The three first sinclair

The first years of the 1980 decade was dominated in Europe by sinclair, the company launch a new model of computer every year, changing from the "white" ZX80 , with 1 Kb of RAM, then the ZX81, with provided a better BASIC support , but still only a 1K of RAM , and the next year the Spectrum with
Color !! , and 16Kb of RAM (or 48K in the upper model) .

Sinclair Spectum 48K aka gomas

This is the FIRST model of computer that I got, as I told before I "upgraded" the sinclair 48k to Sinclair + (the one two or three post before).

This machine is a gift from a college  after he discovered my not so hidden Computer Diogene Syndrome (recollect all kind of old computers ;-)

About this machine there is few more things to say perhaps that the best Spanish Company started developing games for this platform (Dinamic ) and that more than a generation of Computer Engineers and technical people in Spain grew and learn to play games (and sometimes also some BASIC language ) with it.

The machine was too popular that some radio station used to broadcasts games that the user save in a normal tape , loading the games from the tape.

here you can see, from left to right the power connector, expansion slot and the plug for saving and loading files from a normal tape.

Philips P3105

This was the third computer that I got , after the beloved Sinclair Spectrum and a CASIO FX-750 calculator with a BASIC interpreter. It was bought in Summer of 1989 , and it was a big jump , compared with the old spectrum , not only in size, but also in the use of disk and the hard disk
(20 Mbytes).

The CPU was an intel 8088 , that can run at the "normal" (4.x Mz) and "fast" (8.xMz,) speed , and has a program to change the the speed internally , the 3.5 drive (720 Kb) where added the same
year, and it was an "high density" drive, but the floppy controller only support the double density
(720kb).

The monitor was monocrome (orange one), with a mixed CGA/Hercules card and an amazing memory of 768 Kb, (640Kb of normal RAM used by MS-DOS and another 128Kb that only with MS-DOS 5.0 and the special software "Qemm" where possible to use for driver.

The Operating System was old MS-DOS 3.30 ,and also in the following years I upgraded the machine to other Operating Systems up to MS-DOS 6.2 , installed the "stacker driver", (to duplicate the hard disk space), and played a lot with it.

I remember also to play with the minix 1.x operating systems (booting from the 360Kb disk drive) and also booting the MS DOS 1.1 , that don't provide the "subdirectory feature (it was mostly a clone of the CPM operating system, other software that runs in this machine was the microsoft windows (from 1.x to 3.11), the GEM Desktop (digital research clone of MacOS graphical environment) and so on.

Sinclair Spectrum 48k

This was the first computer that I got, in 1984, the current keyboard is newer , as it was purchased as a normal sinclair and late converter to the "plus" one (the only difference was the keyboard).

The machine has a zilog z80 microprocessor and has 16kb of ROM and a RAM memory of 48Ks, including 6912 bytes for the graphics display and other system variables so only about 40,5 kb where employed normally for games and software.

The programs where loaded from a tape (I still have too much tapes full of programs ;-), and it was possible to program in BASIC and machine code, the graphic resolution was not great , but some of the programs are still amazing .

In order to save RAM space the BASIC interpreter assingned one of the ASCII code to each of the language keyworks, so for example the "print" command employs only a a byte of memory. A complicated combinations of keystrokes allow to produce all the symbols, one of the various emulator was named "JPP" , due to the fact the "J" key directly puts the "load" command and the double quotes wre in the "P" key so JPP was roughtly load "" , the order to load any program form the tape.

In this picture you can see the power plug for the external power adaptor , the expansion slot and the tape plugs for connecting the machine to and external tape. Later sinclair models (+2) have the
tape incorporated to the machine.

I'll try to find all the hardware (for example a game save device, parallel port, etc) that I 'd for this machines

The most usual problem with this macine was the keyboard, under the plastic cover in the Spectrum 16k and 48k, there were this plastic membrane that was easily broken when you tried to play games, and the only solution was to replace it.

Sinclair PC200

This was the last machine produced by Sinclair after the company was bought by Amstrad , and in fact the "sinclair name" is only a commercial brand as it seems that the model is not derived from the work of Sinclair Research, but directly from Amstrad.

This is also the only "PC" clonic from sinclair, and it was intruduced in the late 80's, when the amstrad.

The computer is similar to the Olivetty PC1, and other PC clonic in the sense that has the keyboard and CPU integrated in the same chasis, it has a 8086 compatible micro and a 720Kb 3 1/2 disk drive.



As curiosity the computer has output for a CGA monitor and also a TV monitor, in this other picture you can see the TV , CGA , Serial and parallel connectors, and also the
expansion bay.




After some problems (it's very difficult to find a CGA monitor to test the computer) , I realized that I have some "TV" connectors from other very old computers like the sinclair spectrum so I tested and ....



Keyboard is not working ;-(, it seems that the computer has some keyboard problem, it's a pity as it seems that only 20.000 units of this computer were sold, so it is very difficult to find a working one.

Macintosh SE 1/20

This was one of the first apple machine that I saw when I was at the University, this little "portable" machine was used mainly for the University staff (students only got access to normal 8086 Olivetti computers and some i386-sx machines, and when they discarded the machine I could manage to get it.


The handle on the top allow to carry the machine from some place to another very easily and as you can see it has the normal SCSI and sound connectors.

The machine still boots , with a old operating system (I don't think it can be upgraded to any other version ). the CPU is the old 68000 , without the 32bits extensions and so on, so obviously no "MacOS X" inside.


Amazingly Microsoft word 5.0 from 1992 can run on in and the visual aspect is more or less similar to the modern Microsoft programs, so perhaps "Word processors" are the most stable software in modern computers.

Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer

Another Relic that cames directly from an Ebay auction (now with the "strong Euro" somethings are quite cheap to buy), this machine was produced in the Early 80 (from 1980 to 1983 by Radio Shark) and has a BASIC interpreter (like most of the home computers at this time), the processor was a Motorola MC6809E and was sold with 4Kb of RAM.




The machine cames with a colored basic manual as it was usual in the early 80 :

With nice illustration showing the fundamentals of BASIC programming, trying to attract young people to the language, and avoiding the "serious and technical documentation" of
the first PC sold.


The computer has connectors for TV, Tape Joystick and serial (for using a modem) or printer, and unfortunately a US connector for 120V electric power, I need to buy a 120V to 220V transformer to test it.



There is a lot of more information in the Wikipedia Page of TSR-80 Color computer that show more information about this machine.