Hi

Introduce yourself. Tell people why you are interested in vintage computers and what (if anything) you've got.

Hi

Postby acsi on Sun Jan 08, 2012 7:49 pm

Hi

Thanks to SparkyNZ for sending me this way. Thought I best do a quick intro.

It all started for me when I conned my Dad into buying me a ZX81 complete with 16K ram pack back in 1983. 3D Monster Maze was my favourite game by far but I really miss the magazines and type in's, they have never really been the same since.

Next was my Vic20 complete with 3K Super Basic expansion a couple of years later. Really miss this machine and have never been able to find my favourite game again (a type in called Taxi or Cabbie or something like that).

Then came the C64 which I had for several years. What a beast this machine was. Ill never forget getting busted by the computing teacher for swapping disc's with a friend at school.

Next was my first Atari, a 1024STFM. Eventually expanded to 2.5Meg and ran my BBS (ST Afterburner) for several years. Later on this was replaced with a 386SX20 (what a downgrade. Never forgave myself for this one).
During this time I also got an Amiga2000 maxed out to 9Meg and later on an Atari STe with 4Meg. Also had a Spectre GCR cartridge for the ST which emulated a Mac Plus with larger screen and ran faster than the plus. Could read the disc's too.

Then several years in the PC world with 386's and 486's before starting to go back to the old days when I obtained an Atari Falcon 030 (Another machine I should never have gotten rid of).

For the last ten years though I have been using a Mac as my main machine after getting a LC630 (One of the road apples), and later on maxing out a 7300 before moving onto iBook's, Powerbooks, and iMac's.

But in the last 5 or so years I have been collecting. Currently I have the following

ZX80 with most of it's original packaging and in working order.
Several ZX81's in various piece's and state's. With the ZXPand and AY add on.
Several 48K ZX Spectrum's and a +3. With a Divide and a Divide+ interface.
Sinclair QL with trump card and a whopping 768K. Still working with this one as the micro drives seem a bit flakey.
Several Vic20's (Well 2 maybe 3) one of which doesn't go. And one with the original 2pin power adapter. And a cream 1541 drive although I need to remind myself that it's 110v. Also got a MegaCart and a Final Expansion cartridge for them.
SX64 which works but has had a hard life. With a MMC64.
Atari ST in a beat up state and missing it's drive.
Atari Stacy4 which has some cosmetic damage but works well. Took awhile to track down a replacement HD as they can be picky but then discovered the same drive was in some of the compact Mac's.
Amstrad CPC464
Several Atari 2600's and 7800's

So that's about me anyway. And I have probably dealt with a few of you on trademe before (sorry if I've outbid or frustrated you) and I look forward to your help repairing several of these machines.


Recently acquired a Turbo Chameleon 64 which emulates a c64, Amiga and Spectrum 48K. (Border line retro)
'acsi' on trademe
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Re: Hi

Postby tezza on Sun Jan 08, 2012 9:17 pm

Hiya asci and welcome to the forums!

I seem to recognise the name as usually being on the list of bidders when I'm bidding for something :)

A good set of machines you've got there. I also have a QL and the microdrives also can be flaky. Of course it could be the wafers which would surely would be getting past their used-by date now!

My SX64 is in pretty good nick though. Lovely machine although I need my strongest pair of glasses to read that tiny screen!

What other machines are you still looking for? Anything in particular?
Tez (Terry Stewart) (Administrator)
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Projects and Articles: https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/index.htm
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Re: Hi

Postby acsi on Mon Jan 09, 2012 8:07 am

Hi,

Yeah the QL looks like a good machine. I have a HxC floppy emulator that I plan to use with it but I haven't found the time yet to do so. The machine I've got was failing after a few minutes use. After replacing all the main chips (have spare if anyone wants them) it turned out to be the keyboard connectors. After replacing those it's been working a treat.

I wouldn't mind an Atari Falcon again but the cost of these is prohibitive.

Also after an Amstrad 6128 or floppy drive interface for a 464 as I have a box full of disk's but no drive.

Oh and I am after a cheap Amiga 500 keyboard and case. I want to look at putting the Turbo Chameleon in either an Amiga or a C64 case.
'acsi' on trademe
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Re: Hi

Postby tezza on Mon Jan 09, 2012 9:22 am

acsi wrote:Hi,

Yeah the QL looks like a good machine. I have a HxC floppy emulator that I plan to use with it but I haven't found the time yet to do so. The machine I've got was failing after a few minutes use. After replacing all the main chips (have spare if anyone wants them) it turned out to be the keyboard connectors. After replacing those it's been working a treat.


Yes, I've read about the HxC floppy emulator. Look interesting. I didn't realise it supported the Sinclair QL also though?

acsi wrote:Oh and I am after a cheap Amiga 500 keyboard and case. I want to look at putting the Turbo Chameleon in either an Amiga or a C64 case.


Plenty of Amiga 500s on Trade Me. As you would have noticed, they come up ALL the time! Apprently they are quite rare in the U.S. and go for big money there.
Tez (Terry Stewart) (Administrator)
Collection: https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/co ... /index.htm
Projects and Articles: https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/index.htm
Twitter: @classiccomputNZ | YouTube: Terry Stewart
Trade Me: tezza5
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Re: Hi

Postby acsi on Mon Jan 09, 2012 9:30 am

Rich Mellor (RWAP) has got it going but I am yet to get hold of the instructions (not that I've asked him yet). They were published in the Quanta Mag in Nov 2010 but I only have 2011 copies.

Was looking at an Amiga locally but I see that Andrew9 has started to bid on it. Might back off as I would prefer to canibalise a faulty unit anyway.
'acsi' on trademe
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Re: Hi

Postby lizardb0y on Mon Jan 09, 2012 10:09 am

Hi acsi, I recognise your name from Trade Me. Nice to see you on the forums!

acsi wrote:Rich Mellor (RWAP) has got it going but I am yet to get hold of the instructions (not that I've asked him yet). They were published in the Quanta Mag in Nov 2010 but I only have 2011 copies.


Cool :) The HxC is a device on my shopping list, and working with the QL would be that much better! I have a couple of QLs in working order and a couple of RWAP keyboard membranes ready to fix 'em when they break. The QL was one of many computers I dreamed of owning. I remember looking at the QL in the David Reid Electronics store on Cumberland Street in Dunedin. I family friend had the QL and I got to play on it a couple of times when visiting.

acsi wrote:Was looking at an Amiga locally but I see that Andrew9 has started to bid on it. Might back off as I would prefer to canibalise a faulty unit anyway.


That's me :) We'll see how the bidding goes. I may be able to help out finding a case or faulty 500 anyway - I'll check and let you know if I can help.
lizardb0y / Andrew
Just another 8-bit hustler

blog: http://www.vintage8bit.com
twitter: @vintage8bit
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Re: Hi

Postby tezza on Mon Jan 09, 2012 10:16 am

acsi wrote:Rich Mellor (RWAP) has got it going but I am yet to get hold of the instructions (not that I've asked him yet). They were published in the Quanta Mag in Nov 2010 but I only have 2011 copies.


You don't have a link to this work do you? I have toyed with the idea of adding/finding a standard disk interface to the QL and this just might let me do it.
Tez (Terry Stewart) (Administrator)
Collection: https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/co ... /index.htm
Projects and Articles: https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/index.htm
Twitter: @classiccomputNZ | YouTube: Terry Stewart
Trade Me: tezza5
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Re: Hi

Postby lizardb0y on Mon Jan 09, 2012 10:32 am

tezza wrote:
acsi wrote:Rich Mellor (RWAP) has got it going but I am yet to get hold of the instructions (not that I've asked him yet). They were published in the Quanta Mag in Nov 2010 but I only have 2011 copies.


You don't have a link to this work do you? I have toyed with the idea of adding/finding a standard disk interface to the QL and this just might let me do it.


From: "Rich Mellor" <r...@rwapservices.co.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2010 10:07 AM
To: <ql-us...@q-v-d.com>
Subject: [Ql-Users] Getting the Sinclair QL to use an SD Card

Well, its another day, and some good news for the QL at last :-)

We have now successfully tested the HxC Floppy Disk drive emulator with the Sinclair QL home computer, meaning that you can now copy raw images of Sinclair QL disks to an SD card, and then connect this floppy disk drive emulator to your QL's disk interface and read/write to an SD card instead of floppy disks.

The latest v3.0 of Q-emuLator supports raw disk images, so when that is officially released, you should be able to use that to get software into the raw disk format required. Then all you need to do, is to convert it using the supplied HxC software, copy it to the SD card and then hey presto, the QL sees it as a floppy disk! At the moment, I can only get Q-emuLator to read from raw disk images, although Daniele is working on raw disk image support.

You can copy any number of floppy disk images to your SD card, and then use the buttons on the front of the control panel to set up which disk image is to be seen by the Sinclair QL as FLP1 and which is to be seen as FLP2.

Currently, it only appears to support DD disks, although I daresay it will work with other disk types if I had some raw disk images of QL HD and QL ED disks to try (I cannot make them on my PC).

Ideally, we need to find some power supplies which can be used to power these units - at the moment, we are using an old external floppy disk case. Also, for some reason, both the Gold Card and the MicroP disk interface we have here needed the cable the other way around to the QL norm!

This means that the HxC Floppy Disk Drive Emulator available from SellMyRetro.com <http://www.sellmyretro.com/search/naturalSearch?keyword=hxc> has now been shown to successfully work with all of the following equipment as a complete replacement for the good old floppy disk drive:

* Any computer / piece of equipment that uses PC formatted floppy
disks (3.5", 5.25" or even 8" drives)
* Atari ST/STF/Falcon
* Amstrad CPC6128
* Commodore Amiga (currently write only)
* Dragon 32 / 64 (VDK or JVC disk format, which should also
therefore work with the Tandy CoCo)
* Emax and Emax II Sampler
* Ensoniq Mirage Sampler
* Korg DSS-1 Synthesizer
* MSX2
* Oberheim DPX1 Sampler
* Oric Computer (with MicroDisk)
* PC
* PC88
* SAM Coupe *.MGT and *.SAD formats
* Sinclair QL raw disk images
* Sinclair ZX Spectrum +3 or Sinclair ZX Spectrum with PlusD disk
Interface
* Super Wildcard DS-SWC3201
* Thomson TO8D
* TI99/4A
* x68000

--
Rich Mellor
RWAP Services

http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk
http://www.rwapservices.co.uk

-- Try out our new site: http://sellmyretro.com

_______________________________________________
QL-Users Mailing List
http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
lizardb0y / Andrew
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twitter: @vintage8bit
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Re: Hi

Postby tezza on Mon Jan 09, 2012 11:19 am

Thanks for that.

Ah, of course what I need is the QL disk controller (which I don't have). I was thinking they QL people had found some clever way of interfacing the HxC without it.

However, good to know there is a QL user mailing list. I might look into getting on that.
Tez (Terry Stewart) (Administrator)
Collection: https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/co ... /index.htm
Projects and Articles: https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/index.htm
Twitter: @classiccomputNZ | YouTube: Terry Stewart
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Re: Hi

Postby acsi on Mon Jan 09, 2012 11:39 am

I have a 256K PCML Q+Disk Interface I purchased a while back which I don't use anymore. I can confirm the ram works but I never got round to testing the floppy controller.

Came from Rich Mellor though so should work fine.

Let me know if your interested.
'acsi' on trademe
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Re: Hi

Postby tezza on Mon Jan 09, 2012 12:36 pm

Sure. I'll send you a PM about this.
Tez (Terry Stewart) (Administrator)
Collection: https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/co ... /index.htm
Projects and Articles: https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/index.htm
Twitter: @classiccomputNZ | YouTube: Terry Stewart
Trade Me: tezza5
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Re: Hi

Postby Carcenomy on Mon Jan 09, 2012 5:06 pm

Hit me up, I've got a 500 that would suit. It's sans floppy drive and last I checked has blown CIAs, so at this point cost of parts to repair exceeds cost to replace - especially when there's two other A500s in my cache ;)
Just the local Commodore hobo and middle-aged PC hoarder.
eisa on Trademe. A lasting reminder of a Compaq fetish when I was younger.
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Re: Hi

Postby SparkyNZ on Mon Jan 09, 2012 9:11 pm

Hi Michael

Great to see you on board. The Wellington vintage team is expanding! :)

Paul
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