Those are done, and for a while, it was a little rough to get good disk emulation.  In fact, for the first couple years, I used floppy drives for that reason.

 

Now, there are a handful of devices, sound cards got cloned, the basic cards are cheap, and there are spiffy things for HDMI, speeding the machine up.

 

It all kind of works like PC's did.  I like that part personally.

 

Others do too.

 

Like any hobby, there is the initial getting in, and then the ongoing fun.  Pretty much all the discussed machines work that way, and some are cheap to get into, like a VIC 20 and multi cart.

 

On Atari, one could score XL, or XE machine, some carts, BASIC, Star Raiders, whatever.  Get or make controllers.

 

Then maybe cassette.  Maybe not, right?

 

Until FujiNet, the next move was either a disk drive, or SIO emulator.

 

With FujiNet, that's the next move I would make, and I have an 800XL, no disk right now.  Perfect.  But that gets someone online, fetching stuff from servers, playing games with others, using the IRATA PLATO system...

 

Or get SIO disk emulation.  

 

Fetch software from the internet.

 

From here there are mods and kits to build on the system.

 

Maybe get a killer CRT.

 

Over time, someone will spend a few hundred dollars.

 

On Apple, one can score a Plus, //e, C, or GS.  Buy or make a joystick.  Then audio load a lot of software using a phone, or computer, whatever from the Apple Game Server.

 

The C has everything one needs built in.

 

From there, get a disk drive and card, or disk emulation, and or card.  

 

Fetch software from the Internet!

 

From here there are cards and mods to build the system.

 

FastChip or other accelerator. (Includes RAM expansion)

 

Sound card, original or new one made today.

 

Serial card for comms.

 

Video card for VGA, HDMI.

 

Other things.

 

Maybe get a killer CRT.

 

Over time a person will spend a few hundred dollars, and more than they would on an Atari or C64, but not too much more, given some thought.  I like to add something every so often when a great device becomes available.

 

Honestly, unless someone is just going to load up a multi cart and play games, this is how things go, and it is a fun ride along the way.

 

Or...

 

Get one of those FPGA devices, or emulate.

 

And, if they emulate at all prior to getting the real deal, they will know a lot.  And unless they are doing it in a vacuum, they will be chatting others up having a good time not unlike how it all goes with say, classic cars.

 

People can get in on something for a song sometimes.  More often, they will spend some, maybe get in for a coupla hundred and then take it a bite at a time from there.

 

 

Edited December 28, 2020 by potatohead

[The Usotsuki]

MECC made some of the best educational programs out there, and most of them were Apple ][ exclusive.

[potatohead]

They really did a great job.  Was one of those "hits" typical of the era.  Like INFOCOM was another one, just kind of magic for a while.  Good times.

 

It's going to be fun to see a younger one check all that stuff out!

 

Apple are just odd in some ways, and this is one of them.  Having a 6 color high res screen meant just enough to do basically anything. (not always well) Super general purpose and a great fit for schools.  

 

 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by potatohead

[Keatah]

On 12/27/2020 at 6:56 PM, christo930 said:

I would do the flea markets at least twice a month. I had friends and my dad that liked doing it.  For whatever reason they just never ended up floating around the flea markets.  Perhaps there wasn't a path from the schools to the flea markets.

In my area schools either auctioned off the stuff or put'em in the dumpster. Did a whole lot of late-nite cruz'n to salvage a stupid amount of them. Mostly //e and Platinum //e machines with 1 disk drive and sometimes a monitor. The cops that hung out in those parking lots us didn't give us trouble once we explained what we were doing - salvaging old Apple Computer stuff. Being geeky we didn't look like trouble makers.

 

The ones that were hurled into dumpsters I further scrapped for parts to sell on the then-new ebay. Even arranged trades instead of cash payment. Great times that were soon ending.

 

There were some used software shops in the area, at the beginning of the end of the dotcom era. And I was totally surprised to see Platinum //e consoles (with the obligatory 1 drive 1 monitor in tow) just sitting on the storefront sidewalk. Software ReRuns was one of them. They would sit there for days, weeks. I took them when I found out they were free. Soon enough I had way too many and had to start giving them away.

 

On 12/27/2020 at 3:48 PM, potatohead said:

https://archive.org/details/TotalReplay

By chance anyone know if TotalReplay would work on BMOW's Floppy Emu?

 

On 12/27/2020 at 3:48 PM, potatohead said:

It's a different kind of games machine.  Somewhat like the Beeb, or Spectrum.  Bitmap games.  DOS.  

Back in the day I never thought it as being a different kind of machine. I just innocently figured machines like the C64 or Atari 800 were simply more graphically advanced because they were designed for games. Whereas the II was a general-purpose computer.

 

I didn't understand the design & development process much, and I was (today) impressed again that the CTIA/GTIA designs were started in early 1977, and the VCS + TIA was designed in 1976! Must remember designing a product takes time. And that conceptual ideas for the VCS may have been brewing in someone's head since 1975!

 

On 12/27/2020 at 3:48 PM, potatohead said:

RPG type games are excellent on Apple computers.  And some arcade ports are amazing!  Try both the DOS and Apple 2 ports of ROBOTRON, for example.  Killer!  

I have no choice but to second that sentiment for Robotron. I might also add that I feel the same way about Dig-Dug.

 

On 12/27/2020 at 3:48 PM, potatohead said:

It's all getting simpler across the board.  An Atari, with FujiNet is looking sweet!  Apples have their game server, audio connection which just isn't all that hard, and many different storage devices people can drop files onto and go.  I have not kept up with the C64 options, but I do see similar devices for that one that look pretty easy too.

If there's any class of modern-day expansions for vintage computing it will be modern flash storage and perhaps some way to connect to modern HDMI television sets/monitors. Unless there is a grass-roots movement to make new CRT displays. I could imagine quite a few enhancements modern electronics could bring to them.

 

On 12/27/2020 at 3:48 PM, potatohead said:

Frankly, if someone is interested, I'm game.  Let's hook it up and do some stuff, learn some stuff, play some games, whatever.  If we want this hobby to endure at all, that's what it will take.

It's always important a newbie be active in learning. It's convenient to have rompacks and pre-configured R-Pi images, but the hobby becomes so much more rewarding when the hobbyist takes it upon themselves to learn how and why something works.

 

And these old machines make it easy to do bare metal work both in hardware and software, once you've taken electronics 101 and 102. Or read that BASIC reference manual.

 

[potatohead]

2 minutes ago, Keatah said:

It's always important a newbie be active in learning.

This is pretty much true of any hobby, isn't it? 

 

Maybe the best way to phrase where I was going with that is to get the newbie bootstrapped into being able to proceed to learn more on their own.  It's hard to nail down, but once people reach a big enough knowledge foot print, they don't need as much, or maybe they just become one of us.  They know what they know, and it's fine for the daily driving / recurring fun stuff.  And what they don't know is fine too, just ask like we see happen all the time anyway!

 

 

[Bill Loguidice]

7 hours ago, Keatah said:

By chance anyone know if TotalReplay would work on BMOW's Floppy Emu?

 

 

 

It does. I've used TotalReplay's HDV image on a Floppy Emu on a IIGS and on a CFFA3000 on a IIe Platinum with no issues. 

[AtariNostalgia]

My sort of luck.

One finds them in the dumpster, I pay top dollar for them. The circle of life.