Micro Mart Forum / Retro Computer Mart / Micro Mart Forums / Thank you all! / Latest Posts

RE: Thank you all!

The Pumpkin King — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 12:37:58 GMT

Got to be type in listings for me old ZX81 and 48k Speccy.

First ever computer used was PET at school, sceond being a ZX80.

RE: Thank you all!

John63 — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 19:43:06 GMT

For me it all started with using a BBC computer at school when I was ~5.

I continued using various BBCs and later Acorns (right up to an awesome A3020 :P)

In ~1998/99 we bought all of the redundant Acorns / BBCs off the School.

We also aquired two Acorn Archemides (sp?) machines from the same source.

We've also (still got) a 486 machine which we aquired in 2000/1 (I think)

Finally in 2002 we moved onto a P2 266 then a P3 450 and now a P3 1GHz.

....Does anybody know where I can find 'Tanks' anywhere? I wondered if someone had ported it to DOS etc?

RE: Thank you all!

compaq — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 08:27:59 GMT

My first computer was an Acorn Electron was my christmas present in 1982.........cost £299.99

i spent a lot of time on that computer and i still have it now up in my loft ,works perfectly.

the one thing i do remember about them was the power supply was not very robust it supplys something like 19v and if it broke you had a hard time getting a replacement

RE: Thank you all!

the_doctor — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 17:31:09 GMT

I had my parent's old Grey Speccy +2 in 1996, used to go on their Amiga A1200 and play Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 In 1999 I was given an amiga A600. Then parents bought me an amiga A1200 with memory upgrade and HD in 1999 (You see I was only 9) and had that one set up until I started my GCSE's of which then I need something that was easily compatible with the school system. I still have all of the retro computers that I initally used bar the Speccy but I started getting into collecting them when I was 12 when me and some friend found a stash of BBC B's in a rather large cupboard!!

RE: Thank you all!

logicman — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 16:32:11 GMT

[quote]It's a little scary to think that the PET is just a bit older than I am.[/quote]

Nah! 'Old' is when you can't remember what 'teeth' means. :hehe:

RE: Thank you all!

Shaun.Bebbington — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 08:14:38 GMT

[quote][b]logicman (18/10/2006)[/b][hr]I don't know which was more fun, playing the text-based
Star Trek adventure on the Commodore Pet, or going
into W.H. Smiths, stopping the ZX81 demo, and running:
10 PRINT "Press C to run the colour demonstration."
20 GOTO 10
:hehe:[/quote]
Hehe! You could have done the same on a Commodore PET, eh? :-) It's a little scary to think that the PET is just a bit older than I am.

Regards,

Shaun.

RE: Thank you all!

logicman — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 21:32:20 GMT

I don't know which was more fun, playing the text-based
Star Trek adventure on the Commodore Pet, or going
into W.H. Smiths, stopping the ZX81 demo, and running:
10 PRINT "Press C to run the colour demonstration."
20 GOTO 10
:hehe:

RE: Thank you all!

boywander — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 17:18:41 GMT

The plane game sounds like Sopwith (think that was the name).

RE: Thank you all!

cardcrash — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 09:46:22 GMT

The BBC and BBCB were my first experiences, at boarding school. Used to think I was clever typing:

10 PRINT "Charlie is the greatest" (or some other important information)
20 GOTO 10

...and leaving it on as many screens as I could! Then I found out how to do it with flashing colours which was even cooler!

Aqua Attack was my favourite game, but as mentioned in another thread, got us into trouble for being a 'keybasher' game.

Went to my friends house one exiat (weekend holiday), and he had an Acorn, with a game called Bandits at Three O'clock. It was two player and you flew a little bi-plane around the screen trying to shoot the other guy. Fantastic, played it for hours!

Then I remember being introduced to the Atari 2600... well... what a peice of kit that was! Me and my brother used to love playing Return of the Jedi... I could go on for hours with this retro stuff. Must mean I'm old or something!!!

RE: Thank you all!

lasher — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 19:33:05 GMT

Hi shaun i had a TI too rather a rare machine, god only knows why my mother bought it ,non of my mates had one and all used to come over to play the games. Parsec is about the only one i can remember. Mind you cant remember what i had for brekky!!

RE: Thank you all!

Unicross — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 22:03:12 GMT

Going back a bit here...

I remember my first home console being the Atari 2600, I was a whizz at pacman and centipede.

Then when i was at primary school I used basic to write a program to make a robotic turtle holding a pen draw shapes.

Then we got a Commodore 64 (Flimbo's quest and Dizzy's fast food on cartidges... memories...) and I wrote a very, very basic version of pong with no score , two bats and a ball, took me 8 hours to write and I lost it in a crash after 30mins of playing.

Then the usual progressing until my first full IBM Compatible PC, a 486-dx2-66, (by AST, remember them?), then sys building etc...

RE: Thank you all!

KK — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 21:59:40 GMT

My first computer was a Commodore 16

I learned to program it right down to machine level, which is more than I can say for a modern PC

Very fond memories.

RE: Thank you all!

Slipstreem — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 21:20:35 GMT

Hi peeps! :)

My earliest and fondliest computer memory dates back to 1981. At the tender age of 16 years, I managed to get hold of one of the ZX81 kits via an advert and discount voucher in Sinclair User.

I paid the princely sum of £30 and received a big cardboard box containing a plastic case, a stick-on membrane keyboard, an unpopulated PCB, and a bag of components.

Having been a keen electronics enthusiast from the age of 12, this was the ultimate in excitement for me at that time.

Happily, it worked fine and kept me happy until the Spectrum 48K came out the following year. Unfortunately, I had to sell the ZX81 to afford the Speccy.

The Spectrum then 'grew' a custom-made steel case, full-size keyboard, internal 3.5" floppy drive and controller, parallel printer port, joystick port, enhanced pseudo-stereo sound, improved tape loading circuitry, and a custom internal toroidal power supply with external dry lead-acid battery backup.

The Speccy still lives and gets dragged out a couple of times a year to blow away the cobwebs for an old-school retro gaming session.

PC Spectrum emulators are very good, but it's not the same as the real thing.

Oh, happy days! :D

Cheers, Slipstreem. :cool:

RE: Thank you all!

boywander — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 16:38:51 GMT

Ah, way back in the mists of time (going by my memory - I'm 24) we had an Amstrad CPC set up in the dining room, on a dangerously creaky table in the corner. I remember Beach Head and Terramex among many others. AA was the best, often got free full games on the covertapes. Elite featured on one of them.
Got an emulator and images of some of the favourites, some Dizzy games in there too.

Thank you all!

Shaun.Bebbington — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 12:57:15 GMT

Thanks to all of those people who have contributed to this particular part of Micro Mart's forum. Life has been rather hectic for me of late, but hopefully normality will resume which will mean that I can spend more of my time contributing here :-)

Anyway, I want to encourage more reader interaction in the Retro Mart column, so the hot topic for October is your earliest computing memories.

For me, it's the Texas TI99/4a, which my Mum would program from those games books published back then. I remember trying my hand at copying one, but as I was very young, I only typed in one page and didn't realise that the game wouldn't work unless I typed in all four or five pages. Then, some time later, I think it was Christmas 1986, we got a Commodore 64 under the tree. The first games that we loaded were Alf in the Colour Cave, a simple educational game from America, and Beech Head II. I remember being amazed at the fact that there was music playing while the game was loading :-) and then the speech in the games, cries of "Medic!" still resonate in my memory to this day.

Anyone care to pitch in ;-)

Regards,

Shaun.