My own 80s 8-bit Computing museum...of sorts...

A short while ago (March 2023), I had a few days I had to take off, basically, if you don't take your vacation days by end of March you lose them and I also give too much to the company I work for, so I decided I would actually take the time off & I would do "me things".  That involved taking a visit to the official "Museum of Computing" in Swindon.

Now, I had heard of this place for quite some time & I had visited Swindon a few times (it's only 35 miles up the road), I had never been there on a day when it was open.  So, I did.  It was nice.

If you ever want to visit, go to their website HERE.

Anyway, Mrs.isageek, was quick to point out that, "you've got one of those...and one of those... and some of those... and that...and that...haven't you got a few of them?", etc..etc... you get the idea.  She actually was right.  I did have quite a lot of what was on display, as well as what was accessible & usable - albeit back home the kit was either, in the loft, in boxes, in various random locations or on a random shelf gathering dust.  So I thought to myself, that "spare room" above the garage that has been accumulating random "junk items" needs to be cleaned up, cleared out & I'll make it into my own "8-bit museum" room - well, also an alternative working work/work room too.  Then I can remodel/redesign the layout in the "official" work/work room as that seems to have become me working from a tiny desk in a small corner of the room (again!).

What does that mean then?  Well.. it meant getting on Amazon and for once in my life, buying furniture that matches! I bought some desks, drawers, cabinets, book-tree things, shelves etc.. that were all from a specific brand that actually look awesome but are built REALLY well - the chassis for the L-desk is like something from a race-car, yes, it takes about 2 hours to put it together & most of that is building the framework where you then 'drape' the desk on top, I was very impressed - these desks / shelves etc.. will be able to not only take the weight of the old 80s hardware but also be durable and usable.

Obviously, there was an item in the room that came from another room, the top section of a gothic wardrobe, that takes up a huge chunk of the room - but, oddly, the sizing of the desks and box sectioned cupboard things seem to fit around it perfectly.  So, it stays where it is - you'll notice it in future images!

Here's some "starter" photo's showing the start of the L-desk and some tidying up.

That is one seriously over-engineered desk chassis!  I am no longer a small / light chap, being a little bit over 100kgs nowadays and I can stand on top of those desks without it bending or going out of shape - okay, I wouldn't do it all the time, but I am seriously impressed with the desks for the price.

I figured out how to connect up the 48k rubber key spectrum with a Toshiba tape-drive and "eventually" got this random tape game to load.  I had 3 random spectum tapes that have been sitting on the shelf for years, surprised by satisfied they still work (but, of course they will!)  It did take a while to figure out / remember that the tape drive volume needed to be at a specific location in order to LOAD - that kept me going around for a few hours, going between different machines trying to figure out why the game loaded earlier, but not now?... and then some fiddling / experimenting I awoke a deep/dark memory (and then a quick 'DuckDuckGo' search later confirmed it was true) that said, "the tape volume is a thing"

Once that tape had loaded, it was actually quite impressive that it was showing me 3D graphics from a 48k Spectrum game from 1983-ish, that is 40 years ago... okay, so the drawing / rendering is not the fastest, but it shows the concept / vision was there.  Also, if this is written in Z80 ASM or even in C (it's probably Z80 ASM), then I could probably get an Emulator running and do a DEBUG output of the ASM code and then attempt to reverse-engineer and figure out how it works :-)  I'll leave that task for when I've retired!

And, as it was getting closer to 01:00am at this point, I thought I'd see if the DK'Troniks 48k Spectrum would work with loading 'Sheer Panic' (I had gotten the game to load on the other two 48k speccies), YES, it did load and proved the hardware was working - albeit, as I've learnt the frequency / tuning is slightly different for every machine!  So you have to re-tune the TV to "find" the machine every time!  What I did then discover is that the keyboard was not always functioning with certain letters.  Looking at this keyboard, it doesn't have the rubber key membrane, it's clicky style keys, meant to be more "modern", but I think there's probably a ton of gunk / crud in / under the keys, so I'll look at take the keys off, cleaning them up and then get it all working again - this photo shows the machine without the case, but in that setup, if I recall, this was a rare device and just checking eBay....wow, it's now worth quite a bit to the right collector.  Which is me.  hahahahhaa...

As I started to empty the room & put the 8-bit hardware in one place, I started to notice just what random things I had (and I am sure there are more hiding away, waiting for me to find them).  I wanted that "on display" aspect, but also, "turn it on & use it" aspect too, like the Museum of Computing.  I did ponder just making shelving all around the walls and just placing the machines as "object d'art" as glued / screwed / leant against the walls... but then I thought that was a waste as most of the machines actually worked & had no real issues with them (later articles to show the repair journeys undertaken!)

Is my plan to open this as a real museum? No.

Is my plan to invite people to use the hardware? No.

Is my plan to just look at the wonders of the hardware and not use them? No.

Is my plan to brag / show off just how much these things cost nowadays? No.

Is my plan to open a business restoring / fixing / upgrading this hardware No.

Is my plan to keep everything as original as possible? No.

There is no real plan, tbh.  I just want a room where I can go to that is mentally cleansing, a place where I can be nostalgic for 1/2 an hour, waiting for a tape player to stop squealing and a piece of someones old code life is then shown as 8-bit graphics & appalling collision detection is rife... simpler game mechanics are enforced, reaction times or precision and hand/eye co-ordination are key, rather than "how many things you've picked up along the way & how many X things you've crafted to battle against that perceived baddy character" (modern day games are mostly about slashing/ / killing / shooting / chopping / fighting / driving - there are very nice to look at, but are totally lacking in substance / game play / story / etc.... maybe that's what the appeal of an 80s game is all about?)  However, it's also not just about 80s games and blocky graphics, I also want to be able to use the machines, write code for them, do things with them that were never even thought possible when they came out - connect them to the home WiFi, connect them together, get them communicating together, get them communicating with modern hardware, get that modern kit to act as a proxy machine to go fetch things off the inter-webs (SSL is a process/performance killer and can't be used by old hardware, however, use a modern day proxy machine, run node-red on it to process the requests and provide the responses and problem sorted!), let's hook up an old 48k Spectrum, or an Atari 800 XL, or an Amstrad CPC 464 to the internet and have them calling and interacting with chatGPT, yes, let's have the power of Generative AI being tapped into as an input and output mechanism with 80s 8-bit hardware, why? well, why not?!  who knows what creative things this will then trigger.

I suppose that is what this is all about - making a space where creativity can be invoked & inspired - that is what is mostly lacking in the modern world - just look at all the bland styled car shapes there are out there - yes, "it is for safety compliance" (yawn), but they lack creativity or style or.. well anything, they are bland... same goes with people's obsession with that awful grey dishwater yucky colour they have their cars nowadays - if there ever was a symbol that the current generation of human society has lost the ability to experience joy & creativity it is the fact that colour exists on so many modern vehicles, "I don't know what colour to choose, so I shall choose none".  eurgh!

Grumpy old man rant over and back on topic - who is it for? Me.  Why am I sharing it? because, just like old classic cars that people (& myself) keep fixed / repaired / on the rod and take to car shows to show they are still functioning, working and kept alive by enthusiasts, usually on a shoe-string budget, there is no equivalent for the old classic computers, you cannot take the hardware to a convention and setup a booth / stall and show your stuff off, you can visit places like the museum and see someone else's room (usually a team of volunteers involved), I suppose it is the same thing, just a "private collection museum", lol.  Mrs.isageek has asked me to put stickers on the bottoms of every piece of hardware with a date and current valuation, so it makes it easier for her to sell it all off on eBay at some point in the future - she doesn't want someone else to pay £50 for something & flip it for £500, she wants to do that.  ha ha ha.  Again, it's not about the money, it's about the joy / creativity & I suppose some nostalgia - do I want to "go back to the 80s?", good God no, it was a horrible time, horrible hairdos, horrible, well, it wasn't Stranger Things, no matter what Netflix tells you, but it WAS a time of great change mostly in thanks to the "home computer" that I now have on display to represent that change / shift in human society / mindset / life.

I'm willing to take donations - if old hardware is found in lofts / basements or even in the back of garage's, however I won't bee scouring eBay for every variant of machine to put on display, I have a varied collection already that will keep me occupied enough, they'll do (for now!)  For instance, I have no 8-bit Commodore hardware (Vic 20, C64, etc...) as I never had one & I never picked one up along the way.  I never actually had a Speccie either, but I seemed to have bought a box load of stuff back in the 2005-2008 era and it was only yesterday that I had my first experience of turning one on, figuring out how to "tune" the TV monitor to see a screen (as there is no ON indicator on the machine, you have no idea if it is working or not?!) and then figuring out how to actually "use" it to type commands, it was an interesting 'alien experience', interestingly I would like to experiment with a Gen Z-er, put them in front of a ZX Spectrum (rubber keyboard) and a tape-player and say, "You are not allowed to just YouTube / Google search the answer", "but, load and play that game there", pointing at an old C-15 cassette tape.  Many 10-15 year old kids back in the early 80s were given this hardware and just "figured it out", it was interesting to me that pressing letter keys and key-combinations output full words on the screen, no indication of whether it was "right" or not.... truly baffling "user experience" that would certainly never make it out into the consumer wild in todays world.

Right enough rambling, here are a few more images / videos - more will come as the room gets more furniture / shelving / desks / hardware etc...

Oh, what hardware currently exists?  I'll list them all out and have an article per brand I think in the future, as you can image, if I just said, Spectrum, you'd think of the 48k rubber key machine, but there are also 48k+, +2, +3 machines too, in various states of broken-ness that potentially need repairing! and then Amstrad includes 464 and 6128s, and Toshiba MSX HX-10s, as well as Atari 800 XLs....

And just to wrap up here is a video of me eventually and successfully loading a ZX Spectrum game from an original tape.  BTW - I'm no YouTuber, so I don't have all the right lighting or kit to film perfectly and I sure as hell don't process / edit and faff about with the videos - you get what I see / hear:

Not sure why that felt like such an achievement, but it did :=D