the oldest computer one had

[AMDave]

I remember the ZX's got real hot. Your fingers got very uncomfortable on those tiny contact-keyboards. The hotter they got, the longer you had to press the key-pad before it recognised the keypress. Eventually it made you think hard about what you wanted to do before you started typing

[Ototero]

I solved that by buying a full size keyboard and intalling the ZX motherboard incide it.

I still have It :shock:

[NeoGen]

I remember the ZX's got real hot. Your fingers got very uncomfortable on those tiny contact-keyboards. The hotter they got, the longer you had to press the key-pad before it recognised the keypress. Eventually it made you think hard about what you wanted to do before you started typing

I don't remember about the 48K, but the Sinclair 128k +2 that I had was ok, didn't overheat. The PSU on it's own would get hot after some hours of work, but never reached alarming temperatures.
And guess what... even at those times I already left the computer on during the night!!
It worked like a charm in the Sim City game that came out for Spectrum, because I managed to build a city that was profitable, and so I just left it running and accumulating money! In the morning, when I woke up, I would have billions to spend!

[Steve Lux]

Well, the oldest "computer" I ever messed with was a TTY system that impact-printed on rolls of yellow paper in the Library of Franklin High School, Portland Oregon (USA), in 1971/1972. It was linked to a local bank computer.

Needless to say, it would be fairly foolish for a bank to do something like that these days.

Later I used to own a Sinclair, and a Commodore 64. I really cut my teeth on a Trash 80. I remember copying pages of software out of computer magazines then debugging the code to get some silly game or utility to work. Seems they always had several typo's. But it was all new and exciting stuff back then.

SteveL

[NeoGen]

Never heard of a "Trash 80". The name would have stayed in my mind, for the obvious reasons.
Or is it related to a TRS-80 like the one NVM posted a pic up in the first posts?

[Steve Lux]

Yeah, the TRS 80 was popularly knicknamed the Trash 80.

SteveL

[Dee]

We started with the Oric...had problems with it loading and the replacement machine was the Oric Atmos http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=79
Later, we got the BBC B http://www.old-computers.com/museum/....asp?st=1&c=29 these were bought by me for our son...but my first machine was the Amstrad 1512 then 1612 http://www.old-computers.com/museum/...asp?st=1&c=183 Which I followed with the custom build I still own, followed by the Dell dimension 8021, again, still own!

[Strongbow]

The first real one I had was a Comart Communicator with a WYSE terminal running MPM/80 great machine until I typed in some commands wrongly and hung the whole thing - never got it working again after that!

...then along came the ZX-80, built my own ZX-81, ORIC-1, VIC-20, Commodore 64, AMSTRAD PCW-512 then loads of PCs, Apples, Sun's and now I'm working for a manufacturer who builds all kinds of monsters!

[Dee]

I've fancied building a pc for a while now...I think I could put the parts together but I'd fall over trying to set it up! :roll: :oops:

[spikey_richie]

Anyone know of a geek wear site in the UK? I'd love a Spectrum ZX t-shirt, or one of those featured on majorgeeks.com