Introduce yourself thread

Discussions
188

Hey guys!

Have no clue how I didn’t know about this forum before, but certainly glad to have found you guys now. Took a long look at the introductions here and I definitely resonate with a lot of you folks.

I’m over 40, and my adventure started in the 90’s when I got a locally produced clone of a ZX Spectrum. Got me from playing to reverse engineering and eventually programming in assembly. Didn’t do anything epic with that, I think the best program I did was a 2k relocable assembly program that was able to be loaded at any address, ran there and would allow you to browse the graphics memory of certain games, provided a mouse and a grid that would also allow you to change those graphics. You could then start the game with the graphics changed. Lost the program long ago. Had it on a floppy and written on a notepad that I lost both, but I am satisfied I just revived it by writing about it here.

Then, graduated to the x86 PC, toyed with several other languages and ended up with my experience today, mostly in C# (with MonoGame) and Java. Offcourse, my work requires me other programming languages.

I’ve always been an enthusiast gamer and game developer but have not published a single game yet, though I am constantly getting better and better at it. I started projects that were too large to handle and gradually, I learned from each failure that it’s best to reduce scope until you obtain control. So, I’m not there yet, but I’ll get there.

I totally love pixel art and my games are pretty much revolving around that beautiful art that sadly I am not very good at, though I am decent at modifying and creating variations of a given set. But I don’t care, I buy pixel art and use it in my projects. My most dear games of the past era are the Dizzy games (and variations of), turn based strategies such as Hero Quest, Defender of the Crown, also Prince of Persia (though I like the SNES version the most) and a whole bunch others.

However, in between this and that game, I did manage to create a cute project that I like very much. It’s an emulator for a retro computer that never existed. It’s made up along with its assembly instruction set (inspired by the Z80 but also extended upon), interrupts, video architecture and it’s aimed to be released for PC, Mac but most important, quite a few SBC’s, such as Pi’s and other supporting hardware. And, offcourse, software can be written for it. I’ll make a separate topic on that later. Right now a hearthy hello from an enthusiast guy and I’m looking forward to start reading topics around here. :slight_smile:

Cheers!

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189

Welcome @EnthusiastGuy !

We’re working on it, not to the least by you guys joining… :slight_smile:

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190

Hi Folks, Jay Vaughan here - I am a Curator at the Retro Gaming Museum here in Vienna:

https://gamingmusem.at/

We recently opened up an 8-bit retro-computing section in the museum, and have Oric Atmos, Amstrad CPC6128, ZX Spectrum 128+, Amiga 500, Atari 1040ST, Commodore C64 and VIC20 machines set up and ready for you to play with.

We are particularly keen on the 10-line BASIC Coding Competition, as my favorite machine (The Oric Atmos) has been winning this competition for the last few years very solidly with little real competition from the other contenders - as an exotic and underlooked machine, this is a real treat! For this reason, we are presenting the Oric Atmos with the winning entries for the last few years, with the purpose of exposing visitors to the joys of computing, as it was! You can’t write software like this any more - full implementations of Lunar Lander, a Pacman clone, a multiple-room dungeon crawler … in 10 lines of BASIC, wtf?

Anyway, nice to join you all and see what you’ve been up to - hope I can contribute more as the months go by, and if you’re in Vienna - come and check out our museum! Its a lot of fun!

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191

Hi and welcome!

I guess, the link to the Retro Gaming Museum / Vienna should be www.gamingmuseum.at:

I seriously have to drop in for a visit…

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Hi all, my name is Warren Toomey. I’ve just found this forum, joined up so I can ask questions about a 6809-based SBC that I’m designing and building. But I thought I’d introduce myself along the way :grinning:

I started with Apple ][s in the '80s, learning how to write BASIC, Pascal and assembly. At one point I ported the Xinu operating system to the Apple ][: https://minnie.tuhs.org/ftp/pub/apple2/apple2xinu.tar.gz

I went to uni and fell in love with C and Unix, so in 1995 I started up the Unix Heritage Society: https://www.tuhs.org/

I’d never done much hardware work but, after reading Patterson & Hennesy’s “Computer Organisation & Design”, and “The Elements of Computing Systems” (https://www.nand2tetris.org/), I decided to try and teach myself.

The result are a bunch of projects:

  • CSCv2, a 4-bit CPU built with TTL components

  • CSCvon8, an 8-bit CPU built with TTL components, plus an assembler and a compiler for a high-level language

  • An implementation of tic tac toe with no CPU, just TTL components

  • A 6809 SBC with a Unix-like environment (no multitasking, just one program at a time)

On the software side:

Right now I’m working on MMU09. It’s going to be a 6809 SBC with an MMU (implemented with a CPLD). The aim is to get a Unix-like multitasking operating system to run on it. I think it’s going to be an interesting retro-project. The PCB is built as a “hat” to sit on top of an Arduino so I can monitor/set all the address/data/control lines, which will help greatly with the debugging. However, I’ve never used a CPLD before, so I’ll have questions down the track :rofl:

Anyway, I’ve just spent an hour or so reading through the topics on the forum, lots of good stuff here. Hope to chat with some of you soon!

Cheers, Warren

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193

A great intro, Warren, welcome! I hope you found the topic Adventures with the 6809 (and 6309) - perhaps that project and your MMU09 project can pick up some ideas from each other.

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Hello people! :wave:

After lurking here for a while, I’ve finally decided to create an account. Doing the ‘say hi’ thing as requested.

I’m active in other related communities under the same name and icon - so if you see both, you’ll know it’s the same ‘me’ there also.

I’m into retro/vintage computers, and the odd old console as well - although I’m not much a retro-gamer.

My current collection consists of:

Amiga

  • 3 Amiga 500s
  • An Amiga 1000 (EU model)
  • An Amiga 3000 (25Mhz, one day it will be an Amiga 3000UX running Amix)
  • two Amiga 1200s
  • Boxes and boxes of Amiga related accessories and storage mediums
  • About 1,000 (probably more) Amiga floppy disks. (I’ve been working through old obscure PD/Shareware releases hunting for stuff that never made it to Aminet, or archive.org).

Commodore

  • Commodore 128 (RAM problem - need to spend time fixing it)

Sinclair

  • ZX81 in bits (It works, but I have plans to build a proper keyboard for it one day)

PC

  • Amstrad PPC512 (plus have an ISA expansion card waiting to be built for it)
  • Olivetti PC1 (dual floppy)
  • Generic 286 (currently being built)
  • Many, many mini ITX boxes with old VIA chipsets (good for DOS actually)
  • Bunch of thin clients. (No idea why I have them - they are soo odd).

Consoles

  • PlayStation 1 (modded, but on the lookout for a PSIO board though)
  • Sony PSP (not really vintage/retro but good for 8 bit emulation)

And my absolute favouritist machine in my collection:

  • A DEC AlphaStation with an Alpha 21264 CPU @ 600Mhz, 16MB RAM, SCSI HDD/CD, plus working Audio!. It’s running Windows NT 4.0 (I plan to write new applications for this platform, mainly because no-one else is).

As for me, I’m handy with a soldering iron, down to SMD sizes. I can do 3D design for 3D models/printing. I can code in various languages, and I’m a 25 years+ veteran of the IT industry in various roles. I cut my computing teeth on a very large VAX/VMS cluster in my early 20s, and then onto PC support, engineering and then architecture, until I finally realised that the industry wasn’t for me anymore, so now I do something completely different.

I can also be opinionated, but then, I do know lots, so it’s rarely just bluster. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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195

Welcome, Matt! That AlphaStation sounds quite marvellous - feel free to start a thread and post some photos.

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196

Hi there, my name is Juan Vidal, and im in my mid 20s. I am from Spain and I like to research the Spanish Computing History (Forgotten companies like Telesincro, Secoinsa, Comelta, etc…). My first computer was a Siemens Laptop from 1992 or 1993 that i got from my father in the 2000s. I have a small computer and videogame collection. Right now i have the following Computers:

Apple:

  • Macintosh Plus
  • Macitosh IISI
  • Macintosh Color Classic
  • iMac G4
  • PowerMac G4
  • PowerMac G5

MicroComputers:

  • Spectrum 128 +2
  • Oric Atmos

Pocket Computers:

  • Sharp PC1500
  • Casio PB-100
  • Casio PB-700
  • Casio FX-880P

HandHeld Computers:

  • Canon X-07
  • Atari Portfolio
  • Casio Cassiopeia

Worksation/Server:

  • Silicon Graphics O2
  • AlphaStation XP900
  • AlphaServer DS10
  • IBM 306m
  • SunFire X2100

And some other devices from the 90s and 2000s like some PDAs with Windows Mobile or a extrange Clevo laptop With a Desktop P4…

It is nice to be here :stuck_out_tongue:

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197

Welcome! That’s a very fine collection - if you’d like to post some photos or stories, feel free to start a thread.

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198

Hey guys,
Im rehan, i have a massive pile of Vintage / Retro computers, just wanted to know if we’re allowed to sell them on here?

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199

Welcome Rehan! The forum is really for discussion, which includes investigations and advice, and sharing interesting findings and collections, but does not include advertising or trading. (It’s fuzzy, but it’s something very like that.)

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Rehan, the Vintage Computer Federation (VCFed) has a forum with a board that allows selling/buying. You can take a look at: Vintage Computer Items For Sale or Trade | Vintage Computer Federation Forums

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201

Hi, my name is Vinicius, I am from Brazil, born in 1988. My father is a electronic technician and he runs a shop in the small town we live. He got me and my sister hooked up on technology at an early age, I remember him teaching me how to play an Atari 2600 when I was 3 years old (it felt magical seeing that colorful “blocks” moving in our TV). From there I jumped to more modern consoles and eventually, we got our first PC in early 1999, it was a second-hand AMD K6II PC running Windows 95. One of the first adventures I had was upgrading it to Windows 98.

It didn’t go well an my father was furious, he ordered me to fix it since I was the one who “broke it”. That experienced changed me… I became the son/nephew/friend who had a knack for PCs and modern machines in general, and with the blink of an eye I was repairing PCs for my entire family in the next decade.

I recently decided to study old hardware architecture and discovered a fascinating world of histories and amazing technologies. Currently, I work as a freelance writer for marketing and tech companies.

Pleasure to meet you all!

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202

What do you have besides 8-bit gaming? Anything “big iron” (possibly running on emulators)? Such as:

  • TX-0: Tic-Tac-Toe (~1959)
  • PDP-1: Spacewar! (1962)
  • PDP-7: Space Travel (~1969)
  • PDP-8: Lunar Lander (1969)
  • Imlac: Maze (1973-74, first FPS?)
  • PDP-10: Colossal Cave / Adventure, Zork (1976-79)
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@seclorum I could be of help with this one… :slight_smile:

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I also suggest use of the PiDP panels for added flair. A PiDP-1 is in the making.

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Hi @all,

I’m new in this forum. I’m Norbert and I’m living in Germany near by Cologne. My collection favorites are SIEMENS, SIEMENS-NIXDORF and FUJITSU-SIEMENS when its mostly related to SINIX, the UNIX variant from SIEMENS.

The first computer was a C64 … I assume, a lot of us starts with a C64… :wink: I’ve learned by SIEMENS “Kommunikationselektroniker” - in English, I assume it could be something like “electronic engineer in comunication- and informationtechnologies”. In the meantime I’ve got a lot of computers from SIEMENS in my collection. The oldest SINIX System is a SIEMENS PC-X with SINIX 1.0 and the newest one is a RM400-C60 or 80. There are also some computers like a C64, a CBM610, a SGI Indigo2 ZX and a little bit of SUN.

Have a nice Day :slight_smile:
Norbert

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206

I’ve been using computers since the late 60s.
Punched paper tape thru IBM cards thru floppy disks
thru Zip Drives thru USB drives. I started using BOS,
a British operating system in 1986, & I still use it.
When computers got fast enuf I switched from BOS
in native mode to a version running as a DOS
application. It tricks DOS into being multi-user &
multi-tasking (9 simultaneous screens). Using
DOS means the latest version of Windows I can use
is Win98 (the last with a DOS kernel).

Programs I run on it:
PMS+ (property management). The company is out of business.
BOS Finder (database) ← Un-updated since 1986
BOS Writer (word processer)
BOS Speller (spell checker)

Pluses:

  • It’s fast & reliable.
  • Security is powerful.
  • The menu system is wonderful. It automates many
    functions, & provides most of my documentation.
  • No fees.

Minuses:

  • No support.
  • It’s very obscure. I know no one else using BOS.
  • I need to know both DOS & BOS.
  • My version won’t run on many new machines. So I buy up old DOS boxes.
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207

Hello! I got my start using computers on the Apple ][ in the library, or school //es. Also used a serial terminal to the library’s catalogue system running some kind of BSD-derivative in the early 80s.

First home computer was a C128 so my father could do Cyrillic and NT Greek and Roman characters on the same document with Fontmaster 128. A BBS I dialled got a Sun3 and timeshare on a T1 with an ISP, and turned into a large ISP in its own right over the 90s. A friend gave me a Leading Edge Model D, and that served me through middle and high school in the states.

I helped a friend who had a music education degree install Debian on his machine in '99, remotely. We used GNU screen to share the console once he got past a certain point, and he’s still using a descendant of that initial install. Now he’s a tenured professor of Computer Science at University of Minnesota, Duluth, where he’s in charge of a well-preserved PDP-12 that the neurobiology lab kept clean and dry for 50 years!

You may have seen the “HELLORLD!” video that I made for his YouTube channel, where I told the story of how we remotely debugged the scope display routines via videos of the console lights.

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