Vintage computing – how much would you pay?

The Another World remaster is tremendous, they’ve done an excellent job with it. Got the original programmer involved to tidy it up IIRC.

What about an Osborne 01 for some retro (not really) portable computing?

I had an Oric-1. I was too impatient to wait for a Spectrum so ordered a 16k Oric on a “please allow 28 days for delivery.” I ordered it in September 1983 and received it in January 1984! They were having problems with the 16k so I got a 48k version for £99.95 instead of £129.95. I was well chuffed. Until I tried a few games. Oric Trek, supposed to be related to Star Trek was absolute arse.

And ZAP, SHOOT, PING, EXPLODE got very tedious, very quickly.

I think I’d like a Jupiter Ace so I could learn Forth.

I plugged our Oric into my parent’s hifi. EXPLODE became a lot more entertaining then.

Oric was good for programming, the BASIC was nice to use (made by some tiny company called Microsoft or something). Wasn’t bad for games either except there weren’t as many titles, the Speccie was just more popular which killed it.

What about an Osborne 01

I’ve got an early Compaq ‘portable’, which, like the Osborne, was just a small real monitor and keyboard stuffed in a large plastic case.

I think I’d like a Jupiter Ace so I could learn Forth.

I had the Forth ROM in my BBC Micro so could swap between Basic and Forth.

I had Forth for the Oric too.

For those who lost time to Elite. It’s back and it’s not half bad.

https://www.elitedangerous.com/

You can play Open Universe with real people in the other ships 🙂

There’s a good documentary on Netflix regarding the whole Atari/ET saga

Most of the games would be utter bobbins quite a lot of the retro stuff just isn’t very good but it would at least be nostalgic.

This is true for pretty much everything up until the Amiga days – but that was powerful enough that peoples’ imagination wasn’t constrained by limited technology and there were some genuinely amazing games which still stand up to this day. It was also around this time that “games designers” became more of a thing, rather than everything being both designed & written by coders who whilst technically brilliant weren’t capable of designing a properly fun/balanced game (see: Elite).

What about an Osborne 01 for some retro (not really) portable computing?

I’ve got a computer magazine in my drawer at work dated circa 1982 (I keep it to startle the apprentices), and there’s a centre pages advert for the Osborne. I should scan it in, it’s properly eye-opening. The thing cost something like 2 grand and weighed “only” 27lbs or some such.

There’s also a tiny advert in it for some start-up fly-by-night company called Apple. Says “call Tim or Dave for all your Apple needs” or something like that.

This is true for pretty much everything up until the Amiga days

I’m not sure as I agree. Sure, a lot of it has aged badly (and a lot of it was pish even back in the day), but there are still some stone-cold classics out there. I’d happily sit down right now to a game of Atic Atac, Manic Miner, Paradroid, Uridium…

I’d happily sit down right now to a game of Atic Atac, Manic Miner, Paradroid, Uridium…

Some early arcade stuff stands up pretty well too.

Donkey Kong is still excellent
Ghost and Goblins
Track and Field
Wonder Boy

All pretty solid games even today.

BTW i’m not dismissing all retro stuff as dross, (having recently wasted many hours trying to beat Ghost and Goblins on the XBox!) but I remember a lot of unplayable garbage growing up too.

I’d happily sit down right now to a game of Atic Atac, Manic Miner, Paradroid, Uridium…

Not so sure about the 1st 2 but I reckon I’d like to play Psytron as that was pretty involved.

Also – no-one plays text based adventure games now I think? Some were pretty annoying as you had to use just the right words but these days we could have the same sort of games with far more powerful text processing so would they be interesting to some?

Some early arcade stuff stands up pretty well too.

For the win….

Also – no-one plays text based adventure games now I think?

You’d be surprised.

There’s actually a fairly healthy “Interactive Fiction” community. People are still writing them and there’s a repository[/url] with loads. You can get hold of a programming GUI called Inform 7[/url] to create story files compatible with the Infocom Z-interpreter. There’s an annual competition[/url] and also awards[/url].

Think I have a colour monitor and 4mb HDD in the loft with my old Atari ST bits.

I might swap for bike parts 🙂

Manic miner, bit rubbish really. It’s just a case of memorising a sequence for each level and not making a mistake. There were only 20 odd levels..

I’d happily sit down right now to a game of Atic Atac, Manic Miner, Paradroid, Uridium…

I’ll give you Paradroid (I did say most games, not all!) which is crying out for a tablet remake, but the others… you must have some very rosey spectacles! They were great at the time because that’s all there was, not because they’re actually great games!

Wouldn’t pay for colour monitor.
Can just wire the rgb and gnd wires etc. of the 14pin (or was it 13 pin?) DIN socket to a VGA and use any multisync monitor. Ditto but wiring to SCART socket and plug in the back of any old telly.
One or other of those needed something like a 100ohm resistor on one of the wires, but i forget which.

Still have my ST. Might have to double check that it still works.

Can just wire the rgb and gnd wires etc. of the 14pin (or was it 13 pin?) DIN socket to a VGA and use any multisync monitor.

No, won’t work – as above, on normal VGA monitors the minimum horizontal sync frequency is too low. Scart will work though because they are connected to tellies, and tellies do go low enough.

Atic Atac is still top stuff!

Ah well, if we’re talking the sit down vector based arcade version of Star Wars, then that is the king of all 70s/80s arcade games. I still intend to own it one day. I just need the space! (which means a new house).

8bit home games though. Everything by Ultimate. Especially Knight Lore. I could happily play that for hours even today.

allan23 – Member
For those who lost time to Elite. It’s back and it’s not half bad.

https://www.elitedangerous.com/

As with much of Braben’s stuff without Bell’s involvement (after they had an infamous falling out), it’s a bit overly a simulation than a game, but it’s still impressive.

A number of criticisms have come out though such as no offline single player play when it was promised originally to kickstarters, premium price that wasn’t coming down over time, except now when it has but wait… that’s because there’s a new version being released at full price which is an expansion but gets you the original included yet those on the original have to pay again for the expansion. All when the promise was the high price paid for future upgrades rather than paying a low box price and a subscription.

Gauntlet original machine yours for just under £1500

Here

Elf is about to die… 😀

Hmm, Star Wars cockpit version is £3k

http://www.findarcademachines.com/atari-star-wars-cockpit-original-arcade-machine-p-1073.html

TBH, if I had that sort of space and money to throw at retro hardware, I’d be buying a Twilight Zone pinball table.

I dabbled with old Amiga kit for a while but sold it all and just muck about with the UAE emulators now.

Amibay is a good place for old Amiga/ST/Acorn kit;

http://www.amibay.com/forumdisplay.php?23-Atari