So what did you get?

[Wiltshire Wasp]

Couch to 5k paid for with local running club - not quite sure how to take that!

[BG]

Specifically I got -
(a) A Tandy deluxe 6 pin analogue Joystick, circa '85. It is lovely, physical self centering still works, but the only issue is it is 6 pin DIN connected, and I don't have a Tandy Co-Co 3 which takes six pin DIN. I can pull the extra pin out, disabling the second fire button, and then I can use it on Dragon (and Tandy) 6809 computers that I do have, but it would feel like vandalism.  DIN connectors were nearly unique to those machines, despite getting wide use elsewhere in Audio tech industry, as the Atari standard was taken up by the rest of the machines- Spectrum, Commodore et al. 

(b) a couple of common Microdeal Dragon 32 tapes I needed to finish the collection of Microdeal games (I owned all the rarer ones already) , and a Dragon Data game in a huge 12 inch clam case. The latter are quite rare, and commonly go for 20-50 quid (and more) on Ebay, entirely due to the massive packaging, into which you could fit considerably more than one tape. The tapes themselves go for a couple of pounds.

No Atari cartridges this year, last year I got Defender for the 800/800 XL in the box and a couple without boxes, and another joystick. There is a lot of Atari stuff that is still shop sealed out there, but it goes for a fair bit.   

Tapes are generally bad storage mechanisms, but often they were poorly recorded in the first instance, they don't actually degrade that much. I have a failure rate of old tapes of just about 5% with old tapes, which is pretty close to the failure rate back in the 80s.  Often they can be fixed by rerecording the WAV file onto tape. A lot of modern enthusiasts put out cracked versions of cassettes that took ages to load, they can often be compressed to a couple of minutes.

I don't suppose there are that many rugby/old computer fans out there? I I know a couple, and neither are Wasps fans. Real ale + rugby  I can see as an obvious cross over (although I like real ciders myself), other sports and old cars/bikes you would think be quite high on the list........

I wish I still had my sega mega drive. Current graphics and effects on todays consoles are superb but the game play on the sega mega drive (and most likely SNES) was super addictive.. Desert and Jungle Strike... I remember Fade to Black but I can't remember if that was Sega or on one my first computers which was probably a AMD DX 100 that I built

[Vespula Vulgaris]

Specifically I got -
(a) A Tandy deluxe 6 pin analogue Joystick, circa '85. It is lovely, physical self centering still works, but the only issue is it is 6 pin DIN connected, and I don't have a Tandy Co-Co 3 which takes six pin DIN. I can pull the extra pin out, disabling the second fire button, and then I can use it on Dragon (and Tandy) 6809 computers that I do have, but it would feel like vandalism.  DIN connectors were nearly unique to those machines, despite getting wide use elsewhere in Audio tech industry, as the Atari standard was taken up by the rest of the machines- Spectrum, Commodore et al. 

(b) a couple of common Microdeal Dragon 32 tapes I needed to finish the collection of Microdeal games (I owned all the rarer ones already) , and a Dragon Data game in a huge 12 inch clam case. The latter are quite rare, and commonly go for 20-50 quid (and more) on Ebay, entirely due to the massive packaging, into which you could fit considerably more than one tape. The tapes themselves go for a couple of pounds.

No Atari cartridges this year, last year I got Defender for the 800/800 XL in the box and a couple without boxes, and another joystick. There is a lot of Atari stuff that is still shop sealed out there, but it goes for a fair bit.   

Tapes are generally bad storage mechanisms, but often they were poorly recorded in the first instance, they don't actually degrade that much. I have a failure rate of old tapes of just about 5% with old tapes, which is pretty close to the failure rate back in the 80s.  Often they can be fixed by rerecording the WAV file onto tape. A lot of modern enthusiasts put out cracked versions of cassettes that took ages to load, they can often be compressed to a couple of minutes.

I don't suppose there are that many rugby/old computer fans out there? I I know a couple, and neither are Wasps fans. Real ale + rugby  I can see as an obvious cross over (although I like real ciders myself), other sports and old cars/bikes you would think be quite high on the list........

That sounds awesome!

I'm certainly a fan if not a collector. At work (we are a hosting company) we are in the process of moving to a much bigger office, and have put together a display of the early tech that had an influence on our decisions to get involved in the tecgh world.  Mine is a ZX81.  I used to spend hours copying code line by line out of magazines and the record it on to tape.  When I upgraded to a BBC Micro it felt like I'd reached the pinnacle of computing...

[westwaleswasp]

@BG
You can buy Sega Mega drives cheaply nowadays.
Also AT games do a mega drive flashback console- they call it the Genesis in the US of course -  and IIRC AT games do a flashback now for both markets. I know their Colecovision and Atasri 2600s do not allow you to play your own cartridges, and have up to 100 games pre installed, although only a few are well known. I have a feeling that the flashbacks of the Segas may allow old games to be plugged in.


@ VV
ZX81- wow. There is an iconic machine.  I remember the zx81 well, although the ZX80 was much less common and worth a load nowadays in good condition. There is a massive market out there for old tech, but it is always the awful stuff that commands the cash, software and hardware from beginning and end of a machine's life, plus failed machines like the Oric Atmos, Jupiter Ace, etc.  I started in the early 80s playing games largely- on the Dragon machines at home, which had extended Microsoft basic, which was lovely to program. About the last time I was enthusiastic about Microsoft really. At school it was BBC and later BBC masters, with BBC basic, but I often got my paws on Spectrum and Atari machines. Back then machines had personality.  I have stuck with the Dragon 6809 machines, for nostalgia as much as anything. The 6809 chip had limited 16 bit capabilities, but sadly the graphics on the machine let it down a tad, and the games were often simple 4k games ported over. By the time good stuff came out in droves the company had  already gone bust.......