There’s something incredibly satisfying about breathing life back into vintage machines. The Toastrack was my first intro to BASIC as a kid — amazing how much those 8-bits taught us.
I still have mine, although it was my 2nd Spectrum.
I am still sad and annoyed that Sinclair Research took the technologically very conservative design from Investronica in Spain, and not the older, existing, and more ambitious design from Timex in the USA for the Timex-Sinclair 2068.
The Investronica 128 had an industry-standard sound chip, and used its I/O ports for some fairly pointless extras, like MIDI, RS232 and a numeric keypad. I have a keypad for mine, but nobody cared. It also had extra RAM and that's about it.
The American machine had the same sound chip, a ROM cartridge slot, 2 joystick ports (so, equivalent to a built-in Sinclair Interface 2), and also 2 better graphics modes, and could page out the ROM for CP/M. The same paging mechanism allowed more RAM just like the Spanish machine.
The joystick ports were far more worthwhile than a numeric keypad or a serial port.
Amstrad later copied the joystick ports, and later still CP/M, but nothing else.
Absolutely. I have lots of fun restoring old machines; it's one of my favourite hobbies. Not only do I get a nostalgia kick from remembering systems from my younger years, but I also learn a great deal about how they worked internally and about electronics. Once they're fixed, I lose interest and move to the next project.
lproven|8 months ago
I am still sad and annoyed that Sinclair Research took the technologically very conservative design from Investronica in Spain, and not the older, existing, and more ambitious design from Timex in the USA for the Timex-Sinclair 2068.
The Investronica 128 had an industry-standard sound chip, and used its I/O ports for some fairly pointless extras, like MIDI, RS232 and a numeric keypad. I have a keypad for mine, but nobody cared. It also had extra RAM and that's about it.
The American machine had the same sound chip, a ROM cartridge slot, 2 joystick ports (so, equivalent to a built-in Sinclair Interface 2), and also 2 better graphics modes, and could page out the ROM for CP/M. The same paging mechanism allowed more RAM just like the Spanish machine.
The joystick ports were far more worthwhile than a numeric keypad or a serial port.
Amstrad later copied the joystick ports, and later still CP/M, but nothing else.
celso|8 months ago