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My collection

A

andyt31

Experienced Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2008
Messages
101
Location
Peterborough, UK
Nothing what I call 'exciting' in my collection but im happy with it.

Amstrad CPC464 (With 6 slot ROM board)
Amstrad CPC6128 (With extra 3.5″ drive - this is my favourite machine!)
Amstrad CPC6128+
Apple ][e
Apple ][c
Apple iMac G3 DV
Apple LCIII
Acorn Electron
Acorn Archimedes R140
Acorn Archimedes A540
Acorn Archimedes A3000
Acorn Archimedes A4000
Acorn RiscPC700 (StrongArm + 486DX4 100Mhz PC card)
Atari 1040STe
BBC Model B with ROM board and an extra 30k RAM.
Commodore 64
Commodore 64C * 2
Commodore VIC-1541 floppy disk drive (Faulty… )
Commodore Vic-20
Commodore +4
Commodore Amiga 1200HD
Commodore Amiga 600 with HDD
Dragon 32 (No PSU, can you help with this?)
Sinclair Spectrum 48k
Sinclair Spectrum +2 (Grey)
Sinclair Spectrum +2b (With +3e ROMs)
Sinclair Spectrum +3 (With +3e ROMs, 8bit IDE Interface and extra 3.5″ Drive)
Sinclair Spectrum+
Tatung Einstein
Texas Instruments TI99/4A

More info can be found on my website. http://andys.dyn-o-saur.com
 
Welcome! Out of that collection, I think most people will envy your Tatung Einstein, as being the least common (rare?) machine of the lot.
 
Tatung Einstein rarity

Tatung Einstein rarity

...and yet there are 2 available for sale on Ebay this week.

Not only that, but there's also an incredibly rare Tatung Einstein 256 as well! I've never even heard of this one before.

Paul.
 
carlsson said:
Welcome! Out of that collection, I think most people will envy your Tatung Einstein, as being the least common (rare?) machine of the lot.
Click to expand...

Yes, I'd never heard of this one. I had to google it. An interesting beast indeed.

Good collection overall. I've toyed with trying to get an Amstrad myself to help round out the collection. Those 3 inch drives though. How easy is it to get disks for those?
 
Nice collection. Impressive list of Acorns!

The dragon is a fun little machine! And your list reminds me, I got to get me a Tatung Einstein.

// Z
 
Dragon 32 PSU

Dragon 32 PSU

Andy,

I have a Dragon 32 power supply I can give you. I'm coming by Peterborough way tonight, so I'll try and drop it off to you.

Got anything new and/or interesting in lately?

Paul.
 
paul.brett said:
Andy,

I have a Dragon 32 power supply I can give you. I'm coming by Peterborough way tonight, so I'll try and drop it off to you.
Click to expand...

That would be fantastic! Thank you! :D

Will PM you. Dont have your email address at work...

Got anything new and/or interesting in lately?
Click to expand...

Nope. But someone has a potential offer of some Amiga stuff. Nothing heard back from him yet.
 
Its alive! Well, BASIC is ok. Not tried any tapes etc yet.

Also need to make the 5 pin din to composite cable, as the RF signal is very noisey.

dscn0255.JPG


dscn0253.JPG
 
Nice! I understand the Dragon is a clone of the Tandy Colour TRS-80 (Coco), is this correct? How compatible is it, and is the Dragon 32 a clone of Coco 1, 2 or 3?
 
tezza said:
Nice! I understand the Dragon is a clone of the Tandy Colour TRS-80 (Coco), is this correct? How compatible is it, and is the Dragon 32 a clone of Coco 1, 2 or 3?
Click to expand...
You're right. It's a CoCo-clone. It's pretty much the same computer as the CoCo1 but with a better keyboard and a much cooler name ;)

It can run some CoCo-programs. I'm not sure about the other way around...

old-computers.com said:
One of its characteristics is partial compatibility with the Tandy TRS 80 Color Series. They can use same peripherals and some cartridges, but most ROM calls will fail on the other computer.
However, the Dragon did have at least two advantages over the first TRS-80 Color computer: A typewriter-style keyboard that was somewhat better than the tandy's calculator-like keys; and a Centronics parallel-printer port.
Click to expand...

wikipedia said:
Differences from the CoCo

Both the Dragon and the TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo) were based on a Motorola data sheet design for the MC6883 SAM chip for memory management and peripheral control.

The systems were sufficiently similar that a significant fraction of the compiled software produced for one machine would happily run on the other. Software running via the built-in Basic interpreters also had a high level of compatibility, but only after they were re-tokenized (which could be achieved fairly easily by transferring via cassette tape with appropriate options).

The Dragon had additional circuitry to make the MC6847 VDG compatible with European 625-line television standards, rather than the US 525-line NTSC standard, and a Centronics parallel printer port not present on the CoCo. Some models were manufactured with NTSC video for the US market.
Click to expand...

// Z
 
I have read that in the mid-late 1980's when Dragon Data (?) were having financial problems, Tandy was one of the companies interested in buying the computer line. Even though both computers are based on a common chipset, I can not quite see how Dragon would make more profit on designing their own computer that happens to be partly CoCo compatible, compared to if they had imported the CoCo and adopted it for European customers to begin with. Maybe Tandy would've asked for a lot of royalties? Eventually the CoCo itself was sold in Europe, although in rather small volumes I presume. The customer price seems to have been pretty much the same for Dragon 32 and CoCo 1, at least on their respective non-native markets (i.e. I compare to Swedish prices).
 
carlsson said:
Eventually the CoCo itself was sold in Europe, although in rather small volumes I presume. The customer price seems to have been pretty much the same for Dragon 32 and CoCo 1, at least on their respective non-native markets (i.e. I compare to Swedish prices).
Click to expand...

Interesting. Here in New Zealand, the CoCo have a virtually NIL presence. I remember seeing a Coco 1 in a shop in 1981 but that was the only instance. I never saw any local advertisements. In fact I doubt if there was any distribution network here at all, apart from the odd ad-hoc importation. PAL Cocos do exist though so at least SOME units must have been destined for Europe or Australasia.
 
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