Senior Member
Joined: 07/07/2018
Location: AustraliaPosts: 233
| Posted: 04:22am 10 Oct 2024 |
An Interesting video on the Z80 history and the end of life run-out.
John
Guru
Joined: 05/10/2019
Location: United KingdomPosts: 6832
| Posted: 07:09am 10 Oct 2024 |
Excellent!
Unfortunately there was no mention of the first UK home computer that had a proper keyboard and could be hooked up to a TV as the display as standard, the Nascom-1. This appeared at a time when the very cheapest home computers of any use whatsoever (i.e. not switches and LEDs) came from the US and cost a hell of a lot by the time they hit UK soil. The Nascom-1 came as a kit and cost £197 IIRC. That was still a lot of money in 1976/77 but at least it was less than a year's earnings. It's almost unheard of now as it wasn't designed for either games or business computing - and you had to be able to build it yourself (at first anyway, it was available ready-assembled later). Relative to the size of the UK market at the time there were a lot sold and many UK computer engineers started their careers with one of these.
A video from the "wrong" side of the pond.
And a nice techy one Here
Edited 2024-10-10 17:12 by Mixtel90
Guru
Joined: 25/06/2022
Location: United KingdomPosts: 2150
| Posted: 02:42pm 10 Oct 2024 |
When I worked in the arcade industry in the 70's, the company sold games made by universal, which where rip offs of games of the time but all their boards were Z80. ram failure was common and hard to desolder. Atari used 6502
Senior Member
Joined: 07/07/2018
Location: AustraliaPosts: 233
| Posted: 07:45pm 10 Oct 2024 |
There's probably a few here that would remember ETI magazine from a few years ago, and my first computer was the ETI680 in the 1979 edition.
It had the all the latest technology - a Z80 cpu using an S-100 bus.
For a good read, see Page 30 ... Makes me want to build one again
Edit: There's a lot of good scans Here if you feel like browsing...
Edited 2024-10-11 05:48 by Malibu
Guru
Joined: 25/06/2022
Location: United KingdomPosts: 2150
| Posted: 08:38pm 10 Oct 2024 |
retro! ads that are before aliexpress. good read
Senior Member
Joined: 15/03/2021
Location: AustraliaPosts: 114
| Posted: 03:16am 11 Oct 2024 |
My first computer was a Dick Smith Super-80 kit computer kit. I got lots of soldering experience, an inkling of basic programming and later and an introduction into Z80 M/Code programming - good times.
Edited 2024-10-11 13:19 by Goksteroo
Regular Member
Joined: 13/08/2024
Location: NetherlandsPosts: 53
| Posted: 08:44am 11 Oct 2024 |
Nice to read that old ETI stuff. Have found also a lot of old Elektor magazines on the net and when I have nothing to do I scan through them for inspiration.
Senior Member
Joined: 07/07/2018
Location: AustraliaPosts: 233
| Posted: 06:36am 12 Oct 2024 |
I was a bit premature in parsing the url that I found, so here's one with a whole collection of interesting scans in a more friendly HTML format...
World Radio History
I was browsing a few editions of various magazines and thought how everything is still pretty relevent today
Sure, the parts are updated, but the projects could still easily be built
Note: Some of the magazines are not available through 'the front door' because of copyright, but can still be accessed through 'back door'
(Even a few editions of 'Radio, Television and Hobbies')
Edited 2024-10-12 16:55 by Malibu
Newbie
Joined: 03/08/2024
Location: United StatesPosts: 5
| Posted: 02:54pm 12 Oct 2024 |
Memories of all the old computer hardware I have owned over the years... Altair 8800 I still have but probably need to refurb it before power up...