exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

50 year old Belgian born to a German Father and a Belgian Mother, in Antwerp Belgium and still living there.

As such I speak Flemish/Dutch/French/German and English.

My first computer was a Colecovision ADAM which was very popular at that time in Antwerp mainly
because my parents saw the DaisyWheel printer as a huge plus for my typing classes.

Offcourse I then studied to become a programmer , but went to work in IT Support instead of programming.

Since my school used PC's, my parent ended up buying me a PC around the time the Atari ST (and Amiga) came out
so I stuck in the PC scene but had always been fascinated by the Atari ST.

My longest running PC (from 1990 to 2001) was a 386DX running Digital Research DOS 6.0 and GEM :)

In 2018 after a brief hiatus with PowerPC's I wanted to have an 8bit computer and settled on a Atari 130XE.
It's case design reminded me of the ST.

I became a member of ABBUC (German Atari Club) and was told I'm the only Belgium member .
I travel to Fujiama yearly (meeting in Germany) since then (well except during the pandemic).

In the meanwhile I own a lot of 8bit and 16bit Ataris.

What has always puzzled me is that there aren't any Atari meetings/clubs in Belgium ?

I can presume the 16-bit Atari ST was more popular than the 8-bit Atari in Belgium but still.

Would anybody in Belgium be interested in such or are there any meetings/clubs and I am simply not aware of them ?
Or meeting up to go to meetings in the Netherlands/France/Germany/UK ?

:welcomewave:

Welcome to the forum!

I hope you do find some fellow Atari owners closer to home. If not, I'm sure that you're more than welcome at any of the UK events!

:welcomewave:

:welcomewave:

Hi there fellow Belgian, I happen to be fifty too but I live in Flemish Brabant near Limburg.

I collect all sorts of vintage computers like Sinclair, Amiga, Commodore, Tandy, Apple, BBC/Acorn.... and Atari. I grew up with Sinclairs so my main focus were Sinclairs when I start collecting.

Next to collecting I also have a small business repairing and restoring vintage computers. I work on Commodore's and Sinclairs most of the time, but I
also get Amiga's and Atari's from time to time. Next to repairs and restorations, I also build add-on cards for PC's, Apple II, Amiga, ...

I try to go to the annual Amiga meeting, but having a family, a fulltime job and a repair business makes that I have no more spare time left.

Thanks everybody for the replies, I do plan on going to the UK this year.
Have only been in Birmingham for a brief 3-day work stint so UK is also on my list to explore.

@HomeLate I can get how life gets in the way of hobbies, I'm "fortunate" to be single .