[retrotecchie]

@WizzyWigg

I miss my 386. Not only did it have 7 ISA slots, but I bought an expansion box that gave me another four more. I built all sorts of interface cards for ISA back in the day that didn't exist outside very geeky circles. PCI was too tricky to fettle in the shed. I was distraught when it became almost impossible to find PC's with hardware legacy ports. A proper COM and LPT port were a must for me, and still are. USB to LPT/Serial just don't work the same. Very difficult to bit-bang on a non legacy parallel port!

[retrotecchie]

@WizzyWigg

I really cut my teeth on Z80 single board computers. The closest I get these days is PIC microcontrollers, but Z80 was fun. Once you mastered the bus, you could build almost any kind of add-on you liked.

I got my first Maplin Z80A board and hex keypad and display back in about 1990, and learned to play with that. Assembling and disassembling I did on an old ZX Spectrum 48K with a Maplin RS232 port kit that allowed me to print my hex dumps to a Texas Instruments Silent 700 Teletype with an acoustic coupler that we had lying around in a cupboard at work. I assembled my code into hex dumps, print them off onto the thermal paper, and then would manually type it in on a Stag PP28 EPROM programmer and then blow my code onto a 2716 EPROM (2kB x 8 bit). If the code didn't work quite the way I wanted, I'd have to zap the EPROM in a UV eraser for 20 minutes until the chip was cooked and then try again with revised code.

A 2716 EPROM, three 6116 2k static RAM chips and an 8 digit 7 segment display and a hex keypad...kids today don't know they're born!!! I no longer have the Stag, but I have another old EPROM programmer I picked up a while ago. I still have a box of 2716's, some 6116's and two original Maplin CPU boards. When time permits. I'll get round to playing with them again!

[WizzyWigg]

@retrotecchie I'm in heaven reading your 2 posts. 😍 Still have tucked away in the garage an original 1993 Pentium motherboard and chip. Fully functioning. I only really started with the 1512. I did once try a Z80. Playing with a Pi Pico W at the moment when I get chance that is. Tends to be more winter time when everything stops growing in the gardens, (mine and my 3 children's). 😵
Got 3 cupboards filled with boards, chips, drives, you name it, collected over the years in the garage. Keep promising to go through them and have a good sort. 😂 Hey ho.
One thing on my itch list is to visit this museum which is just up the road ish. https://nwcomputermuseum.org.uk . One of my grandsons has already been and said it was great.

[retrotecchie]

@WizzyWigg

Ooooooh! I'm loving that website! Uber-retro and ASCII graphics. One of my favouite animations was the whole of the first Start Wars film completely banged out in ASCII...it's brilliant! 20th Century TEXT

https://www.asciimation.co.nz/

[WizzyWigg]

Originally Posted by retrotecchie

@WizzyWigg

Ooooooh! I'm loving that website! Uber-retro and ASCII graphics. One of my favouite animations was the whole of the first Start Wars film completely banged out in ASCII...it's brilliant! 20th Century TEXT

https://www.asciimation.co.nz/

That sums up the museum from what I've been told.

Then the Doom Engine appeared. It's never been quite the same since. Okay Doom ver 1 came on a 3.5 floppie but now!!!!!! Loads of RAM, storage and high performance CPU and GPU.

Put the museum on your itch list 😂.

[retrotecchie]

@WizzyWigg

I best had. Right next to the National Computing Museum at Bletchley Park. How did I miss those off my list?!

[WizzyWigg]

Originally Posted by retrotecchie

@WizzyWigg

I best had. Right next to the National Computing Museum at Bletchley Park. How did I miss those off my list?!

Golly gosh, I'd forgotten completely about the NCM. Thanks for that. On the list.

[meldrewreborn]

@WizzyWigg

my first hard drive was 32 MB and cost £218!. My Sinclair spectrum in an expanded case and it had an expansion slot- I think. First proper spreadsheet in 1984.

[WizzyWigg]

By jove @meldrewreborn that was a big hd! 😂 I thought originally my first 10mb hd would last me for ever! Wrong again! 😯 😂

First spreadsheet I did was on SuperCalc (I think that's what it was called) and then when changed to Windows 3 went on to Lotus 123. Only really used spreadsheets for work car expenses and some lens form calculations.

[meldrewreborn]

@WizzyWigg

I've use multiplan, 20/20, lotus 123, supercalc and excel, the latter for years now.