For the ones who knew what were CASSETTES

[Vizier87]

I had this very old Toshiba Home Computer HX-10 64K, where we need to plug in those abominable-cassette-looking externals to operate programs:

**broken link removed**

We had it back when i wasn't born yet from the old England, I think my dad bought it in 1984..
Now, my mom wanted to throw it away, and I took it, pried it but I haven't pulverized anything. Yet.

I'm not putting this out on E-Bay, I'm just not into that kinda stuff.
Anyone who might be interested for it to be shown in museums or something? I'm not sentimental at all, this piece of junk is really shuddering out of what I will do to it.

 

[BrownOut]

My old trash-80 had a special port for the casette reader, which looked similar to a PS-2 port, if I remember correctly. Man, those were the days!

 

[kinarfi]

yea with that speedy 8077 chip and a whoppy turbo speed of 7 megahertz

 

[BrownOut]

Or was the casette port just a physically odd serial port???

 

[ericgibbs]

hi,
My first home PC.
Upgraded to 4mHz and modified to take RS232 in place of cassette, still in operation during 2002.!

I have 4 of these gathering dust in the loft.

 

[ghostman11]

i had a commordore PET80 back in 1981, then a vic20. etc etc. i always wanted a sharp!!! so if you ever want to sell one eric give me a shout, i would love to own one to add to my old computer collection, is something really special about the old machines. i still on rare occasions use my vic20!!!

 

[flat5]

In 1986 first an Acorn Electron. Later a BBC Micro.

 

[Reloadron]

First computer experience was a Bi-Tran Six late 60s in US Navy Schools.
No computers followed for a long time
Next computer was a Commodore VIC-20
Then a Commodore 64
Then many of what followed
Then it's today

I figure that sums it up.

Ever listen to a data cassette on a cassette player? I did it a few times and think I saw God.

Ron

 

[ghostman11]

i hated that high pitched sqeal from data cassets

 

[ghostman11]

i moved from a vic20 to a c64 then i had amiga500 plus, from there i jumped all the way to the top wich at the time was a 486 DX2 66 with 1meg graphics and 8 megs ram!! it was considered a power machine and cost me the best part of £2,500 at the time (probally around 1990)

 

[blueroomelectronics]

The Creative Computing magazines might make it worth dusting of those old computers.
Scroll down to see the BASIC Computer Games books.
AtariArchives.org - archiving vintage computer books, information, and software

 

[Mikebits]

My first computer was the Sinclair ZX81. Sinclair ZX-81 computer

 

[ghostman11]

i hated the keyboards on the sinclair zx80 and zx81!! is one reason i went for the vic20. great link bill! was something special about programming those old machines! buy a mag every week so you could type in one of the readers programs lol and something very addictive about the old games, they were very simple but got you hooked

 

[Hero999]

My first games console was a Sega Master system 2, then a Megadrive (Genesis) and I've never bothered with consoles since.

My first PC was a 20MHz 386SX with 4MB RAM VGA and a 43MB hard drive, which was upgraded to a 486DX 50MHz with 8MB.

My second PC was a P200 with 32MB RAM which lasted for five years.

Then an AMD 1.8GHz 256MB RAM which lasted for six years until it was upgraded to 512MB RAM and had a couple of new hard drives as they kept failing. I'll probably keep this as a second PC for a bit.

Now I have my brother's old PC which has a 2GHz AMD Athlon 64 processor, 1GB RAM, and Saphire Radeon graphics with 256MB RAM but it's a bit crippled running XP Home and 32-bit Fedora Linux. I'll probably soon buy a solid state hard drive and possibly some better quality RAM.

I don't see the point of having an up to date PC, even an old PC is more than good enough for what I do. Now I upgrade when my current hardware breaks or I can get hold of second hand stuff for free/cheap.

 

[Reloadron]

Now I have my brother's old PC which has a 2GHz AMD Athlon 64 processor, 1GB RAM, and Saphire Radeon graphics with 256MB RAM but it's a bit crippled running XP Home and 32-bit Fedora Linux. I'll probably soon buy a solid state hard drive and possibly some better quality RAM.

I don't see the point of having an up to date PC, even an old PC is more than good enough for what I do. Now I upgrade when my current hardware breaks or I can get hold of second hand stuff for free/cheap.

Absolutely!

If a system fulfills the needs of the end user there is no reason to move to a newer, faster or whatever system for absolutely no reason.

Ron

 

[BrownOut]

My "first" computer was a 1960's vintage defense project that was the main controller for an air defense battery. It was about 8' high and 12' long, and had maybe 4K of magnetic memory and a punched tape reader My next one was even older and took up an entire room. It had a huge console with light bulbs for every register in the CPU that we used for trouble shooting. Well, in bewteen I purchased my 16K Trash-80. At first I tried to use a common tape recorder with a special cable, but that was unreliable, so I broke down and bought the over priced special unit for the computer. After a looong time, I got an IBM micro-channel machine. Whoo-Hoo! Now, I use a 4 or 5 year old machine running Media Center. I was thrilled with the PVR capabilities of the OS, but I don't use it much for anything anymore.

 

[Vizier87]

OMG lots of ole timers here!! heheheee.. I guess that thing'll fly apart for my next semester break!!

 

[Reloadron]

OMG lots of ole timers here!! heheheee.. I guess that thing'll fly apart for my next semester break!!

Yeah, but the merit to being old is with each passing day the old timers draw another day closer to retirement. Also, growing old is mandatory but growing up is optional!

Ron

 

[Vizier87]

well you sound like an old chap yourself.. how bout it?

 

[ericgibbs]

hi D,
If you want to get really old, I used to service two of these Stantec Zebra computers...

First made in 1959..

Note the 5KVA rating.!


View attachment Standard.StantecZ&#.pdf