I’m currently running low on places to put new systems until I build my new display unit (hopefully next week). So until then any system I bought needed to be small and easy to store. What better system than the Cambridge Z88 from Clive Sinclair. This system couldn’t be branded as a Sinclair system because Clive had already sold the Sinclair brand name to Amstrad at the time this was released (1987).
Managed to grab this one of eBay as untested so was expecting it to be broke and was going to try and revive it. But surprisingly it is in fully working order.
I look forward to seeing what I can get this thing do do with its built in serial port and BBC Basic.
So here we have my first donation to the archive. An Amstrad CPC464 with the GT65 green screen monitor and a nice box of games. The CPC464 itself was nonworking so this was my first attempt at bringing an old computer back from the dead. I will put together a small write-up soon of how that went.
If you have any old computers that I am missing from my collection and wish to donate them, then please get in touch 😁
Back in the days of DOS-based games and mainly point-and-click adventures, when you set up a game you had to choose your soundcard. Most people had a Soundblaster Compatible, some had the Adlib soundcard. However, there was also an option of the MT-32 or MPU401. I didn’t know anyone who had one of these and for good reason, they cost around £500 back in 1987 when they were released. I remember paying around £50 for a Soundblaster card and CD-ROM drive so the cost difference was quite substantial!
So what made it so special? Will the MT-32 is a MIDI Device that was connected to your PC via an MPU-401 hardware interface. This gave your computer access to the audio hardware that most of these tunes were actually written on back then. Songs like the theme tune to Monkey Island were actually composed on the MT-32 and therefore you would get to hear the music exactly like the musician intended it to be heard.
So after seeing some videos about this device, I knew I needed one in my collection, and it really doesn’t disappoint. Listening to Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and Simon the sorcerer though this module adds a whole new atmosphere to the games.
I will do a write up on this soon. I will also put up some videos showing it working, and the difference between this and what we had to listen to back then.
One issue people have these days is writing floppy images back to 3.5inch floppy disks so they can be used in retro computers such as the Amiga, Sam and Atari ST etc.
The first mistake people make is they just go out and buy a USB floppy drive. The problem is these devices don’t give direct access to the floppy drive hardware so none of the applications designed for this purpose work with them.
So now you have two options. You can either put together an old PC which has a floppy disk interface on the motherboard (I do already have one of these for this purpose). Or you can buy yourself a Greaseweasel interface! This interface links to a modern PC via USB and then connects up to an old flopppy drive. Combined with the software available from here: https://github.com/keirf/Greaseweazle you will now be able to read/write and format floppy disks in the correct format for retro computers.
I have designed and 3D printed a nice enclosure for this to all sit in which can be downloaded here if you want to print one yourself.
I purchased this device directly from Kier and it cost me £22 inc postage to the UK which I think is a brilliant price for a device that is going to be very useful for any retro computer collector. Head over to his Facebook page to find out more information on how to purchase one.
I got bored so broke out Sketchup and drew this model of the Spectrum Dizzy sprite. It prints in two parts, the black part has cutouts so the white parts can push fit inside it (or in my case I used a hammer! I guess I still need to calibrate my printer a bit more).
If anyone wants to print one for themselves you can download the STL files here:
So I had a small space on one of my units where a speaker used to sit. It wasn’t a big space so fitting a full-size computer in there wasn’t an option. The space was also longer than it was deep. So the solution? Fill it with a C64 Mini!
The fact I had some space, along with a £37 price tag on Amazon meant I couldn’t resist adding this one. Even though I have a real C64 and also a raspberry pi powered conversion, this thing just looked so cute.
I will do a full write up sometime in the future but it’s actually a really nice little device and comes as standard with the ability to load games direct from USB so no hacking required.
I’m not a collector of software usually as with the number of systems I own that would become a very expensive hobby. But there was no way I could pass on grabbing these original Sam Coupé titles. With not much Sam software being released I hopefully won’t go bankrupt trying to get a complete set! I already have a selection of games including Lemmings and Oh No! More Lemmings so these are a nice addition.
My old Shuttle xPC Windows XP PC has needed a little more grunt for a while. The motherboard has an 8x AGP slot so my choice of cards was slightly limited. After a bit of research I found the best AGP 8x card available and then discovered they fetch £150+ on eBay. So i started reducing my specification until I found some cards for a reasonable price. However, even at that point I came across an issue which I haven’t had for a long time, the Shuttle xPC only has a 230w power supply and this was no where near enough for the higher end AGP cards of the time.
I eventually settled for this little beauty. The GeForce 4 MX440. With a staggering 64mb of RAM and both VGA and DVI ports it’s an amazing piece of hardware for £15. Well maybe not amazing but it runs the orignal GTA at a frame rate that is far too fast to be playable so I have to turn the frame limiter on.
This PC is never really going to be used as a gaming machine, but it’s nice that it can run the old classics of which some don’t work very nicely, or at all in Windows 10 on modern hardware. Time to run up some of those old talkie editions of point and click adventures like Simon the Sorcerer and Day of the Tentacle.
Another small delivery today. Since I only had a few zip disks I figured it would be best to have a little bit of stock. They seem pretty easy to obtain still at the moment but the same could be said about 720k Double Density floppy disks a few years back and now they are a pig to get hold of (luckily I purchased 5 sealed boxes of those a while back too)
So here we have 13 zip 100 disks, a few of them used, some “new” and some still sealed in their plastic wrapper. Should keep me going for a while!
The Atari ST has been on obvious omission from my collection for a while and it was time to address that issue. I’ve been looking around for one for some time but wasn’t really in any rush as I don’t have a space to set it up at the moment and building a new display unit has been delayed due to covid (Wickes for some reason have stopped selling oak effect wood at the moment).
But over the weekend I saw an auction for an ST on eBay with no bids. The photos looked ok but the description was simply “Powers on, mouse works” not exactly the greatest of adverts. The seller also only had a feedback rating of 3 so I guess this put most people off. However, the item didn’t say it was un-tested or spares or repair or anything so I figured it was worth a shot and the buyer protection would almost certainly cover me if it was a lemon.
So £78+p&p later, the guy sent it our via parcel force and today I took ownership of a good condition fully working (including the floppy drive) Atari 520STFM.
So what are the next steps? It needs a good clean and the case is a bit discoloured so it will be going for a hydrogen peroxide bath within the next week or so.
I have also ordered another gotek drive to flash with the flashfloppy software so I can load the software from USB pen drive rather than having to deal with floppy disks all the time.
I will document these processes when I do them so if you want to see how it works out, be sure to subscribe for email notifications 🙂
