best classic computer to begin collecting for?

[Frozone212]

well I have connectors for composite as well

[Keatah]

And which computer are you going to start with?

[MrMaddog]

13 hours ago, Keatah said:

Aaannd now we slide into the obligatory emulator rant. (Like those sleazy cheapshot in-video ads spouted by the content creators themselves.) It shall begin by having you know that when I look up in awe at my god-like emulator rig it glows in a kind of light which mere mortal man isn't fit to observe. It's that good!

 

Actually, an emulator is good for trying out a certain computer or game system before you decide if you want to commit to it.  In getting games to run, you'll learn about what OS firmware and DOS that is required and how the system works for loading off disk or even cassette tape.  Plus in reasearching you can also learn the history behind the platform.

 

Once you find a system that you really want to commit to by getting the computer itrself, you can get an SD card drive and be able to transfer your favorite games from the emulator running PC to play on the actual hardware itself!

[Frozone212]

I will do that

[Keatah]

29 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

Actually, an emulator is good for trying out a certain computer or game system before you decide if you want to commit to it.

Won't argue there.

 

29 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

In getting games to run, you'll learn about what OS firmware and DOS that is required and how the system works for loading off disk or even cassette tape.  Plus in reasearching you can also learn the history behind the platform.

Agree again. Additionally emulators trump museums. You actually get to try the system, experiment around, break things and then magically fix them with a 'reset'. You get to go at your own pace, and you can bring the stuff home to your own HDD. You can go off on tangents to explore subtleties not presented to the general public in a physical space. And so many other advantages.

 

29 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

Once you find a system that you really want to commit to by getting the computer itrself, you can get an SD card drive and be able to transfer your favorite games from the emulator running PC to play on the actual hardware itself!

Emulators are complimentary to real hardware for that very reason. In the Apple II world, my Apple II world, it's beyond easy to make custom compilation disks. Working with the speed of emulators and vastness of modern storage devices it's a real fun activity. Once you've assembled a disk you like you write it out on real hardware. And a beauty part is that connecting a modern PC to an Apple II is also easy. And cheap. There's multiple ways of doing it. And multiple ways of loading/transferring software. And multiple ways of assembling that compilation disk. At all price points.

 

In the early days I had an Apple II connected to a 486 via serial interface. The first go at it was done with just paper clips and a few pieces of wire. The robustness of both hardware platforms allowed it work. Having versatile and mature terminal proggies made it all the easier.

 

Just imagine having had this sort of capability back in the heyday!

Edited November 21, 2022 by Keatah

[carlsson]

2 hours ago, Frozone212 said:

I have connectors for composite as well

In that case, it seems all of the mentioned models should work.

 

The TS 2068 has a composite jack next to the RF jack.

The TI-99/4A (but not 99/4) has composite in the DIN cable.

All of the VIC-20, C64, C128 as well as most Ataris except the 400 (and 600XL?) also have composite in the DIN cable, with the same pinout.

 

Of course a DOS PC uses its own CGA, EGA, VGA rather than composite.

[Bruce Tomlin]

First of all, where are you? It matters whether you are in NA, EU, or Asia, since they all went different ways. In NA, Apple II, Atari, and C64 are all probably the easiest to get into.

 

And yes, 386/486/Pentium should be considered too.

 

10 hours ago, Frozone212 said:

any computers that will let me use my own tape drive?

In the US, probably only TRS-80. Apple II had some support for it, but nobody seriously used it once Woz came up with his low-cost floppy drives. Atari and Commodore specifically had custom tape drives. UK/EU systems used cassette tape for a lot longer.

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by Bruce Tomlin

[Frozone212]

I've settled on an atari 800 xl. down the road i'll get one. Atari basic may seem slow but it's manageable. At least it's not V2. I'll look into getting rev. c if I can. I say down the road because my desk is barely big enough for my pc and Monitor. If I want to do the others, emulation will have to do. Assuming someone here wants to part with one, not that I have the means at the moment.

 

anyway, this thread has served its purpose. Thanks guys

[+OLD CS1]

9 hours ago, carlsson said:

The TI-99/4A (but not 99/4) has composite in the DIN cable.

I am pretty certain the 99/4 has composite in its video port, at least in the US.  I would steer clear of the 99/4, anyway, unless you want a mantle piece.  Go right for the 99/4A.

[Keatah]

I was gonna say Apple II had standard cassette recorder support. Just about anything you could buy at a department store would work fine. The interface works around 1,500 baud. And it can double as a voice digitizer and secondary speaker output - although early speech recording and playback was rather scratchy and noisy.

 

I was also going to comment that Apple II may not be an ideal system for someone with the collecting bug. There isn't much to collect for, despite it having an unofficial 17,000 software titles. I mean there are no cartridges. Everything is on cassette and disk. Magnetic media generally doesn't display well on a shelf. Not like cartridges.

 

An Apple II collection is more like having a number of interface cards and peripherals and making sure everything is clean and in working order. Apple II is reliable and versatile. But it is also bare metal and TTL. No custom chips. No graphics chip. No sound chip. A single-board computer that's a lot like a KIM-1 or S-100 rig. More like a gussied-up and commercialized-for-the-consumer microprocessor trainer kit. In fact they did sell Apple II as a kit! You had to solder 80+ sockets!

 

Apple II is more like PC when discussing collecting. It's pretty boring. With PC you could collect processor chips, or graphics cards, or sound cards. As I said, B O R I N G ! ! Both are computers to be used. Very utilitarian.

 

9 minutes ago, Frozone212 said:

I've settled on an atari 800 xl. down the road i'll get one.

Very good. You won't be disappointed. If it'll be some time before you purchase a machine, now would be the perfect time to download Altirra and start learning about the machine. Or at least read a couple of books. Get the lay of the land. Learn how to work with files and disk images and all that good stuff. And enjoy some gaming while you're at it. Altirra is good enough that it could've been an official product back in the day.

 

As you save up for your 800XL, don't forget to factor in a joystick and paddles, a flashcart/SDcard of some sort, a proper power supply, the necessary a/v cables, a small desk/stand, some cartridges, a cassette player/recorder (optional), and a disk drive (also optional). For the future there's internal RAM upgrades to consider like RAMBO or COMPY. And more!

[zzip]

9 hours ago, Bruce Tomlin said:

In the US, probably only TRS-80. Apple II had some support for it, but nobody seriously used it once Woz came up with his low-cost floppy drives. Atari and Commodore specifically had custom tape drives. UK/EU systems used cassette tape for a lot longer.

funny my impression back then was most computers allowed you to BYO tape drive and my Atari was odd for forcing me to use a proprietary one.    But thinking back..   yeah I guess it was only a few systems that allowed a BYO.

[wierd_w]

TI 99/4A has a cassette interface that can use a generic recorder.  (I have found modern Onn (walmart store brand) recorders work just fine, but lack a program counter) They can also use diskette drives, but need either a special sidecar diskette drive, or a PEB for that.

[Keatah]

4 hours ago, zzip said:

funny my impression back then was most computers allowed you to BYO tape drive and my Atari was odd for forcing me to use a proprietary one.

Most all let you BYO, especially A2 and TRS-80. And PET had a built-in one. Those along with all the single-board hobbyist comps & kits. It seems the more "consumerized" and turn-key a system was, the more likely it had a custom proprietary interface.

 

When manufacturers tried treating the cassette player a slow-ass floppy the interfaces also became proprietary. Think the on/off motor control. The third connector that was half-sized in comparison to the mic/earphone plugs. And the silver plugs and tips just looked janky, very audiophile'ish, dated, to have on a slick computer.. And you had to think for a moment about matching in/out, mic/earphone. Proprietary interfaces cleaned all that up

 

I remember purchasing a 1-meter cable, dual plug, from Data Domain. This was a standard cassette interface cable. It cost me a whopping $10 back then. I thought absolutely nothing of the price. I figured it was an essential accessory. I remember I was so happy getting it. I jumped out of the car and ran up the stairs to the second-level terrace so hard I was airborne at the top! I was doing laps around the counter till a salesman got around to helping me out. They had the cable hanging on a wall pegboard, kinda like RadioShack's arrangement of parts.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Keatah

[zzip]

6 minutes ago, Keatah said:

Most all let you BYO, especially A2 and TRS-80. And PET had a built-in one. Those along with all the single-board hobbyist comps & kits. It seems the more "consumerized" and turn-key a system was, the more likely it had a custom proprietary interface.

 

When manufacturers tried treating the cassette player a slow-ass floppy the interfaces also became proprietary. Think the on/off motor control. The third connector that was half-sized in comparison to the mic/earphone plugs. And the silver plugs and tips just looked janky, very audiophile'ish, dated, to have on a slick computer.. And you had to think for a moment about matching in/out, mic/earphone. Proprietary interfaces cleaned all that up

It makes sense because you want the consumer systems to be as fool-proof as possible,  and there's so many ways for a tape system to go wrong.    So putting motor control under computer control makes sense, the tape won't start until the computer is ready for the data.   I believe the Coleco Adam went so far as to put all the cassette control in the hands of the computer and eliminated the buttons.

 

Still--  even with this control the tape drives were unreliable.   The Adam's were extremely troublesome from what I understand.   My Atari 410 drive wasn't that reliable either,  I'd make multiple saves of everything I was working on because there was always some that wouldn't read back.   Even loading games would work sometimes but not other times-- 

[Keatah]

One more advantage of a proprietary interface was no volume control adjusting. Remember that? On average I found settings 6-7 good enough. Surprisingly any tone control didn't seem to affect anything. Perhaps they were just filters and either amplified or attenuated the upper and lower frequencies and more or less left the center ones alone.

 

Eh that Adam was slank-a-jank hardware all the way around. But it had some amusing design approaches. Also had a 410 (both versions) and had the same experience. Not sure what its problem was. It seemed solidly built and all that.

 

I had good luck with my own recorded Apple II cassettes. There were some weird copy-protected ones. I guess some of them loaded a loader that looked at the timing/speed of the tape. Dupes of course worked fine on your own cassette recorders, but if the speed got too far out of tolerance (playing on another player) it would fail. Not entirely foolproof, not entirely reliable loading either. Others recorded the signal just good enough to load, but any copy would not be good enough.

 

I also had good results with the TRS-80 Pocket Computer 1. Very reliable. Anyhow, cassettes weren't long for my world. I quickly moved into real disk drives.

 

IDK. I perversely think that everyone should man-up and experience a classic computer and progress through the ages of storage. Just like we did! Appreciation for technological advances is so much more evident.

Punchcard, Type-in, Cassette, Diskette, Hard Disk, CD/DVD, ZipDisk, USB-removables, SSD.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Keatah

[Frozone212]

I typed in all of gold rush last night, then tried to save it to cassette, forgot to use Csave and lost three hours of work.

 

oh well

[carlsson]

15 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

I am pretty certain the 99/4 has composite in its video port, at least in the US.

I'm no expert on the TI, but I've seen three different video pinouts:

 

NTSC 99/4 (??): http://www.99er.net/vidpow.html

NTSC 99/4A and PAL 99/4A: https://www.arcadeshopper.com/wp/ti-99-4a-faq-howto-displays/

[+OLD CS1]

56 minutes ago, carlsson said:

NTSC 99/4 (??): http://www.99er.net/vidpow.html

This looks like a PAL machine pin-put.  Same as the TI Tech Pages, but with a note on NTSC.

 

https://www.unige.ch/medecine/nouspikel/ti99/pinouts.htm#Monitor

[carlsson]

Except PAL machines have DIN-6, not DIN-5 with shielding only in the metal shell. But yes, it is an academic point in this discussion.

 

For programming purposes, I'm not totally sold on the A8. A bit quirky BASIC if you're used to Microsoft, challenging hardware. I have intended to make a program but not got across the first threshold.

[MrMaddog]

19 hours ago, Keatah said:

One more advantage of a proprietary interface was no volume control adjusting. Remember that? On average I found settings 6-7 good enough. Surprisingly any tone control didn't seem to affect anything. Perhaps they were just filters and either amplified or attenuated the upper and lower frequencies and more or less left the center ones alone.

 

Boy do I remeber that exact same problem!  I had a GE tape recorder, with motor control, to load & save BASIC programs on my Tandy CoCo along with some educational tapes that had vocal tracks for the lessions.  If that volume knob wasn't perfect then it wouldn't load right or worse I get garbled text on the screen.

 

I was hoping the 410 Program Recorder wouldn't have these issues since the sound-to-digital signal was done internally, but there's still issues with the motor speed.  Plus I like how it could play audio tapes out through the TV speaker and control the motor with POKE commands. 

 

Plus I've seen ads for 3rd party adapters that let you use standard tape recorders for Atari 8-bits.

[+OLD CS1]

On 11/22/2022 at 3:51 PM, Keatah said:

IDK. I perversely think that everyone should man-up and experience a classic computer and progress through the ages of storage. Just like we did! Appreciation for technological advances is so much more evident.

I missed out on punch cards and paper tape and I am not feeling cheated at all.

[Keatah]

21 hours ago, Frozone212 said:

I typed in all of gold rush last night, then tried to save it to cassette, forgot to use Csave and lost three hours of work. oh well

The manuals that came with Apple II from back in the day talked about saving your work from time to time and conducting backups. It's a lesson I carry through to today in all aspects of computing.

[Cebus Capucinis]

I'd go with an Agat or Mikrosha. In Soviet Russia, computer plays you!

[Frozone212]

I can't even begin to imagine the shipping cost. Would they even work in the US?

[carlsson]

I think you'd need a step-up converter, assuming it has a built-in power supply, and probably something about the video. Did Soviet run SECAM? I would suppose a few of those do RGB TTL (read: CGA-ish).

 

Is it @CatPix who regularly posts about Soviet computers?