zs_phil

iTrader: (1)

anyone remember great escape on the speccy
or
escape from colditz on the amiga they was great games

and the original testdrives like above

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Noticed you get hold of this kit now for a matter of a few pounds on E-bay . Back in the day a Vic20 or C64 or Speccy would cost hundreds.

MJW

The BBC was great, plus you could make the excuse that was educational as all the schools were using them. It got me into programming my own stuff at an early age when bedroom coders ruled the roost.
But before the BBC, my first machine was ... a Dragon 32 !!

Iain Young

I've still got my Dragon 32

Sonic'

We only had one BBC Model A in School, and about 8 Tandy TRS-80's with one shared 5 1/4" floppy drive

I wasn't allowed to do computers as part of my options, only those who were doing CSE's could do computers, O Level folks weren't allowed

Although we could go to computer club after school

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Wasn't there a Dragon64?
I take it the 32 and 64 meant how much RAM was in each one?

Sonic'

And for those who dont know what the TRS-80's were, this is one

Iain Young

Yes, there was a Dragon 64 as well, (a slightly different colour case if I remember correctly). The 32 had 32kb of RAM and the 64 had 64kb.

It was a great machine. Well ahead of it's time

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Does anyone remember these?

http://pc-museum.com/gallery/oric-1.jpg

Seem to recall seeing them on-sale @ Dixons.

Apparrently they were targeted at competing with the ZX Spectrum.

chrisowe

Yep I remember them, they ran Forth I believe which was a disadvantage as most computers at the time were running a version of BASIC.

spectrum48k

anyone remember these then ?

spectrum48k

and perhaps your school had these (like mine did)


star trek anyone ?

Shark Man

Every now and again, when I'm feeling nostalgic; I have a nose round here: http://www.old-computers.com/

I still would like have a vintage Cray, not sure what I'd do with it, maybe use it store my address book or something

Sonic'

LOL

Yes I remember the Oric, and the Jupiter ACE, I have in the loft a Yamaha MSX machine, but at least it had a half decent (at the time) music keyboard

boxst

Oh yes, I remember those! I used to teach hapless adults word processing on them.

Steve

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Sounds like I was lucky enough to start out on a VIC-20

GaryK

<anorak on>
Nope, the oric-1 used BASIC (its own dialect) like all the other machines of the time. It was in fact the Jupiter Ace which used FORTH and that was designed by the two hardware engineers from Sinclair who designed the ZX81 who formed a company called Jupiter Cantab.

Not a wise decision really as FORTH never really took off!
<anorak off>

chrisowe

Yep your right, it was a long time ago.

spectrum48k

Of all my computers, my Amiga seemed the most satisfying to program games for.

Armed with this, you felt anything was possible!

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Am I right in thinking that there was a home computer that had PASCAL as it's primary programming language? Newbury New Brain was it?

spectrum48k

came with a BASIC compiler according to the blurb

DanPhillips

Really?
It's poor hardware sprite's and the bitmap display buffer that meant you used most of the CPU power+Blitter to do scrolling was a tragic mistake.

The c64 with its <1Mhz processor could scroll the screen around quicker than the Amiga, add it's decent sized sprites and it made the Amiga look a bit poor. Having 32 colours and better resolution just didn't make it that much better

Cheers

Dan

Ps. I made games for both systems, the C64 was a joy to program the Amiga was a real dissapointment when you tried to make it fly

spectrum48k

I should elaborate, the Amiga was the first machine I started to write GAMES on. I was 10 when I got my Spectrum and it was something I just tinkered with (BASIC and a little Z80). My BBC'B was the machine I learned BASIC and then later 6502 on. I only had a C64 briefly, and it was used solely for playing games with my mates (Winter/Summer Games, Pitstop II, etc..) - which is a shame as you make it sound like a great machine to code for. It was only when I got my Amiga at 15 did I take a proper interest in 68000 assembler - converted Atari Supersprint onto it. I say converted - I should say 75% converted as I never completed it!

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Just done a search on old-computers.com and came across this that did have PASCAL as it's main language:

OLD-COMPUTERS.COM : The Museum

Which one had Fortran as it's main language?

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Who's still got their original home computer from the 80's?

spectrum48k

my dad got rid of them all, except the A1000, which is still in pristine condition. So I went out on eBay and bought a mint Spectrum and a C64! Fancy a ZX81 next, and perhaps a BBC'B. I'd love an Atari 800

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Still got the following:

VIC20 C.from 1983 - Got a knackered RF modulator
ZX81 - Non working
ZX Spectrum 16K - Non Working, but still have the joystick dual port add on

Did have the AMIGA A500, and a A1200 (With 2MB RAM and an Added internal 420MB HDD). Then Swapped the A500 for the CDTV (A500 in a CD cabinet with a built in CD-ROM). Then Sold both the A1200 and the CDTV.

Been also looking on E-bay and noticed a couple of A4000's going. One is up for £1200!

GaryK

I bought up a few a while ago but the reality was it was easier just to install emu's on the pc and play everything that way.

GazTheHat

Got any links?

Would be great to play a few classics.

Defender of the Crown on the Amiga. Loved that! A friend lent me his amiga for the w/end. I played that all the time, needless to say i didn't want to give it back to him.

spectrum48k

ZX Spectrum
emulator: Spectaculator, Sinclair ZX Spectrum Emulator Home
games library: World of Spectrum