Fancy some retro computing?

The same person designed Next as original one, British industrial designer Rick Dickinson.

It looks very cool indeed. ZX Spectrum was my first home computer (anybody remembers Manic miner?). Later, switched to CPC464 and then on Amiga 500. Amiga looked like machine from future compared to old 8bit gang.

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And Signum! combined with a nine dot-matrix printerā€¦

Me neither. When my parents moved about 20 years ago it vanishedā€¦miraculously :crazy_face:

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Back then just getting something recognisable on screen was a big jobā€¦ Amiga along with a HAM Radio allowed someone to take a photo in the USA, then convert it to HAM and transmit itā€¦ over a couple of hours to someone in a shed in the UK. Just the concept was incredibleā€¦ the greatest moments until mobile phones came along and we could actually talk to someone from the shed too :rofl:

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Why make it easy, if you can burn a lot of money and build everything from the ground up? Iā€™ve seen many projects like these over the last few years, which just seem to exist, because some people donā€™t know how easy it is to get this stuff running on already existing hardware.

I donā€™t know if you ran into the hardware elitist. They believe if youā€™re using an emulator that your a pirate. That you should get the original equipment or something rebuilt thatā€™s overly priced.

Just today I decided that I wanted to play the original Metal Gear on the MSX, because the ported NES one is horrible.

On average, three hundred dollars on eBay, seen some over a thousand. Even if I had the money, I wouldnā€™t spend that much on old equipment.

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Interesting little project, and quite relevant on this topicā€¦

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I meanā€¦TECHNICALLYā€¦ :sweat_smile:

But no, :pirate_flag: + emulator for me as well :sunglasses:
Iā€™ve payed enough for real hardware / cartridges already, but on PC in this days itā€™s just more sense.

That being said - some hardware have unique chips which are hard to emulate 1:1, so some timings may be just a little bit off etcā€¦ :space_invader:

And most hardcore competitive gamers would prefer original hardware for that reason :yum:

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I object to the term ā€œpiracyā€. I think the proper term should be ā€œillegal sharingā€.

piracy1

Of course, I am not condoning any illegal activities, whether they be robbing ships at sea or copying a file without the governmentā€™s blessing. I just have a preference for calling things by their proper name. I find it avoids confusion (both unintended misunderstanding, as well as intentional obfuscation).

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I love the fact you came prepared and packing with an awesome slide presentation complete with costume changes, pirates, teddy bears, to illustrate your point.

Now that is how to to get your point across! :clap:

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I love retro games. And as much as I would love for retro hardware to be accessible and affordable, the fact is it just isnā€™t. One thing I donā€™t understand about these ā€œelitistsā€ is that if you love a gaming experience so much, it seems to me that you would want to share that experience with as many people as you could. For example, Ys Books 1 & 2 on the PC-Engine is one of my favorite games of all time. But when I tell people about it I donā€™t expect them to go to ebay, buy the console, buy the game, wait for it to arrive, plug it into their TVā€¦ and then find out it looks like garbage on modern televisions. Thatā€™s not the experience I want them to have. Therefore, emulation is always my primary recommendation.

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This. :rofl:, OK Iā€™m a hypocrite because Iā€™m actually into getting old CRT monitors for retro gaming. I have nothing special right now because they cost too much money. Luckily I have an old 145 15 inch CRT Monitor that I use.

I went as far as to buy a Scanline Generator for my larger 35-inch monitor and it does a good job actually. Heck, RetroArch has some OK scanline filters.

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JESUSā€¦145 inch??? Over 12 FOOT CRT? Thatā€™s GOTTA be a typo!!

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I still swear by my 13 inch Commodore monitor. Iā€™ll never get rid of it. Even if it dies, it will be given a proper spot on a shelf in my house for everyone to see. I donā€™t care that my wife says it doesnā€™t match our ā€œdecorā€.

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Thatā€™s over 3 meters for my fellow metric folk. :rofl:
Sorry, I have a thing for conversions.

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Likewise for my ā€˜realā€™ Amiga monitor - with original Amiga double-checkmark logo! With 3 different inputs! Capable of differing resolutions! You know - all that stuff we take for granted now. Anyone remember how pricey NEC MultiSyncs were? Or, for that matter, a Sony that could display de-interlacedā€¦

I must get an Amiga emulator up and running - I still have a ā€˜lotā€™ of Amiga software around (1100+ games alone!) - but moving it all over would be a chore and a half - where are the serial ports when you need them!

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Definitely a typo :rofl: CORRECTED

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It takes me back to my student days - when an album purchase was a huge investment, and after a few years realising that cassette album purchases were temporary and you couldnā€™t get a replacement should the tape fail.

So we started a syndicate - all with dual cassette portables, five people go shopping and get 25 for the price of 5 - the music industry was the real pirateā€¦

The next definition is from Windows users who donā€™t buy a licence and have a free operating system for their machines. Thus Microsoft is taking the place of the pirate by intentionally allowing, nay encouraging this behaviour whilst strangling the market and maintaining dominance.

So yes, I never thought of myself as a pirate - despite sourcing a good deal of BBC content from MVGroup :wink:

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not that old but fancy in a way too:
8MB RAM
75MHz Intel i486DX4 CPU

The T2130CS is designed for users who require maximum performance in a mainstream Laptop. Even with its form factor design, the T2130CS doesnā€™t skimp on performance offering the ideal blend of power and efficiency. The T2130CS is sure to leave a lasting impression with its easy to use and slim design

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Anyone remember this code?

10 REM SPRITE EXAMPLE 1...
20 REM THE HOT AIR BALLOON
30 VIC=13*4096:REM THIS IS WHERE THE VIC REGISTERS BEGIN
35 POKEVIC+21,1:REM ENABLE SPRITE 0
36 POKEVIC+33,14:REM SET BACKGROUND COLOR TO LIGHT BLUE
37 POKEVIC+23,1:REM EXPAND SPRITE 0 IN Y
38 POKEVIC+29,1:REM EXPAND SPRITE 0 IN X
40 POKE2040,192:REM SET SPRITE 0'S POINTER
180 POKEVIC+0,100:REM SET SPRITE 0'S X POSITION
190 POKEVIC+l, 100:REM SET SPRITE 0'S Y POSITION
220 POKEVIC+39,1:REM SET SPRITE 0'S COLOR
250 FORY=0T063:REM BYTE COUNTER WITH SPRITE LOOP
300 READA:REM READ IN A BYTE
310 POKE192*64+Y,A:REM STORE THE DATA IN SPRITE AREA
320 NEXTY:REM CLOSE LOOP
330 DX=l:DY=l
340 X=PEEK(VIC):REM LOOK AT SPRITE 0'S X POSITION
350 Y=PEEK(VIC+l):REM LOOK AT SPRITE 0'S Y POSITION
360 IFY=500RY=208THENDY=-DY:REM IF Y IS ON THE EDGE OF THE....
370 REM SCREEN, THEN REVERSE DELTA Y
380 IFX=24AND(PEEK(VIC+16)AND1)=0THENDX=-DX:REM IF SPRITE IS....
390 REM TOUCHING THE LEFT EDGE (X=24 AND THE MSB FOR SPRITE 0 IS 0), REVERSE IT
400 IFX=40AND(PEEK(VIC+16)AND1)=lTHENDX=-DX:REM IF SPRITE IS....
410 REM TOUCHING THE RIGHT EDGE (X=40 AND THE MSB FOR SPRITE 0 IS 1), REVERSE IT
420 IFX=255ANDDX=lTHENX=-1:SIDE=1
430 REM SWITCH TO OTHER SIDE OF THE SCREEN
440 IFX=0ANDDX=-lTHENX=256:SIDE=0
450 REM SWITCH TO OTHER SIDE OF THE SCREEN
460 X=X+DX:REM ADD DELTA X TO X
470 X=XAND255:REM MAKE SURE X IS IN ALLOWED RANGE
480 Y=Y+DY:REM ADD DELTA Y TO Y
485 POKEVIC+16,SIDE
490 POKEVIC,X:REM PUT NEW X VALUE INTO SPRITE 0'S X POSITION
510 POKEVIC+1,Y:REM PUT NEW Y VALUE INTO SPRITE 0'S Y POSITION
530 GOTO340
600 REM ***** SPRITE DATA *****
610 DATA0,127,0,1,255,192,3,255,224,3,231,224
620 DATA7,217,240,7,223,240,7,217,240,3,231,224
630 DATA3,255,224,3,255,224,2,255,160,1,127,64
640 DATAl,62,64,0,156,128,0,156,128,0,73,0,0,73,0
650 DATA0,62,0,0,62,0,0,62,0,0,28,0,0
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Haha that was mine too. I remember playing that black and white Dinasour game on it, being chased by a T-rex :grin:

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