The Retro Computing and Gaming Museum
A few years ago, I started to go through a retro gaming and computing phase, I collected quite a few old computers and consoles from various car boot sales during this time, nowadays it's more Ebay, Vinted, and Facebook Marketplace. Although the odd car boot sale still yields results Here is my collection presented together in groups in almost the order I originally had them. As the collection is becoming ridiculously large, I may have to split this page into several pages soon Look for the links beneath each item to discover more about the system, and other items related to the system, like software...
If you have any old equipment you want to donate to me, see here Thingz wot I wantz (Donations)
Pro-tip: Use CTRL-F to search this page if you're looking for something specfic, or use the links below to jump to a specific sectionContents ★ Retro computers ★ Games consoles ★ Plug and Play Games consoles ★ Hand held games consoles ★ Desktop PC's ★ Laptops ★ Pong clones and machines ★ Modern retro gaming hardware ★ Mobile devices (Smartphones and PDA's) ★ Retro cassette recorders ★ Retro printers ★ Retro displays and monitors
Section 1: Retro computers
Old computers that aren't PCs or Macs that offered a whole world of fun and possibilitiesCommodore Plus/4 (X3)
One of these Plus 4's was used to house a Raspberry Pi Zero and a Keyrah V2, you can read about it here
This was my very first proper computer, I previously had a Binatone TV Pong game which came from my parents.The Commodore Plus4 was a bit of an oddball, it was never as popular as the C64, lacked the SID sound chip but had slightly better graphics with 121 available colours (16 base colours with 8 luminence levels, but black is always black) but the machine didn't have hardware sprites, and compatibility with the memory lacking Commodore C16 meant cut-down games. It was common practice to develop for the least capable machine first, meaning ports to other platforms were much easier and quicker to complete.An extremely basic office suite called 3-plus-1 by Tri-Micro was built in which could only be used with a floppy disk drive, which wasn't included as standard, and you couldn't save any work to cassette which made the software completely pointless. But I loved my Plus4 anyway.I think I must of had nearly every game ever released and would spend hours playing games like Mercenary, Winter Events, Exorcist, Monty on the Run and Treasure Island firstly on an old black and white TV with varicap tuning, then a monster 24 inch colour TV with a dodgy volume control. Happy days.My original Plus4 was sold years ago, but since then I've picked up three of them. The first one stopped working years ago, the second one was found in a job-lot box and just booted to a black screen, so I put a Pi0 in it, but the third works perfectly
Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2
Following on from the Plus4, I 'upgraded' to a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128, this was the model with the large heat sink down the side that burned your hand. This was also sold and was eventually replaced with the +2 version from Amstrad, The main reason for swapping from Commodore to Sinclair was everybody I knew had a Spectrum, so games and other software was easier to get.At the time I was impressed with the sound output from the new sound chip in the 128K Spectrum and spent many happy hours playing games like Dizzy and programming in BASIC.
Commodore Amiga A500 Plus
Things are starting to get serious now with the Commodore Amiga A500 Plus, a machine that was so far ahead of it's time when the original Amiga 1000 was released in 1985, it made the competition look like pocket calculators. I had the Cartoon Classics pack, the intro animation to Bart vs the Space Mutants was something else, I would spend most of my teenage years doodling in Deluxe Paint II, creating music with real sound samples in OctaMED and playing as many games as possible. Noteworthy games include, Monkey Island, Fire and Ice, Turrican 3, Xenon 2, Cannon Fodder (with that intro music) Shadow of the Beast 3 and Lemmings. Also spent lots of time watching the many public domain demos like State of the art, hardwired and Jesus on E's.I upgraded my Amiga to 2MB of chip RAM and added an external floppy disk drive.I collected both Amiga Format and CU Amiga magazines and still have all the cover disks. Happy days! However no-one told me about death from Varta, so it's dead, but the case lives on in the A500 that I bought which got destroyed by UPS
Atari STe (X2)
I saw one of these at a car boot sale for not much money, so I bought it. Some time later I was given another one. The Amiga was better, no need to cry about it Atari fan-boys, it's true. Although I'll concede that the ability to read PC formatted discs natively and on board MIDI ports were a key selling point.Eagle-eyed readers will notice an Amiga mouse in the box with one of the Atari STe's, I don't know how that got in there, honest!
BBC Model B
Again I saw one of these at a carboot sale for not much money (£8 I think), so I bought it. This came with a small green screen monitor which I sold almost immediately. This Beeb has custom ROM chips in it. I don't know what they do as I never got any documentation with it, although I got an external 5 1/4 inch floppy with loads of blank disks and some unrelated cables.The BBC Micro was manufactured for the BBC's Computer Literacy project by Acorn. It was an expensive system and wasn't popular with home users, but was used widely within schools and colleges, it even had a rudimentary LAN called ECONET (*bye) with network attached storage know as the filestore. It's DNA lives on as these machines were used to simulate and develop the ARM architecture which is used in the vast majority of mobile devices (including phones and tablets) in use today. I loved being in the BBC computer room at school, and I can remember the large screen B&W monitor on metal stilts in the corner that showed what each BBC was doing
Toshiba MSX HX-10
Another car boot sale find, a boxed Toshiba MSX HX-10 with all the manuals and three Konami games on cartridge. These were rare in the UK, I only ever knew of one other, compared to the 100's of Sinclair's, Commodore's and Amstrad's out there.MSX stands for MicroSoft eXtended, although some would argue it stands for Machines with Software eXchangeability. It was an attempt to create a standardized computing platform inspired by the success of the VHS video cassette format, there were several manufacturers producing MSX clones and the hardware was upgraded throughout it's lifetime, ending with the MSX TurboR.10 MOTOR ON20 MOTOR OFF30 GOTO 10RUN (Don't do that!)
Sinclair ZX Spectrum +3 (X2)
Further proof that I "may" have a problem with vintage computing, this one was bought local to me and seems to work ok, but I don't have any discs at the moment. However the Easter egg procedure, and BASIC programming works great
Commodore C64 (X2)
You know that feeling when someone posts a for sale advert in a Facebook group and you see it first? Well here we areThis one is not working at the moment, it looks like one of the CIA chips has blown meaning the 5V rail is shorted to ground causing the lack of output shown, but they're all soldered to the board. I have since acquired a C64c and a C128 to ease my C64 hunger pangs. I have also bought another working C64 breadbin, I thought it may be a C64G as it has the later C64c keyboard, but it wasn't
Amstrad CPC464
Yep, I bought one, the third player in the playground wars of the mid 80's, I don't have the monitor, but I do have the active SCART lead. One of my childhood friends had one of these, and I can remember playing all the versions of Dizzy on it between rage quitting then immediately loading it straight back up, then later coming back to my Spectrum 128 to play the same game
Sinclair ZX81 (X3)
Took a chance on an untested ZX81, and as expected it doesn't work, but shouldn't take much to get working...However, I bought another one instead, and that one works great, I just need a 16K RAM pack now... And now I have a third ZX81, and a 16K RAM pack, and a ZX Printer, and a user manual, and some games
Acorn Electron
Saw this on ebay, immediately placed a bid and won, it all works, came with one game and a cassette recorder and all the leads needed to connect it up. It's the little sister to the mighty BBC Micro, and is somewhat compatible but not with gamesFunny story, this was local to me, and I sent a message to the seller to say where I was and I'll come pick it up, and autocorrect changed the town where I live to lingerie, that was embarrassing
Commodore C64c
As my C64 above needs a new CIA chip, I bought an untested C64c, and it works. My sister used to have one of these, we played Snare and Dizzy on it a lot. I liked the Dizzy series of games a lot
Dragon Data Dragon 32 (X2)
An almost unheard of machine, was only around from 1982 to 1984, very similar to the TRS-80 Color Computer from the US, I have bought two of them for some reason. Double Dragon anyone?
Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k (X3)
I have three of these, The first one was an empty shell, so again, I put a Pi0 in it, the second was sold as not working, and it doesn't, but it was cheap and came with accessories, it looks like a RAM problem, and the third one works, but the case has seen better days, these were everywhere when I was little, I wanted one, but got a Commodore Plus 4 instead, which I loved
Commodore Vic 20 (VC 20) (X3)
This one is in immaculate condition, for some reason it is badged as a VC 20? Anyway, I later got myself two more working Vic 20's, one came with a 16K RAM pack
Commodore C16 (X2)
I had been left unsupervised, and somehow managed to buy two untested C16's, one looks like it has a faulty TED (surprise surprise), but the other one works most of the time, and has been upgraded to 64K, it however occasionally fails to boot, I don't know why, however a power cycle makes it boot properly
Commodore Amiga A500
I won an Amiga 500 in an Ebay auction, but the Amiga got damaged in transit by UPS, so I've made one good Amiga out of two broken ones, I really want a 1200 though, do you have one to donate?
Atari 65XE
My first Atari 8 bit computer, this one is immaculate, and works perfectly, which is good as these were unreliable at best. It looks like a baby Atari ST
Philips Videopac G7000 (Magnavox Odyssey 2)
I wanted one of these when I was a child, I remember seeing them in the John Noble catalogue. This is an earlier version with the joysticks, video, and power cables permanently attached
Texas Instruments TI99/4A (X2)
I managed to get two of these for some reason, This is the first one I've ever seen in real life, and it looks very good, one of them is in its original box. They are different revisions of the same machine, only one has the solid state software badge
Sinclair QL
I bought a QL, I didn't read the Ebay listing properly, it was listed as working, but doesn't come with a PSU, chaos ensues... Eventually managed to get a PSU for less than the cost of a car and it works
Commodore C128
I wanted one of these since like forever, it's three machines in one, a C128, a C64, and can run CP/M, it works perfectly and came with a 1541-II disc drive, Datasette, and a Zipstick
Atari 800 XL
Saw this on Ebay and took a chance, it's the predecessor to my Atari 65 XE. It works fine. Apparently more reliable than its successor
Tangerine Computer Systems Oric-1
Been after one of these for a while, it's a bit like the original Sinclair Spectrum, but with a 6502 and proper sound chip. And also includes BASIC commands ZAP, PING, SHOOT, and EXPLODE to produce sound effects
Mattel Aquarius
A chance find in a retro game shop near Birmingham, very cool looking, feels well built, but not so popular back in the day, so not many around. Made by Radofin who made Pong consoles before
Sinclair Spectrum Plus
I decided I needed one of these, so bought one, I really want a Toastrack though, but they're at least four times the price of these. Later I rescued another one from a car boot sale
Section 2: Games Consoles
Just plug into a TV and play but don't forget the gamesSuper Nintendo (X2)
Yet another carboot sale find, The seller wants £10, I paid £8 but he wouldn't let me have the super scope but would let me have the related cartridge. Never understood why. This one suffered from intermittent sound before losing it completely, shame as I love Super Mario.However I recently purchased another console, and that one works fine, but has had a bad retrobright experience
Sega Saturn
Swapped a TV for this, it suffered with the usual bad PSU connections, once soldered it worked perfectly.Clockwork Knight and Sega Rally were my most played games.The Saturn was incapable of using pirated discs for quite a while as the disc protection data was written outside the TOC (Table Of Contents). If you observe the disc loading and checking routine, you can see the laser read the TOC at the inside edge and then move almost to the outside edge of the disc, read 'something' and then return back to load the game. Normal disc copying software only copies what it can see, ie, what's in the TOC.Maybe that's one reason the original Playstation was so popular???
Sega Dreamcast
Paid £17 from Game Station when they existed and were a decent retro games retailer. I'd been fancying one of these for a while, just to play Shenmue, and to burn emulator discs as these machines did not need a modchip to play homebrew games. This one needed the lid sensor cleaning out and the common PSU pins problem fixing.Four player ChuChu rocket is insane!I did get quite a few accessories for this console as you can see in the picture. Keyboard, mouse, VMU's and rumble packs. I managed to connect it to the internet after receiving the update disc in the post from Sega themselves.The House of the Dead with two light guns and Virtua Fighter 2 kept me entertained for quite a while.
Sega Master System II
The Master System was donated to me and it does work although I never really played on it. However the wife has fond memories of playing Miracle Warriors from her childhood, so I bought it.
Sega Mega Drive II (X4)
I paid £5 for a box of four Mega Drives and some other unrelated stuff, No powerpack between them and I didn't have anything suitable, so I've no idea if they actually work, maybe I'll put a Raspberry Pi in one..?
Nintendo 64 (X2)
Another carboot sale find, Goldeneye and Super Mario 64 were epic! The World's first true 64 bit console, The Atari Jaguar claimed to be, but it used 2 x 32Bit (GPU and DSP) and the Motarola 68000 (32bit internal processing with a 16bit external data bus, same chip as used in the Amiga A500) as the controller, with a 64bit data path between them.
Sony PSone
I bought this for the kids, we didn't really use it that much. We all know the story of why Sony entered the console market, however many years before they produced a MSX clone so the Playstation wasn't Sony's first venture into the world of gaming, as many people think.
Microsoft XBOX 360 (X2)
Somebody gave this to me, in the wrong box of course. This only has a 60GB hard disk, but it seems to work ok.I wondered if it's possible to run Linux on it???Update: I acquired another Xbox 360 with 120GB hard drive, and an Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive
Sega Mega Drive (US: Sega Genesis) (X2)
I already have four Mega Drive 2's, (but no power supply), but it's always nice to have the original, which only outputted mono sound from the rear video socket, if you wanted stereo, you had to use headphones, or make a custom video cable.
Sony PlayStation (X2)
Again, I already have the updated version, but the original is also very nice to have, I don't have the video cable, does the cable from the updated version I have above fit? Update... Yes it does
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
I spotted this for sale on eBay, and had to have it. To delay the inevitable row with the wife, I'll decline to say how much it cost, but it was a lot cheaper than we've previously seen them for sale for. It came with no games, and as the NES doesn't boot with no cartridge inserted, I couldn't test it for an agonizing 24 hours until I "acquired" some games. Happily after some fiddling with the cartridge and 72 pin connector, it does work.
Atari 2600 Jr (X3)
I bought this as "not working" off someone on eBay, but after some fiddling, it does work, and it works well. In fact, all three of them work, one only outputs in black and white, that may be a dirty or broken switch
Sega Master System / Power Base
Again, I was left unsupervised and found this, it works perfectly and has the game Hang-On built in
Sony PlayStation 2 (X3)
I used to have the silver version of this, but I believe one of my kids has it, so I bought one for myself while everyone else was squabbling over toilet roll. This one is the later SCPH-50003 with the built in IR port. I later acquired two more working PS2s, these are earlier versions without the IR port
Nintendo Gamecube (X2)
I have wanted one of these for a while, and was looking at one in my local games exchange shop, but then this boxed one fell into my lap at a good price, so obviously I had to have it, I was then donated another working one
Microsoft Xbox (X4)
Saw a box at a car boot sale with an Xbox on top, I have been looking at buying one for a while, so took a chance for £25 and it turns out to be a modded xbox with several games installed, that's a win in anyone's book, the second one works, but the crystal doesn't work, it has Error 12 on the screen, which means issues with the DVD drive. The fourth one is currently untested
Atari 7800 ProSystem (X2)
NURSE! NURSE! It's happened again, I somehow accidentally bought stuff from Ebay. Anyway enough of that, here I have two Atari 7800s, they both work, but one has a slightly fuzzy RF output, maybe this one will get composite video and audio modded..?
Commodore Amiga CD32
During my self imposed retro hardware fasting month, I failed and picked up a CD32, it was just the console, and it was "untested", so we all know what that means, but I have one in my collection, and that's all that matters for now
Amstrad GX4000
Well I got one, it's quite small, smaller than you'd expect, and it works
Sony PlayStation 2 Slim (X2)
Untested as no PSU, and the PSU from my PSone is different, but it's very pink, and very small. No sniggering at the back!
Sony PlayStation 3
Not working, suffers from the YLOD, which could mean anything, and I have no controllers
Microsoft XBOX 360 Elite (X2)
I saw this on a household items sale post on Facebook Marketplace, I got it for only £45 with two controllers and a few games included. Stupidly forgot to take pictures of it working. Damn you Portal 2
Nintendo Wii (X5)
I needed a Wii, so I went and got one, no games yet, but it does play Gamecube games. I now have games, and an additional four Wii's bought by chance from a local car boot sale on a rainy day
Leap Frog Leap TV
Another car boot sale find, isn't too bad for a kids games console, weird controller though
Action Max
Picked this up for free from Retro Gamez HQ in Swindon, Think Mad Dog McCree but much much worse, this is incomplete
Mattel Intellivision
Another surprise find in Southend on Sea, so obviously purchased immediately. Not very common in the UK
VTech V Smile TV Learning System (Blue)
Main Article: VTech V Smile TV Learning System (Blue)
Bought as a job lot for £2 from a car boot sale much to the other half's annoyance. This one has a microphone included for superstar performances
VTech V Smile TV Learning System (Pink)
Main Article: VTech V Smile TV Learning System (Pink)
Bought as a job lot for £2 from a car boot sale much to the other half's annoyance. It's very pink, stop laughing
VTech V Smile Motion Active Learning System
Main Article: VTech V Smile Motion Active Learning System
Bought as a job lot for £2 from a car boot sale much to the other half's annoyance. Wireless controllers but only mono audio
Section 3: Plug And Play Games Consoles
No Cartridges Required, just plug in and playInmotion
What a lucky find at a car boot sale for all of £3, it's a bit rubbish even if it almost looks like a shrunken PS5. Yes that is a Sinclair Spectrum power supply
Connectv Football
Weird football based game. Makes you look like you're playing Dance Dance Revolution... Badly
Jakks Pacific Disney Cars 2
Picked up for free, it's smaller than it looks
Atari Flashback (7800)
Bought online for pennies, no PSU, but found one that works
AT Games Atari Flashback Blast
Very cheap, wireless joypad and purple Firestick type console
Zone Family Fit
The biggest gaming item I own
Blaze Atari Retro TV Joystick
£2 from a local car boot sale, it works
Pinball TV Game
Another recent donation. I suspect it's a NES on a chip device with a custom ROM image loaded
TV Play Power Intellivision (X2)
Spotted in Gamescene local to my parents house, then picked up a non-working one online
Venturer Super Games
Cost me pennies, another Nintendo on a chip console
Space Invaders
Cost £3, actually very good, micro switched stick for the win
Ms PacMan
Again, very cheap, so why not
Capcom (Jakks Pacific)
Bought from Super Tomato in Cardiff
Namco Plug and Play TV Game
Bought from Taunton Retro Toy Fair from Avatar Games
Systema TV Boy
Another purchase from Avatar Games at the Taunton Retro Toy Market, this is an unlicensed Atari 2600 clone in an handheld form factor, but can be used as a console with its external joystick ports
Atari Flashback (2600)
Wanted one of these for a while, it came with the wrong PSU, but I found one, and it works
Retro TV Game
£2 on Vinted, tiny and a bit rubbish
C64 DTV
Awesome machine, very hackable, lots of Easter eggs
Super Mini SFC
Main Article: Super Mini SFC
A recent donation
Orb Retro Arcade
Main Article: Orb Retro Arcade
I bought this on Vinted, it was a whole £1 + £2.29 shipping to a local collection point. It would have cost another 50p for delivery to my house
Jakks Pacific - The Batman
Main Article: Jakks Pacific - The Batman
Saw this on Vinted for £1, bought it, you know how this goes
Fizz Arcade Classics
Main Article: Fizz Arcade Classics
Again, I saw this on Vinted for £1, bought it, you know how this goes
Section 4: Hand held games consoles
Take the games with you for fun on the go, or on the busNintendo Gameboy Pocket Color
Now it's time to go mobile, I had the original Gameboy, but after a series of accidental drops I swapped it for some car stereo speakers. I was a master at Tetris, beating game B on Level 9, High 5 every time I played and regularly passing 150 lines in Game A, I received the Gameboy Color as a present some years later.I have the official camera and printer to go with this
Neo-Geo Pocket Color
I saw the NeoGeo Pocket Color in an independent games exchange shop, so I bought it, An arcade perfect port of Pacman and King of Fighters kept me entertained for some time.
Sega Game Gear
Recent donations to the museum include Sega's answer to the Nintendo Game Boy. Boasting a backlit colour screen, but ridiculously short battery life. Technically similar to the Master System and also had an odd add-on, A TV tuner. This one, like most Game Gear's, will probably need recapping.
Nintendo Gameboy Pocket Advance
My version of panic buying included old Nintendo Game Boy Advances, this one is in excellent condition and is fully working
Nintendo Gameboy
I missed my original Game Boy, so I had to buy anotherAs noted above, I have the official camera and printer to go with this
Missile Invader
This was my first taste of electronic gaming, it's more advanced than a Pong machine, so it does belong in here
Nintendo DS (X2)
This was recently donated to me, it's the original model, it came with a carry case and charger, but no games
Nintendo DS Lite
I picked this up in a games exchange shop in Wells, it's bright red
PacMan2
£10 from a local car boot sale, and it works
Grandstand Soccer
Came with a Binatone TV Master Mk4
VTech Precomputer 1000
Bought "twice" from Vinted, eventually arrived damaged
VTech Secret Safe Diary
Bought as a job lot for £2 from a car boot sale much to the other half's annoyance
VTech VSmile Pocket
Bought as a job lot for £2 from a car boot sale much to the other half's annoyance
Section 5: Desktop PC's and laptops
PCs and Macs from when computers started turning beige and were meant for boring stinky work, until we discovered they were just as good at playing gamesDell Optiplex 433s/l
I acquired this a while ago, It had Windows 3.1 installed on it's huge 300MB hard disc, I upgraded the PC with a CDROM drive, a 16 bit SoundBlaster sound card and installed many games. It's since been upgraded with a smart card hard drive
Apple eMac
Donated to the museum by Trevor Smith. Originally a Mac for the educational market (hence the e in eMac) but eventually available to all. This one has OSX10 or something like that, 640MB's of RAM and a 700MHz processor.It's very heavy and noisy, and I don't understand the appeal of Apple products. But all donations are gratefully received
Apple Macintosh SE FDHD
A punt bid on this, and nobody else took the chance, so it's now mine, it came with a carrying case and an Apple StyleWriter ink jet printer
Western Systems WS340
A recent donation, it's a 386 PC with monitor and printer
Apple Power Mac G4
A surprising, but grubby local car boot sale find
Compaq Presario 5113EA
A recent donation
Dell Inspiron 530
Carboot sale find, complete with a bag of spare parts
eMachines E4264
Free from FB Marketplace, no hard disc
Apple iMac
Destined to be a cat bed until I saved it, does not work at the moment
Medion PC MT14
Another free FB Marketplace find
Section 6: Laptops
Now were able to take work with us on the go. Oh joy!Hewlett Packard Omnibook 3000
My first Laptop, feel the power of the mighty Pentium II, 233MHz, 146MB RAM, 4GB harddrive. You can see a spare harddrive on top. I paid all of 50p for that off ebay. It originally had Windows ME installed, then it was upgraded to Windows XP SP1 (Didn't have enough disc space to install SP2/3), now it has Windows 2000 SP4 installed and the spare drive has an old version of Puppy Linux on it. Also note the Wifi card sticking out the side as this model doesn't have any on-board networking.I am going to try and get Lubuntu installed on it as it just about meets the minimum specifications for installation.
Asus 900XP Netbook
I fancied getting myself a cheap netbook and bought this from PC World (Yeah I know!) because it was reduced to clear. It came with a cut down and modified version of Windows XP to fit on the fast 4GB C:\ SSD drive, it also had a slow 8GB D:\ SSD drive. There was a tool that moved the Program Files folder and contents to the 8GB drive, as the 4GB drive would run out of space fairly quickly. This model has been upgraded with 2GB of RAM, a very fast 32GB SSD and Windows 7. Once upgraded it's actually a very capable machine even though the processor is only a 900MHz Celeron.Unfortunately it's not compatible with Windows 10 due to the display adaptor, originally the upgrade advisor said the processor was not compatible as well, but that was a bug apparently.
Asus 900 Netbook
This machine is the same as the above, but it came with Linux (Xandros) installed and originally a 4GB/16GB hard disc arrangement, they are actually two different chips rather than partitions.This machine now has the same hardware upgrades as the above model, but runs Lubuntu (Light Ubuntu) very well.I used to use this machine for working on this website.
Dell Latitude C540
I had an idea for a media centre project and needed an old computer, I asked online if anyone had one to donate and received this, However there were some issues I had to sort out before I could use it.1. No sound, originally I thought this would be down to driver issues, but the hardware wasn't present in the device manager. After some furious Googling on another machine, It was found to be caused by a faulty dial-up modem which was on the same bus. Once removed the hardware appeared, and Windows XP automatically installed the driver. Problem 1 solved!2. No Wireless internet, This was caused by driver issues, For some reason the original wireless module had been replaced with a 3rd party module, so the driver downloaded from the Dell support webpage wouldn't work, Windows didn't recognise it (although Ubuntu Linux could recognise and use it without screwing around with drivers), so I had to remove the wireless module and Google the model name. I found a manufacturer webpage, found a suitable driver, installed and connected. Problem 2 solved!3. The only on-board USB port is USB 1, so I had to use an old double port USB 2 PCMCIA card in the slot (Yes I know it's a Belkin product, This is a rarity as it actually works!), by using a home made cable I can borrow power from the on-board port rather than use another PSU. Problem 3 solved!After all that the display driver wouldn't output in wide screen so this laptop wasn't suitable for my project. Bummer! Oh well never mind, I just bought and used a Raspberry Pi instead.This machine was upgraded to 1GB of RAM (from 512MB) and now runs Windows 7 slowly.The processor isn't compatible with Windows 10 according to the upgrade advisor.
Compaq Mini CQ10-500SA
This was originally my daughters netbook, after years of abuse she bought herself a new laptop and I bought this one from her.To my surprise it was eligible for the free Windows 10 upgrade, which ran like a bag of poo, so now runs Lubuntu. I'm using this machine for Android development as it's the only laptop I have (at the moment, don't tell the wife ;) ) that can run Android Studio.You can see the Ctrl key is missing and the battery does not hold a charge, also the charger cable has been broken and repaired many times, but however it still works ok.This is now my daily machine until I can get to the local computer fair to buy a more modern machine... (Mission successful, see below)I used the Windows 7 key from this PC to activate Windows 10 on my desktop.
Lenovo G50-80
Large bonus from work (in vouchers) + Unused christmas money + PC World = New laptop, obviously!Photo borrowed from t'internet8GB RAM, 1TB storage, CORE i3 2GHz dual core processor with 2 threads per core, 15.6 inch screen, Windows 10, etc...Loads of bloatware uninstalled, then re-installed to fix the battery only charging to 60% issue, then uninstalled again!Using this instead of the old single core Celeron netbooks is like going from a 50cc moped to a Bugatti Veyron, dbPowerAmp on the old machine converted mp3s at 5.0x if i was lucky, now it more like 35.0x, not even my desktop machine can manage that. I am still using this laptop to work on this site, although it now has two extra screens attached
Acer ES1-512
I acquired this laptop for £12 as it had a faulty screen, keyboard, no internal battery, and a broken installation of Windows 10. Windows was swiftly replaced by the latest Ubuntu 18.10. You can see the screen has vertical lines on it, these will disappear if the corner of the screen is help down, the keyboard has a broken matrix as whole groups of buttons don't work. It's fine for the occasional boot into Linux to fix the problems Windows can't. Now it has Xubuntu installed
Acer Aspire 4552
One of the laptops I received with no PSU, but the PSU from the Acer ES1-512 above fits and works. Currently has Windows 7 installed
eMachines E525
Another one of the laptops I received with no PSU, but the PSU from the Acer ES1-512 above fits and works. Currently has Windows Vista (Yeah I know) installed
Dell Latitude D630
Another laptop I received with no PSU, the PSU from the Latitude C540 above doesn't fit. Originally came with Windows XP, but seems to be upgraded with Windows 7 Premium. I should have an old HP PSU that's supposed to work, but I can't find it
Dell Inspiron 3200
Saw this, though it was another HP Omnibook 3000, it wasn't
IBM (Lenovo) X41 ThinkPad
Found at a local office closure
Lenovo L420 ThinkPad
Another donation, no power pack though
Acer Aspire 5315
Bought from a car boot sale, no power pack though
Dell Inspiron 6400
Another car boot sale find, even had charge left in the battery after I got it home
Section 7: Pong clones and machines
Where home gaming all began, hours of fun with only two lines and a square ball, with the occasional BEEP as well. Could you get the coveted indefinate ball bouncing between bats?Teleng Colourstars
Here is a Teleng Colourstars pong clone, it's missing the controllers and game cartridges, so it is useless at this time, although I have since bought a controller and a cartridge
Grandstand 4600
This Grandstand 4600 Pong clone is more or less complete, the rifle attachment is missing some parts, but may still work. I do have the original box for it, but it's in a very poor condition. This has a chance of working, so I will be testing it soon...UPDATE: Yes it does to a degree.
Binatone TV Master Mk 8
I had one of these when I was little, and now I have another... It was listed as "not working", I wonder if it's to do with the "Back Porch" problem that the ZX80 and ZX81 suffer from?
Videomaster Visionscore VMVI (X2)
A £10 Facebook Marketplace and a 60 mile round trip gamble, did it pay off..? I have two now
Grandstand 3000
Another Ebay find, untested and cheap
Binatone TV Master Mk 4 (X4)
Two very cheap Ebay "untested" punts that didn't work too well. Then later, another eBay purchase
Binatone Colour TV Game Mk10
I briefly became obsessed with Pong consoles and bought a load of them for pennies
Adman Grandstand 3600
I briefly became obsessed with Pong consoles and bought a load of them for pennies
Grandstand 6000
I briefly became obsessed with Pong consoles and bought a load of them for pennies
Grandstand Cartridge
I briefly became obsessed with Pong consoles and bought a load of them for pennies
Interstate V-11
I briefly became obsessed with Pong consoles and bought a load of them for pennies
Prinztronic Videosport 800 Colour
I briefly became obsessed with Pong consoles and bought a load of them for pennies
Prinztronic Micro 5500
Bought on a day out in Swindon from Retro Gamez HQ
Radofin Tele-sports III
Bought on a day out in Swindon from Retro Gamez HQ
Tandy Electronic TV Scoreboard
Popped in to Retro Bristol and saw this
Acetronic Colour TV Game
£5 from Revival Games
Acetronic Tele-sports IV
£5 from Revival Games, same as the Prinztronic Micro 5500 above
Ingersoll Colour Match
£5 from Revival Games, another hand-held Pong TV game
Teleplay Colour Programagame
£5 from Revival Games, same as the Teleng Colourstars above
Tandy TV Scoreboard
Only £15 from a local reclamation/second hand shop, it's in very good condition but I haven't tested it yet
Binatone TV Master Mk10
Another day, another one of Binatone's Pong consoles
Grandstand Match of the Day 2000
This is smaller than it looks, but it's sure cute
Videomaster Strika
Is it Strika, Striker, or something else entirely? Who knows?
Shira AU-807 Pong
Teeny tiny Pong console
Section 8: Modern Retrogaming hardware
Modern recreations of classic hardwareThe C64 Mini
A modern recreation of the classic Commodore 64
The A500 Mini
A modern recreation of the classic Commodore Amiga 500
The 400 Mini
A modern recreation of the classic Atari 400
Section 9: Mobile devices (Smartphones and PDA's)
Can (and was) be used for mobile gamingHTC "Touch" Diamond
My first touch screen smart phone, released around the time of the first iPhone
Samsung Omnia 2
I upgraded from the HTC Diamond to this, my favourite Windows Mobile Professional device
Asus P500 (Vodafone V1520)
Donated to me by my sister, it had a crappy Vodafone branded enterprise ROM that tracked what you did and where you went. Reflashed!
Dell Axim X30
A PDA with no phone functions, donated by Trevor Smith
Section 10: Retro cassette recorders
Loading your favourite games in, slowly, if you're luckyPanasonic RQ-2104
I've had this, admittedly grubby, shoebox cassette recorder for a while, I think it originally belonged to my sister, like most of my collection it badly needs a clean
ITT SL 59 automatic
I got this cassette recorder with my Acorn Electron, it's a shoebox style cassette recorder as was the style at the time, but slightly wider. It was released in 1979 and has all the usual features you would expect for the time, like auto stop, built-in microphone, headphone out and microphone in through a DIN connector. It can be powered by the mains through a normal C7 (figure-8) lead, or by five C cells. The automatic in the name probably refers to the auto stop feature
Sankyo ST-60
With a recent Sinclair Spectrum Plus ebay purchase I aquired this shoebox cassette recorder as well. The listing said it was non working and would need new belts, but look how cool it is
Triumph CR-1620
This shoebox cassette recorder was included with the bundle of a Sinclair Spectrum Plus bought from a car boot sale in Cornwall
Sony TCM-757
I found this chonky shoebox style cassette recorder in a local charity shop (Goodwill) A bit of a surprise to see it there, so after £10 was exchanged it was mine. Sony called there cassette recorders "Cassette-Corder" for some reason
Section 11: Retro printers
Keeping a hard copy of your finest work, and if you were lucky, your mum put it on the fridge for all to seeCommodore MPS 803
I was recently donated a printer, this is a Commodore MPS 803 printer and was the official printer for the Vic 20 and 64, the user manual shows a line drawing of a Vic 20 in the connection diagram, but it works with all the 8 bit Commodore home computers. Later there was a charcoal black version to match the C16 and Plus 4 computers, but it was the same printer with the same model number. In it's day it was regarded as a slow printer and it did not come with the tractor feed assembly which was an optional extra
GameBoy Camera and Printer
We only popped into the shop to shelter from the rain, it looked like it was a general second-hand shop, but it contained lots of retro gaming goodies, although it was mostly stuff I already had. It was a great little shop in Spalding, Lincolnshire, and everywhere you looked there was more and more retro gaming greatness tucked in behind old DVD players and other cheap tat
Apple StyleWriter II
This is an Apple StyleWriter II, it's Apple's 2nd ink jet printer, it's based on a Canon mechanism and was faster than it's predecessor
Sinclair ZX Printer
I acquired a ZX Printer with one of my ZX81's, I have no idea if it works, they usually need a belt replacing, and the special paper is tricky to get, so I expect this will be in the untested pile for a while. This printer could work with the ZX80/ZX81, and the Spectrum
Hewlett Packard Deskjet 500
HP Deskjet 500, I had a similar printer to this back in the day, it was crap
Canon BJC-250 Color Bubble Jet Printer
I found a printer, it's a Canon BJC-250 Color Bubble Jet Printer, no idea if it works, this is possibly the printer that Apple "borrowed" to make the Stylewriter II, it all looks the same internally and the ports are in the same places etc
Section 12: Retro displays and monitors
Maybe you didn't have to use the family TV, the agony of waiting for Coronation Street to finish before you could play Manic MinerApple Cinema Display
Spotted this on FB Marketplace being given away for free, but it was just dumped outside the house, so I had to move quick to go get it. It looked like it'll be a perfect match for my Apple Power Mac G4, but there's a problem with that thought
Ferguson 3840
I spotted this at another local car boot sale for £7, and in a moment of madness I decided I had to have it as I have no black and white TV's from the era, this will be mainly used for all the ZX81 and Pong machines I have
Still more to come...
Enjoyed this? Now read My favourite computer games
