anyone here into retro computing

[WhitePaperKat]

I have this weird hobby. Where i would collect computers that are like. 30 years old and try to hook them up to the internet or connect to a bbs server with them. a lot of people find my hobby a little off putting for some reason. eh i think i should stop and try to find some thing else to do in my down time. Like improve on my grammar ha. Also sorry the crappy thread i mostly lurk or comment on stuff for this particular reason.

 

[Pissmaster]

Sounds cool. Show off your computers, post about them, or tell some stories about particularly troublesome ones.

 

[Hesa]

I still used an Atari Ste 1040 for music once in a while when I want to do some old school stuff. I know people have carried on developing things around the Atari and you can get them to go online and get new software.
Stupidly I gave my BBC Model B away a few years ago. Really miss it from time to time.

 

[Pee Cola]

Stupidly I gave my BBC Model B away a few years ago. Really miss it from time to time.

I'm currently restoring a BBC Master 128. It's mostly working, only the disc controller is having issues. I've narrowed it down to which chip needs replacing (one of the MOS 6522 I/O controllers), but desoldering a 40-pin IC and soldering in a new socket is a bit of a faff, so I've been putting it off. Once I've done that, I can start using a microSD card adapter for storage.

I guess while I've got the soldering iron out, I should put together and install my PiTubeDirect co-processor as well.

 

[WhitePaperKat]

Sounds cool. Show off your computers, post about them, or tell some stories about particularly troublesome ones.

i will when i get around to it. i have a c64 that has a modem and an old gateway pc. i used to have an apple 2 plus but i broke it :[

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Does Windows 98 and DOSBox count?



(also I have a TI-83 from the mid '90s or so)

 

[Mr. Pestilence]

I got a old HP Pavilion 503N I'm working on fixing up (PSU caps burnt.) I got my introduction to weirdos on the net using the machine after I came across some Sonic fanfiction while trying to look up level select codes for Sonic 2.

 

[seri0us]

Yes, kind of. The only retro machine I have isn't a PC it's a sound system I got a few years ago, most of it will be turning 30 this summer. I live vicariously through other people by watching their videos on retro PCs because I know owning one wouldn't keep me happy for too long.

a lot of people find my hobby a little off putting

Why

 

[Enig]

Depends on how old we're talking, lowest I am willing to go any more is Pentium III because that entire platform is already cursed enough due to how often I've had PIII parts up and randomly die on me while I can use Athlons to brush my hair and put them back in and boot on the first try, I don't want to imagine the sudden death rate for II or below by now.

 

[AmpleApricots]

I have an absolute heap of Amiga, PC and C64 hardware I collected here and there when it was still seen as junk, before this became a collectors thing, mostly through my work at the time. My first computer was an Amiga 2000 I got in 1987 (I'm aware that dates me) I still own to this day. I replaced so much stuff on it over the years and overhauled the power supply several times so it's not quite the computer I bought once, but it's still in perfectly fine working condition. There was a specific feeling of wonder to using a computer back in that day that you can't really replicate today although computers have gotten a lot better and I wouldn't want to go back. I'll also always miss AmigaOS, smoothest OS I've ever used. Switching to a PC in the 90s felt like a step back in many ways. It's kinda funny and sad you need to tweak a modern Linux running on a Zen 2 machine a lot to not have the UI stutter and hang while the computer is doing heavy operations while that was the experience you got out of the box on that ~7 Mhz 68k Amiga.

 

[benutz]

Love messing about with old win98 boxes.

If you like messing with Linux, then that shit is a whole other challenge in itself.

Amiga stuff is pretty common in my game (Jungle production). Trackers. Prices going up.

Atari ST is good too.

Mostly I do what I can with Virtual Machines. Which isn't a whole lot because you need to mess with the HAL - Hardware Abstraction Layer - drivers and shit.

But yeah, got winX on Linux running on a win7 machine.

We are the kinky perverts of the computer world that like to 'push boundaries'.

 

[Pee Cola]

I'll also always miss AmigaOS, smoothest OS I've ever used.

AmigaOS 3.2 has just been released.

Meanwhile, someone has managed to convert an external USB PC floppy drive into an Amiga-compatible drive that works under emulation (only UAE at the moment; hope it makes its way to the Pimiga soon).

 

[thx1138]

Man, I wish I still had, or had access to, some of the computers of my youth. A PDP-8...a Commodore PET at home, a C64 for way, way too long (into the early 1990s, Geos + a commodore mouse and a proper 1702 monitor made it almost usable...goddamnit I wish I still had that thing!). Those were great, fun days of computing. Doing something on the computer meant spending hours coding in Machine Language and BASIC and Fortran on the PDP, I even had FORTH for the C64. Crazy enough, FORTH is how computer components talk to your motherboard. Video cards and shit, they run a little FORTH program on their ROM that says "This is what I am, this is what address space I occupy, this is what bandwidth I need on the bus, this is my refresh cycle" etc. etc. So it's still in use, just not so you'd know it.

 

[Never Scored]

I really like watching youtube videos and stuff about it, but I can't justify the cost of getting into it myself. Oldest thing I own is a Windows 98 machine from around 2000. I'd really like a full Commodore 64 setup to mess around with someday.

 

[XYZpdq]

around 2000 or so I dumb lucked into a pile of shit from a relative, old apple II (or similarly b/w and ancient), atari st, some other stuff
TI-994/A was an interesting old machine.
My mom used them at her preschool until the early 00s. It was great for kids. Pretty sturdy, cart-driven, speech synth so kids didn't have to read, educational library out the ass.
so basically any time we ran into one at a thrift store at a decent price we'd pick it up just so there were more in reserve.

 

[Wintersun]

I do have a strange affectation for old computers and the like, but I don't know the first thing about them, nor how to set them up with networks or anything. Anyone here have any advice for me on how to start?

 

[Kosher Dill]

I do have a strange affectation for old computers and the like, but I don't know the first thing about them, nor how to set them up with networks or anything. Anyone here have any advice for me on how to start?

First question: what old computer are you talking about? A PC or something else?

 

[Wintersun]

First question: what old computer are you talking about? A PC or something else?

Something like an Apple II or one of those Coleco ones I think. Like I said, I'm not very sure about anything with old computers like this.

 

[knobslobbin]

Just got into the mister FPGA retro scene. It has cores for most 8 bit and 16 bit consoles, Amiga, Atari, handhelds, c64, and 486. Plus a bunch of arcades from that era.

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

One of the reasons I purchased a Raspberry Pi 400 is because of its connection to one of the Amiga computers self contained into its keyboard, the micro form-factor is one of the best retro things to be revived in recent history, and it helps if you load a distro with something like IceWM or FVWM for a livable daily environment. I've also been interested in the knockoff Spectrums that flooded Europe.