My small collection of classic British computers

[Garrettimus]

Dear friends,

I present you some videos I did of my small collection of classic British computers. Some of them are VERY rare in  my country. As far as I know, I've got the only Tatung Einstein in Brazil, plus the second BBC Micro I've ever seen in my country. I also own an Amstrad CPC 6128 and a ZX Spectrum +2 (the gray one), but I haven't made videos on them yet.

Sorry for the videos are in Portuguese!


- BBC Micro (with Data Centre):

- Sinclair QL:

- Archimedes 3000 (with internal IDE/SD module):

- Tatung Einstein 256:

- Commodore 128 (German) & 1541 Ultimate II cartridge:


I love British computers!

[Gryzor]

Thanks for the links! A bit shaky, but very interesting....

[Garrettimus]

Thanks for the links! A bit shaky, but very interesting....

Thanks! I used a poor quality camera, unfortunately. That's why the image is kind of shaky. 

[MacDeath]

bonjourche...

(french humour)

Wasn't brazil well know for having some MSX and spectrum clones ?

Also the Sega master system was a huge success there...


I'm a bit sad you collection miss the 6128PLUS or even the classic CPC464.

concerning portugesh, there are a lot of spanish peoples here, they may understand a few bits.
Also as a french, I may understand a few words too.

But Brazilian is not really portugesh, it's Brazilian indeed...

(like the Quebequers from Canada don't speak "Français" but "Quebequoi"...)


Welcome here anyway, good to have visitors from South America.

[Bryce]

Hi Garrettimus,
           this might possibly interest you: eBay: Neue und gebrauchte Elektronikartikel, Autos, Kleidung, Sammlerst�cke,

He says he ships to Europe, Asia and Australia, so I'm sure he'd ship it to you too? Might be worth asking. It even has the original power-supply, which is good, because it's an 18VAC supply which is difficult to find alternatives for unless you build your own (as I had to do).

Bryce.

[Garrettimus]

Thank you very much - or should I say "Merci beaucoup". 

Yes, we had had several clones in my country - from video games to computers. There are two MSX models (Expert by Gradiente, HotBit by Sharp) and two ZX Spectrum 48 KB clones (TK90X and TK95). Cool stuff. 

[Garrettimus]

Hi Garrettimus,
           this might possibly interest you: eBay: Neue und gebrauchte Elektronikartikel, Autos, Kleidung, Sammlerst�cke,

He says he ships to Europe, Asia and Australia, so I'm sure he'd ship it to you too? Might be worth asking. It even has the original power-supply, which is good, because it's an 18VAC supply which is difficult to find alternatives for unless you build your own (as I had to do).

Bryce.

Thank you, Bryce, but I've got one already - actually it's on its way from England as of today. 

[Bryce]

Cool. It's one of my favourite machines, although it's actually a steaming pile of... well it's not exactly powerful, and the idiots didn't even include joystick ports, which is a real shame.

Bryce.

[beaker]

Cool. It's one of my favourite machines, although it's actually a steaming pile of... well it's not exactly powerful, and the idiots didn't even include joystick ports, which is a real shame.

Bryce.

lol, ah memories, the Acorn Electron was the first machine I ever received as a kid. I remember persuading my parents to buy me a joystick adapter for it and having to load a cassette so some games could use it. As we only had the main TV in the lounge at the time I made sure I got up early on the weekend so I could get my fill of Repton, Hopper, Boxer, Arcadians or Ravenskull. Then my mate had a CPC 464 and I realised how crap it was (as Bryce says)... but it was ignorant bliss before that though    I still have the voltmace joystick for it that's still going strong after all these years although the machine was given away to a neighbour 

Nice collection of machines Garrettimus 

[Garrettimus]

Here's the Brazilian TK90X (ZX Spectrum 48 Kb clone):

[Bryce]

Wow, never seen a MicroDigital before, it really is very similiar, not like the eastern clones.

I never got a joystick port for my Acorn, and as far as I can remember it almost doubled the size of the Acorn (ok it had ROM slots too).

Bryce.

[robcfg]

Heh, I got an Electron some time ago with the plus 1 expansion module but no cartridges so for now is the most useless expansion I have 


Edit: Nice pictures of my Electron here, here, here, here, here and here.

[MaV]

Nice collection, Garrettimus!

Hm, the Spectrum clone's case looks better than the original one's.

[Bryce]

Heh, I got an Electron some time ago with the plus 1 expansion module but no cartridges so for now is the most useless expansion I have 


Edit: Nice pictures of my Electron here, here, here, here, here and here.

The Cartridges were pretty simple, so it shouldn't be difficult to build one. But I need to find a Plus 1 or even it's schematics first.

Bryce.

[beaker]

I never got a joystick port for my Acorn, and as far as I can remember it almost doubled the size of the Acorn (ok it had ROM slots too).

lol, oh no, we couldn't afford the Plus 1, we were working class and got the working class version from First Byte 

cheapo version

[Bryce]

Oh, I wasn't aware of that device. I might build myself one of those, altought I'd prefer to have the cartridge slots too, because all the ROM images are available online.

Bryce.

[Garrettimus]

And here's the TK95:

[Bryce]

Oooo, is that a C116 / Plus/4 (264 Series) Clone? It looks like it.

Bryce.

[Garrettimus]

Oooo, is that a C116 / Plus/4 (264 Series) Clone? It looks like it.

Bryce.

Nope, it's a 48Kb Speccy clone. Microdigital has copied the Plus/4's cabinet design as you noticed.

[MacDeath]

You should get yourself a Thomson MO5...

a Pure french awesomness (fail) but could be fun in your collection.

[MaV]

You should get yourself a Thomson MO5...

a Pure french awesomness (fail) but could be fun in your collection.

Hey! It's got a 6809 processor! That's no fail!

[Garrettimus]

I took some pictures of my collection today. Here they are:

[MacDeath]

Sure some nice stuff here...

You should have some contacts with "deep fried brain", a spanish guy from Madrid, he has a personal museum that is quite impressive.

In France we have the MO5.com association (named after the Thomson computer...), which try to get a proper museum local for their awesome collection too.


Are you only into 8bit computers ?

(ok, i just realised the Sinclair QL is supposed to be a 16bit computer...)


Can you tell us some stuff about the history of family/personnal computers in Brazil ?
I suppose it was reserved for the "rich" peoples and was almost unknown in the favelas.
Were those common in middle class ?
(sorry, this is perhaps a bit "cliché"... just asking)

Also, did you have some local game industry/companies ?
(or even serious softwares)

In France, the success of the Amstrad CPC was a staple for big names like UbiSoft (still very active) or Infogrames (now name Atari... oh sweet Irony...) to start.

Also Loriciel was a quite famous company, well known for its awesome Amstrad CPC prodution, yet it started as ORIC soft makers... (l-ORIC-iels) but went a lot into CPC due to the success here (also IBM PC&compatibles, Atari ST and Amiga...)

On the other hand, i'm a huge fan of Sepultura and Angra... good sound you have there... oh, and Bebel Gilberto too.
(sorry, other clichés)

[deepfb]

You should have some contacts with "deep fried brain", a spanish guy from Madrid, he has a personal museum that is quite impressive.

Hey, thanks Olivier! :-)
Actually, I have previoulsy exchanged some computers with people from Brasil (that's how I put my hands on a Prologica CP-300), but I don't have any dupes to deal with now :-(

Regarding the Interface 1 for the Electron, I had a spare unit I gave for free to somebody during the last big fair in Madrid. You should come to these events because we always have gift for our guests! :-D

[Bryce]

Bloody Nora! I've been looking for an Acorn Interface one for ages!

Garrettimus:If you want an Atari 800XL for your collection, let me know, I've a box full of them here.

Bryce.