Retro Computers
From WFFwiki
On this page you will find details about my ever growing collection of retro computers from the 1980's and 1990's. My favourite computer manufacture was (and still is!) Acorn Computers who were based in Cambridge UK. Acorn produced the classic micros which will be familiar to anyone who went to school in the mid-eighties to mid-nineties.
I not only collect these machines, but also spend a fair amount of time working on them and restoring them to their former glory. Although I do modify the machines, I always try to make sure that any modifications are either hidden or completely reversible as the machines can be quite valuable and also 'spoiling' them is never a good idea.
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Acorn Computers
Acorn Computers was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK. These included the Acorn Electron, the BBC Micro and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn's BBC Micro computer dominated the UK educational computer market during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Though the company was broken up into several independent operations in 1998, its legacy includes the development of RISC personal computers. A number of Acorn's former subsidiaries live on today - notably ARM Holdings who are globally dominant in the mobile phone and PDA microprocessor market.
So, your mobile phone's great great great granddaddy was a BBC micro - will you ever look at it again in the same way? :)
BBC Micro
The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Designed with an emphasis on education it was notable for its ruggedness, expandability and the quality of its operating system.
The Acorn Proton was a pre-existing project at Acorn to succeed the Atom home computer. It was then submitted for, and won, the Literacy Project tender for a computer to accompany the TV programmes and literature. Renamed the BBC Micro, the platform was chosen by most schools and became a cornerstone of computing in British education in the 1980s, changing Acorn's fortunes. It was also moderately successful as a home computer in the United Kingdom despite its high cost. The machine was directly involved in the development of the ARM architecture which sees widespread use in embedded systems as of 2009.
While twelve models were eventually produced with the BBC brand, the term "BBC Micro" is usually colloquially used to refer to the first four (Model A, B, B+64 and B+128), with the later eight models referred to as the BBC Master and Archimedes series.
My model B (shown in the picture) was brought from Retro Clinic in the UK. It is an excellent machine, not only was it delivered fully restored, but it also has a 512Mbyte CF Card harddrive adaptor loaded with applications and games inside the case (connected via the 1Mhz bus expansion port on the bottom of the machine). If you ever want one of these machines I highly recommend retro clinic (most of their items are available as 'buy it now' auctions on ebay.co.uk).
My plans for this machine are to get a 'datacorder' cassette player and some original games. Also it is possible to reverse tape images (produced for the emulators) back to real tapes. I do have a working 5.25" floppy drive for this machine, but there is something special about doing things the 'original' way. I hope to also use this computer for some electronics projects; given the number of expansion ports on the base of the machine, they are particularly useful for control and monitoring applications.
I got my first BBC from my father (a model A) in 1982 and have admired the machine every since. The BBC 'Beeb' was the bread-and-butter of home and school micro computing for the whole of the 80s and the games are still as fun now as they were back then!
BBC Master Compact
The BBC Master was a home computer released by Acorn Computers in early 1986. It was designed and built for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and was the successor to the BBC Micro Model B.
The Master Compact model separated the keyboard from another unit which could be placed under the monitor. The unit under the monitor housed a 3½” floppy disk drive and the system power supply. The remainder of the system was housed in the same unit as the keyboard, much like a conventional Master 128. The cartridge and cassette ports were removed as a space saving measure, and RS-232 hardware not populated on the circuit board as standard. A multifunction mouse and joystick port was provided as a 9 pin D type (similar to the Atari style joystick connector).
The Master Compact shown is actually the original model brought by my father in 1986 (it even has his name and postcode etched into the inside of the case) and I have been carrying it around the world ever since. The original floppy drive broke and was replaced by the Cumana drive shown in the picture. The machine is still fully working and I give it the occasional strip-down and clean just to make sure it stays that way. It is also fitted with the optional RS232 serial port upgrade.
The machine was pretty much a 'flop' at the time it was released; it had no cassette port to play BBC games and the floppy drive was 3.5" ADFS, not 5.25" DFS (as was popular at the time) and this made it very difficult to get software for. However, more recently, these machines have become very valuable since not many are to be found on the 2nd hand market. So it has finally (after 20 odd years) become a valued part of any Acorn collection :)
BBC A3000
The 'Acorn Archimedes' was Acorn Computers Ltd's first general purpose home computer based on their own 32-bit ARM RISC CPU and was launched in May 1989 for 799 pounds.
The A3000 used an 8 MHz ARM2 and was supplied with 1 MB of RAM. Unlike the previous models, the A3000 came in a single-part case similar to the Amiga 500 and Atari ST computers, with the keyboard integrated in the base unit.
The BBC A3000 was the last 'BBC Microcomputer' branded Acorn machine to be built and was therefore an essential part of my collection (even though I never owned one when they were released). The model shown in the picture actually belonged to my friend Ricky and along with my A440/1 we spent endless hours hacking and programming as teenagers. My A3000 has 4Mbs of RAM and a CF card harddrive (that I made myself). Ricky's original motherboard was damaged by a leaking battery when the machine was in storage, so the motherboard has been replaced (unfortunately with an ARM2 CPU, not an ARM3 like the original motherboard), however I was able to retro-fit the existing serial upgrade so the machine still has a serial port (which was not as standard in this model). The machine is as good as the day it was brought and I am still playing pipemania on it, even today.
Archimedes A410/1
The Archimedes A410/1 shown in the picture was brought from Watford Electronics as a A440/1 specification machine (this was quite common at the time) after having been upgraded in the shop. It has 4Mbs of RAM and also the improved MEMC1A memory controller (so it was either upgraded when brought, or one of the later models). The Acorn A440/1 was released in June 1989 and cost 1299 pounds.
The original ST506 harddrive interface has been replaced with an ideA card giving the machine full IDE compatibility, to which I have connected a modern CF card harddrive adaptor.
This machine was purchased from ebay and (buyer beware, I know) was in a terrible condition when I received it. The fan could barely move due to dust build up, the battery compartments were corroded away, the mouse was broken, the headphone socket had been snapped of the motherboard and the keyboard PCB had been badly damaged (I think someone ran a screwdriver over it trying to prise it open). However, after many hours of repair (and new fans, cables, battery holders and a complete case-screw replacement - plus some doner parts from the damaged A3000 motherboard) the machine is up and running like new.
It really was a labour of love though, since this is the model of Archimedes I owned as a teenager (although the 512Mb harddrive I have now is a big improvement over the original 40Mb drive!). After some modification I was able to get the harddrive light working and slow the new fan down (they spin much faster than the originals) to get the machine to run silently and the keyboard was repaired with silver conductive paint and a lot of fine paintwork. Hopefully this machine is now ready for another 20 years of service.
RISC PC 600
In 1994 Acorn release the 30MHz ARM610 based RISC PC 600 which, although being a successor to the Archimedes range, didn't use the name Archimedes. The model shown in the picture used to belong to my friend Ricky, but he kindly donated it to my collection a while back. This machine gets almost daily use (I program on it and use it as a transfer machine to get software from the Internet to my other Acorn machines since it still supports a range of older Acorn disc formats).
My RISC PC has been heavily expanded; it has a 10baseT Ethernet card from i-cubed, 32Mbs of RAM, 2Mb VIDC RAM (for the graphics processor) and an overclocked StrongARM T processor running at 287MHz (just a little faster than the original 30MHz!). I've also fitted it with an I/O podule which allows it to be connected to BBC micro 8-bit peripherals. The operating system has been upgraded to RISC OS 4.39 allowing me to fit an 80Gb harddrive (a little better than the original limit of 512MBytes) and it has a CF Card reader too so I can mount the 'harddrives' from my A3000 and A410/1 directly to transfer files. Unlike the original Archimedes machines, the RISC PC also has a CDROM drive, although this is of little use today. so I used the IDE connection for a CF card reader (the CDROM is still fitted in the machine however).
This machine is even capable of driving a modern LCD at 1280x1024, quite a feat for a machine which is 15 years old. Recently I also added an original Acorn branded PS/2 keyboard to the machine just to get it looking and feeling like the day it was brought.
The RISC PC could also support an Intel second processor (this machine has a 486SL33 card) and can run Windows95 in a window, which Acorn fans thought was a funny joke at the time. Recently I reinstalled 95 on the machine and the PC emulator software and hardware is still functioning perfectly.
My RISC PC is a 'two-slice' machine; the case was modular, so as you added more drives and interfaces, you could add more 'slices' to the case. There are even examples of ten-slice cases on the Internet, although this was more for 'it could be done' than 'it was useful'... Each slice has a spring-loaded flap which conceals the drives and these are often broken, however this machine has been fitted with new springs and the mechanism now works perfectly.
Atari
Atari ST Mega 4
The Atari ST Mega 4 was released in 1987 and was a top-of-the-line replacement for the Atari ST line of microcomputers. My Atari has a matching 'high resolution' SM124 monochrome monitor and a 20Mbyte harddrive (this is the lower unit marked 'MEGAFILE 20').
The harddrive is an old ST-225 drive which, amazingly enough, still works; although sometimes you have to turn it on and give it a 10 minute head-start before powering up the computer!
I'm not a big fan of Atari computers (and never owned one before I got this machine), however I have fully restored the machine and, as you can see from the picture, it is working perfectly. It turns out that this machine, which was marketed as the best desktop-publishing system for business, is now pretty rare and valuable.
I will have to find a die-hard Atari fan and find this machine a new home. I even have the original boxes for all 3 of the units, so it is quite a collector's piece.
Commodore
Amiga A500
The Amiga A500 was the premier gaming platform of the 1990s and many people still collect, restore and enjoy these machines even today. My A500 has a few modifications (performed by the original owner) and also has a 512Mb RAM upgrade (giving it a total of 1Mbyte).
I have to say that I am not a big fan of Amigas; compared to the Archimedes they were clunky, not programmer-friendly and very focused on gaming. I brought this A500 mainly for the Phillips monitor that came with it (they are very hard to find and very heavy, so expensive to transport). However, this machine is a pristine example and works perfectly. Perhaps, someday, I will find it a good home with someone who likes International Karate + :)
I haven't restored this machine yet (which is obvious from the ugly black tape on the mouse cable), but I hope to soon. There really isn't much that this machine needs except a good internal clean and a new mouse cable which is easily fixed.
Sinclair
ZX81
The Sinclair ZX81 was released in 1981 and was the first computer I ever owned. Although small with a terrible keyboard it was the first time I experienced telling a machine what to do and then watched it work. By today's standards the four-chip, black and white, 1Kbyte machine is less powerful than a modern calculator, however Sinclair brought computing to the masses. At the age of 8, I was hooked and have been ever since.
My ZX81 is actually the original model I received for my 8th birthday in April 1981 (thanks mum and dad!) however I have lost the original power supply and cables. Also it only supports RF output, so it is a little hard to test. I plan on pulling it apart and getting it going again at some point, however with so many other machines to work on it might take a while.
I still remember my first program on this machine and how proud I was showing my parents what I had made it do... if I remember rightly it went like this:
10 PRINT "WHAT SHOULD YOU DO IN THE CASE OF A FIRE?"
20 INPUT A$
30 PRINT "DIAL 999"
40 END
Stunning stuff eh? The fact that I even remember it might give you an idea of how excited I was at becoming a 'hacker' for the very first time! Disney's TRON and Wargames have a lot to answer for :)
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