Hi,
I am new member of VCF but has been browsing a lot of website related to retro including your wonderful website (blogs, pic,etc.)
Well I am also member of Yahoo's COSMAC ELF 1802 group and yesterday,someone found your Cosmac Elf Trainer and he created a new topic talking about what he discovered and put a link to you CET picture.
Of all the many Cosmac Elf pics, yours is very unique.
Enjoying all the articles (not finished yet reading them)

The "yellowing" article brought me here, and I have to say finding your blog was great. You have provided really solid info about those vintage wonders. Keep them coming!

Terry,

Very enjoyable read. The Colour Genie was my exposure to computers, like others I used to go to the user-groups in Ponsonby and remember changing the colour 16 colour on some of the German games (black -> white), usually things like the score, using a assembler called ZEN.

Also wrote some small games using the basic compiler with a guy who's already commented on here (Hi Ralph!)

I remember the secretary of the user group was called Nola Huggins, and there was a Airforce guy from Whenuapai called Andy that got pretty far with the Genie/Z80 Assembly.

Was highly jealous of those mates of mine with Apple ][ or C64 machines, but probably learnt more with a niche machine like the cololur genie as you did not have the plethora of games to play.

Anyway cool site, cool memories thanks for taking the time.

Roger.

I really like your page about the Compaq SLT/286. I use one almost daily for labeling CDs & DVDs [DOS based CAD output to HP pen plotter]. But does anyone know how to activate it's external VGA monitor connection? Thanks!

Good work man!

Just wanted to compliment on this page.. And also on all the comments on the guestbook :) I love to see such an active community whose goal is to preserve old computers :) My collection is also just a small one, but growing every day.
Your projects and their comments + pictures are amazing, you have given me a lot of ideas and inspiration!! Mainly the idea to not just give up.. Some determination and the rights tools might just revive that old machine!

You sir, are my hero!!

Hi Tezza and hello everyone.

I am Guille from Spain. Izham_gb94 from Internet.
I give my congratulations to this page and this work.
A site impressive. It is full of good ideas, well commented and very helpful.
I have a small collection of old computers every day a little bigger and this page has been of great help to me.

Thanks and best regards, Tezza.

Izham_gb94

What a wonderful page. It's not just you who's got trouble getting the Model 30-286es to work, I've spent the weekend moving parts back and forth between two of them, and finally ended up with one in working order.

Awesome site, you have some very interesting machines!

Good to see the old computers being preserved. I have had Sinclair ZX81, Commodore VIC-20 and 64, Memotech, Acorn Electron and currently have Sinclair Z88, Acorn Risc PC, Mac powerboog G3, Powerbook G4 and PPower PC G5 which has Virtual Acorn installed on it.

Great site! Takes me back to days of building my first micro computer using a 6502? and old telecom dial pads for data entry (now I'm showing my age) - my first real PC, the Colour Genie (used to go to a club in Ponsonby? formed to cater for this one in Auckland), the SpectraVideo 328 with disk drives & printer I paid around $1000 for 2nd hand! and then my first IBM clone a 286 from some Auckland maker, can't remember the name.
Still tinkering with the damn things but now am president of a seniors computer club here in southern NSW. How times have changed!

I saw a oil covered computer once lol

Hey, I love your postings about the Apple II. I had one of those back in the days but I think I dumped them a while ago.
But its nice to see some "antique" macs.
Cheers,Louis

I really find the way you fix these computers interesting. It makes me laugh when something breaks, but can be fixed. (Like those durned filter caps. I wonder when I'll have to replace the ones in my own Apple II... XD)

I enjoy reading your blogs. I come back every few months to see what project you are working on. Very entertaining read.

Great Stuff!

Will be coming back for a more careful look later.

My first computer was a TRS-80 Model I purchased in 1978. Unfortunately I don't have the hardware any more but I do still have quite a few manuals, tapes and disks.

Today I happened to be playing around with Virtualbox (running in Ubuntu on a very old Toshiba laptop), running Windows 98 using a 2008 disk image from my old 1999 desktop machine (still serviceable) and on that I had a collection of TRS-80 emulators so I fired one up and ran the "LIFE" program I wrote in Z80 assembler way back in 1982!

Had a momentary blank on how to load the program from the emulated tape (it's been a while) and then a quick visit to Google led me to your page and the NEWDOS V2 manual... saved me having to dig out my real one.. even though the required commands came back to me before I could find the info in the manual anyway!

Keep up the good work!

Cheers
Clive

Hi,
fellow oldie and collector/retainer of OSI Superboard, SWTPC-ish (MUG) 6809, SDS Z80 CP/M, 68k stuffz...
Interested in meeting similarly crazy retro folks in Auckland in particular (I'm on the North Shore).

Cheers
Rog.

With respect to the classic TRS80 web site, I think it would be really cool if you scanned in the pages from the book:
The Captain 80 Book of BASIC Adventures. That book is really hard to find, and I think people would like to see it. Thanks for the great web site.

Beautiful site, full of clear informations and passion.
A pity you didn't scan "The Captain 80 Book of BASIC Adventures", it cannot be found anywhere!
Good work, bye!

I really enjoy reading your blog, I own a TRS-80 Mod III, no floppies at all and some hardware issues too, but I will like to make new copies of some disks, I see that you have a copycat 4.1 running in MSDOS, where did you find it, in David Keil site there is only a version for TRS-80.
excellent site
Leonardo