[ExI] sinclair zx spectruim is 30

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2012 12:35 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] sinclair zx spectruim is 30

On 24/04/2012 20:11, spike wrote:
> >... If you are cleaning out and find any old computer from the 80s, and
even 
> better, from the 70s, find a place for it somewhere and keep it...

>...That reminds me of a mild worry I have: how long will I be able to
connect my Speccy to the television set? Do they still have analog antenna
input, or do we need to start looking for an A/D converter? -- Anders
Sandberg,


If you still have one of those old portable TVs find a corner in the attic
for that too.  Post-CRT televisions don't have what you need to run old time
computers in general.  

There is a store down the street which keeps old junk like that: Weird Stuff
Warehouse.  We had a laser test station which used reams of code developed
on an HP9826A series 200 computer from 1984.  It was obsolete by the time it
hit the market, for the Mac was coming, no stopping the GUI.  But our
software was specific to HP's 9826, so the most cost-effective solution was
to give Weird Stuff four thousand dollars for one that still worked.

What amazes me is how cool we thought the 9826 was in its day, since it had
that Motorola 68000 processor, and oh my, are we high-tech or what?  We had
it going 8 megahertz!  We even tried overclocking it, and it ran fine up to
about 11 MHz.  We were so uptown with that setup.  All you needed to do was
put a piece of tape over the blinking LED, which would otherwise drive you
insane, and you were ready for some serious computing on that thing.

spike