vintage computing evening?

[John Gumb]

Folks,

Following on from the wonderful Maker's Bazaar, would you be interested in a similar members RADARC evening looking at the rise of affordable computing back in the 1960s/70s/80s/90s?

There are many obvious candidates for hardware: BBC Micro & Acorn machines, ZX80, Commodore PET/64 etc. with lesser known machines such as the NASCOM1, Osborne 1 and RML 380Z.

My first machine was an Acorn Atom kit so I'm of Motorola 6502/6822 descent rather than Zilog/Intel. Just about managed to get an RTTY decoder working on it.

It will be interesting(?) looking at the software, too, but perhaps forgetting the pain of loaded software disappearing in an instant and needing to be reloaded off cassette tape, if the cassette holds out.

Do you have such a machine you would be willing to bring along/show? Doesn't have to work. Indeed, extreme caution would be needed bringing up such old hardware to avoid damaging it or its keeper.

If so, please let me know and I will coordinate something.

As time permits, I will try and get something written up on the Maker's Bazaar. Just a huge thank you to all involved! In particular, Peter G4JVD who provided a roving camera using a cellphone. That really made the evening.

73

John

G4RDC

[Tony Cox]

I wish I could find my Grundy Newbrain. It had a vacuum fluorescent display and was portable.  Loved that little machine.

I don't suppose anyone has one?

Sent from Outlook for Android

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From: rad...@googlegroups.com <rad...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of John Gumb <jo...@gumb.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 15, 2026 4:14:04 PM
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Subject: {RADARC Group Forum :3408} vintage computing evening?

 

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[Mick Kelsey]

I had a NASCOM 1, with extra RAM (32k I think?)

Also a Spectrum.

Fun days!

Mick

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[Chris Smith]

Hi John

I have an Acorn Electron that I can get running with space invaders.

Chris

Chris Smith  MIET (G0JTN)

35 Allendale Road

Earley

Reading

RG6 7PD

Mobile 07809707056

email: christophe...@gmail.com

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[mh_...@yahoo.co.uk]

Great Idea John, I have my first computer, an Acorn Atom which hasn’t been powered up for a few decades which I can bring along. It only has composite and RF output so would need to find a composite to HDMI converter or similar. I remember it has 2114 memory IC’s which ran very hot and caused a hum bar due to poor regulation of the brick PSU, this was after the big upgrade from 1K to 2K.

 

Michael  

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[jim-G0LHZ]

Hi John;

Great idea.

I still have my 'Ping Pong' game I built way back using the original General Instrument chip in the 1970's.

Not sure it still works? I will get it out of the loft and see what happens when I plug it in. 

I can bring it along whether or not it works. Composite Video O/P of course.

Sadly, all my old computers have long gone. 

Still got some Motorola 6800/6802 PCBs that I designed back in the 70/80s - lots of Motorola peripheral chips, 6820, 6851 etc. 

Some of the PCBs had 8K of RAM - WOW!!!! 

Also, we used the 6805, but I have not got any of those anymore.

In my opinion, the 6800 was a much nicer architecture than the Intel 8080 around at the time - no memory banks......

Jim - G0LHZ

[Dave Miller]

Hi John,

Great idea! 

I made a ping pong game too Jim! I'll see if I can find mine in the loft too.

I wrote some Fax/RTTY software for the Atari ST but I sold the computer on a few years ago for a surpisingly good price! All I have left are the discs (maybe) and some write ups and a review in several Short Wave Magazines (and the hard copy assembler code!)

Dave G6AWF

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