Hey y'all,

In a moment of random inspiration, around 5am on Sunday morning, I came up with the idea for a new blog, seeing as my current one seems to be failing to bore everyone senseless. The basic thought was "Jaysus, kids these days don't even know what a floppy disk is!", and it just kind of spiraled from there into all the things that have changed in the space of our lifetime(s)...

I am hoping that this will become an open blog project, where people can send in anything from an idea or a picture of their favourite obsolete thingummy to a full article on how they used to use VHS tapes to record things on one of the 3 channels on the telly because back in those days, things didn't repeat every 5 minutes. As there are a fair share of geeks of various levels of geekiness and many different nationalities hanging around here, and that many of you like to write, I thought it may just be of interest to some of youse.

There.

Oh, yes, the link: Geek Antiques

Fire away!

Damn Spider pig

I'll send you a few more details shortly Kat.

This is a real geek antique. Bought for my birthday Sep 82 a month after they were first produced was the Dragon 32.
A great little machine which surprisingly had the OS built in. Not that it did much good as all the programs had to be loaded from audio cassettes. An average space invader game could take about 8-10 minutes to load.

Still, it had a massive 32k memory and the TV display had 16 colours. Hey that was cutting edge technology compared to the BBC Micro.

It was supplied with a few peripherals over its short life (2 years) which, now I look back, were pretty damn expensive.
For example the machine cost around £140. Then you had to buy a cassette player (£25) before you could do anything. A 32k upgrade kit cost around £120. The joysticks were simply two variable resistors mounted at ninety degrees and cost £16 each. The biggest expense was the 5.25 inch floppy drive (long since dead) which cost an incredible £320 and stored 360k of data... wow do I miss those days.
Ooops, nearly forgot the purchase of a light pen (£40) I think there were only two programs ever written that actually incorporated its use.


This is a photograph of the beast...



and before you ask....

It still works




More details can be found on Wikipaedia

I want to die peacefully in my sleep, just like grandpa. Not screaming and panicking like his passengers.
Don't drink and drive from The Lancre Tavern

My firend Carl had Chuckie Egg on the Dragon. I think my favourite computer of all time was the Amiga, I've still got three of them waiting for my future computer museum project. I also found one in the cupboard under the stairs of a house we looked at last week and started talking about them with the estate agent, who happened to have been a computer engineer in a previous life.

Dragon's Kingdom - Stop typing "alot" when you mean "a lot"! - Disappointed

Reg still has a Sony Mega Drive in perfect working condition, and a few games, must dust it off and have a go...

Damn Spider pig

I found this link, Mal if you want to download a Dragon 32 emulator and re-capture those lost years and wasted youth.

Dragon 32 emulator

I think there are links also on the site to get some of the old software as well. Frogger was one of my personal favourites.

I want to die peacefully in my sleep, just like grandpa. Not screaming and panicking like his passengers.
Don't drink and drive from The Lancre Tavern

Interesting. During my history studies, I helped tutor a bunch of freshman, and their course included a tour through the city's biggest archive, which holds everything from an old tome and a few documents from the times of Charlemagne -aroung 900 AC - to the most recent editions of the news. I remember some of these guys puzzlement when it was mentioned in passing that everything that was written about the city, even if it never appeared in print, had to be printed out on acid free paper and archived, or at least there had to be made a selection of sorts, which was a task that got harder by the year.

"But why oh why don't you digitalize everything?"
"We, do, for better use of the archives and transparency."
"But why not safe the space and put all the tons of paper into the recycling bin? I understand about 200 year ols diaries, but why the newspaper from 1970 to today?"
"Because in terms of proper archiving - the goal to keep things fresh for the next millenium, if possible, virtual data are extremely unrealiable."
"But but..."
At this point, said -er- point was simply made by holding one of those old wobbling floppy disks under their nose and they were asked to try to imgine these data with todays standard techniques.

"Hoher Sinn liegt oft im kindischen Spiel." (Friedrich Schiller)

So I'm an 'antique geek'... thanks Kat! Okay I admit it, I am.

Did any of the other stuff I sent you (Sinclair calculator, LED watch, Psion 3, ZIP drive, 1950's slide projector, etc.) meet with your requirements?

I'm still looking for my slate and pencil from primary school and that was the fore-runner of even the graphite pencil

I want to die peacefully in my sleep, just like grandpa. Not screaming and panicking like his passengers.
Don't drink and drive from The Lancre Tavern

Ha! Yes, sorry I haven't responded yet I only really had time to give them a quick fly-by, so I haven't really looked at them in detail yet, but they look most promising

Will keep you posted, I promise, as soon as I get a second...

Damn Spider pig