Hello Guys, I was pretty surprised this wasn’t already a topic, so I just started this thread to share some love for the old machines you might have in your life. At present, I have a Commodore 64c, which I plan to modify with Sam’s mod he came up with with Doctor Mix and several ZX Spectrums! What about You?
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my most old computer is my Speak and Spell !!! (ah ah ah 
)
sorry
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I’ve got a fleet of Spectrums of various models - don’t have the one I got for Christmas in 1984 but I’ve got my late 80s Spectrum +3, my partner’s +2, a 128K toastrack, a couple of Spectrum pluses that I ‘inherited’ from Newport Uni (my mate pulled them out of a skip!), and then a couple of more recent clones - a ZX Uno and a Spectrum Next.
Spectrums were my life… a very, VERY young me is second from the left on the back row here from the last issue of Your Sinclair magazine, the single greatest Spectrum mag ever. EVER! (I feel a bit sick knowing how long ago that photo was taken…)
Aside from my Spectra I’ve also got 2 or 3 ZX81s, one of which (again, courtesy of that skip in Newport) has been casemodded for improved cooling (it looks kinda ridiculous). And an Amiga A1200 which probably doesn’t work any more, because the batteries are known to leak and destroy the PCBs.
And then I’ve got a substantial selection of consoles, but that can wait for another time because you said “Vintage Computers” and not “Vintage Consoles” 
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Whats that chad looking m-fer in the background? I love it.
Got the same energy as the potion seller:
I’d be ok if you opened a thread on vintage consoles too lol.
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Ah nice, I’ve got the +2 and a few 16k and 48k’s. I’m also on the lookout for the Cheetah SpecDrum cartridge/drum machine peripheral, which I think would be fun for the music making side of my interests!
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I have had many, but gave up collecting… I still buy and sell when there’s an oppotunity to own and then make a margin…
Past machines.
Every Spectrum with the exception of a +2… A +3 got me through the end of my GCSE and A-Levels using TASWORD 3.
A Sinclair QL briefly , and a couple of 81’s
Only Amstrad was a GX4000 and a PPC640…
Various Amiga… Including a 1500
VIC-20 Briefly although it was DEAD
Various C64’s and 1541’s
A C128 which I wish I had kept in 1995
All sorts of ST’s but and a couple of XL’s
Dragon 32
Apple2 Euro Plus ( I put a bunch of these in the skip 20 years ago )
RM 380Z
BBC B and Master… Also put a lot of them in the skip before WEEE
Electron
MSX … Had a couple, think they were both Hitachi
Most of the 70’s->90’s Consoles…
TBH, Other than being ornaments/trophies they don’t actualy excite me that much anymore…
But it would be quite cool to build an original Spectrum from scratch…
Rob
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I had a Specdrum! Got it really cheap at the end of the Spectrum’s life - was surprisingly good considering! I was curious to see what was inside, expecting to find a dedicated sound chip, but it was just a very simple 8-bit DAC getting fed data straight from the bus. The Spectrum Next has the hardware profile built in so I’ll have to fire the software up again.
Sadly, the original hardware could be absolutely ANYWHERE. But I’ve got the Currah uSpeech sat on my desk; thought I might integrate the circuitry into a project one day.
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It was a poster of Morrissey from the NME stuck to cardboard and cut out 
this was waaaaaay before it turned out he’s a massive fascist 
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That’s an incredible list! Nice to see the 380Z on there
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Just remembered the Tatung Einstein… Played “Lazy Jones” on that long before the theam music was repurposed…
Comodore +4, that was also faulty.
Spacr Station 1 & HP9000 workstation actualy got used for a while…
Always wanted a DEC Alpha, but that’s not exactly in the same home computer league
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I got a 64c the other week, am slowly building a ZX48 clone. Used to work with all sorts of Unix computers and something called AXE10 (An Ericsson product), plus networking (X25, TCP/IP, Banyan vines, and a weeny bit of ATM). Owned a bunch of old Sun workstation hardware until I became homeless. Am now collecting old 8 bit computers and clocks (of all things!).
I’ll make an effort to complete my ZX48 clone soon, and post up the results here…
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something called AXE10 (An Ericsson product)
Ah, good old AXE, the target of this amazing story: The Athens Affair: How some extremely smart hackers pulled off the most audacious cell-network break-in ever.
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It wasn’t actually a cell phone bugging scandal, the guy installed software on the AXE switch that used existing wiretap software already there as standard. Ericsson reverse engineered his software. It was interesting, and goes to show what can be done when you have access to the control console and the IOG11 tape drive. Physical security trumps everything.
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Yes, that’s what the linked article (from 2007) is about. Seems they’ve identified a possible culprit since then, though, but that took them another 8 years.
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The AXE10 was a wonderfully well designed system, I used to be a support engineer for AXE. It’s how I moved into Unix and networking. Started out as a librarian who maintained the hard copies on the source code int he late 80s, before it was all easily available on a Personal computer. Was also involved in AXE program production a one point. That was nice, I got to live and work in Sweden while they were away on summer / winter holidays. 
Ahh… rose tinted glasses.
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Wow, quite a nice collection of computers… I always lusted after an Apricot computer (forgot any model numbers), the ones we had at work were green screens. The design looked really futuristic back then. Didn’t they run CP/M?
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I inherited a collection of vintage computers from a family member, as well as a hundred boxes of computer magazines and manuals.
Sperry portable personal computer and Imsai 8080
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Got some C64’s from a family member. Bought a power supply from Ray Carlsen. The Kerberos midi interface includes Cynthcart, allows me to import games, etc. Lumafix was needed, and a diy pcb adapter that allows you to use a sega controller.
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some other misc stuff
The clackiest, most well built keyboard ever.
The sounds of computalker demo cassette for the first commercial computer speech synthesizer
https://billr.incolor.com/computalker.htm
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Oh shit this is a good collection!
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