Hey from Airstrip One (UK)
Posted: 24 Jul 2021 12:41
Greetings from the (not so sunny) Midlands!
My name's Paul and I'm a retro-holic. It's been 3 days since my last solder burn.
Like most people here (probably), I started my microcomputer addiction/hobby in the 80s with one of the plethora of mass-market home computers with less RAM than your average grandfather clock and marginally more colours. In my case, my first computer was a VIC-20 which was given to us by a family friend in 1986/7. It came to us with a handful of games, a dodgy RF wire, a 32k RAM pack (:o) and lots of mouse droppings. Unfortunately the machine was already pretty much obselete when we got it, so I have many early memories of scouring the earth (rather unsuccessfully) for VIC-20 software. On the up-side, this also meant that I developed some coding skills at the grand age of 9 years - something that eventually shaped my career as a software developer.
We managed (by the miracle of hire purchase) to obtain an Atari STE in 1990, which we traded for an Amiga 500+ 2/3 years later. The Amiga was intended to be a stop-gap before upgrading to an Atari Falcon 030. I just didn't know at the time that it would be 28 years before I would eventually own one!
Unfortunately I don't still have any of my original machines, but I now have a growing collection of computers, consoles, old monitors, games, accessories, mess, 30-year-old dust, strange smells, including ( in various states of repair):
You will mostly find me in the hardware forums asking dumb questions and trying to make sense of this love-hate relationship we have with obsolete tech.
My name's Paul and I'm a retro-holic. It's been 3 days since my last solder burn.
Like most people here (probably), I started my microcomputer addiction/hobby in the 80s with one of the plethora of mass-market home computers with less RAM than your average grandfather clock and marginally more colours. In my case, my first computer was a VIC-20 which was given to us by a family friend in 1986/7. It came to us with a handful of games, a dodgy RF wire, a 32k RAM pack (:o) and lots of mouse droppings. Unfortunately the machine was already pretty much obselete when we got it, so I have many early memories of scouring the earth (rather unsuccessfully) for VIC-20 software. On the up-side, this also meant that I developed some coding skills at the grand age of 9 years - something that eventually shaped my career as a software developer.
We managed (by the miracle of hire purchase) to obtain an Atari STE in 1990, which we traded for an Amiga 500+ 2/3 years later. The Amiga was intended to be a stop-gap before upgrading to an Atari Falcon 030. I just didn't know at the time that it would be 28 years before I would eventually own one!
Unfortunately I don't still have any of my original machines, but I now have a growing collection of computers, consoles, old monitors, games, accessories, mess, 30-year-old dust, strange smells, including ( in various states of repair):
- Atari 520 STFM (original floppy), 1mb
- Atari 1040 STE (gotek, 4mb)
- Amiga 500+ x 2
- Amiga 600 x 3
- Amiga 1200
- BBC 'B' which is essentially a doorstop until I get around to repairing it.
- Atari Falcon 030 :D
You will mostly find me in the hardware forums asking dumb questions and trying to make sense of this love-hate relationship we have with obsolete tech.