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Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment. |
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4th Aug 2006, 11:19 am | #1 |
Pentode
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: East London, UK.
Posts: 231
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Nascom Computer, anyone else have one?
Hello people,
My first computer was a Nascom 2 that i bought from Henry's in edgeware road. It was from their odds and sods boxes at the time. I managed to get the main processor board, expansion board (80 bus), fdd controller, HDD controller, Extended memory board, eprom board and many more. My main interest at the time was electronics and this was my introduction to computers. I believe that they were one of the main dealers of this kit form computer when it was first available. I had a lot of fun keeping it all together and working. It took up about 3ft by 2ft of floor space and ran at the heady speed of 2 mhz (Kept crashing at the turbo speed of 4mhz !!). What are your memories of your first ever computers. P.S. my first 'Proper computer was a Spectrum 48K, and having got my first program into the thing (Remember all the different Shifts and function keys needed for all the program words !!) i hit the RUN key and the 50P in the slotmeter (which we had at the time ) instantly ran out and the power went off !! I was'nt best pleased....... All good fun, Any good stories e,t,c. Alan. |
4th Aug 2006, 11:28 am | #2 |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Bishop's Waltham, Hants, UK.
Posts: 939
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Re: Nascom Computer, anyone else have one?
I don't have a Nascom, but the guy in thte next office does, his also came from Henry's......
It still works as well! Jim. |
4th Aug 2006, 1:26 pm | #3 |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Stansted Essex
Posts: 263
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Re: Nascom Computer, anyone else have one?
My first computer was the ZX81.
Complete with an even more confusing selection of Shifted functions, extended functions etc. Suffered with the dreaded "RAM Pack Wobble", just after typing in all the code for a program, the screen used to go all white. It even had to shutdown the screen to go into "Fast Mode" Never had a Nascom, but seem to remember lots of addons as articles in the electronics mags of the day. Pete |
4th Aug 2006, 3:02 pm | #4 |
Hexode
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK.
Posts: 458
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Re: Nascom Computer, anyone else have one?
My first was a Nascom 1 - poor old thing it was too, well by 'modern' standards anyway. Fun days.
Actually the first microcomputer I used at work I had to build myself out of an 8080 and associated chipset, all wire-wrapped and with my own home-grown o/s in EPROM. I bypassed the Nascom 2 and went straight to the Gemini products which I used to automate some fangled machinery at work in the pre-PC era. I think I still have all the old cards too. |
4th Aug 2006, 4:07 pm | #5 |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: North London, UK.
Posts: 6,168
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Re: Nascom Computer, anyone else have one?
Around 1980 I used a Nascom 2 at work as a controller for a prototype of a vision mixer. Program was saved on cassette tape. Whole thing worked very well. We even took the whole contraption down to a major trade show and demo'ed it with all the mucky hardware well hidden. The Nascom worked just fine for the whole show.
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4th Aug 2006, 9:43 pm | #6 |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Hertfordshire, UK.
Posts: 24
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Re: Nascom Computer, anyone else have one?
Hi,
I think i have a Nascom 1, but i'm not sure. I think this one was sold in kit form, it was put together by my father in a case he made. How do i tell if it is a Nascom ? John |
5th Aug 2006, 11:49 am | #7 |
Dekatron
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Invercargill, New Zealand
Posts: 3,458
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Re: Nascom Computer, anyone else have one?
The first computer we had at home (fulltime) was a Sord M23 mk III around 1981-82. Dad was a surveyor and wrote/sold a survey calculation program on it in "Basic-II". Later he rewrote it in Microsoft C.
My first one was a ZX81. Managed to blow it up fiddling with the edge connector, so bought anohter from a friend for $30. I think I sold it a few years later - wish I hadn't! Had an aftermarket 16K RAM pack which was prone to overheating and a ZX-Printer. Submitted heaps of nifty (apparently) wee programs to a local computer mag "Bits & Bytes" and they published one - unfortunately the dumbest, most embarrasing thing known to man - a line which zig-zagged from one side of the screen to another |
5th Aug 2006, 7:33 pm | #8 |
Octode
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Watford, Hertfordshire, UK.
Posts: 1,270
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Re: Nascom Computer, anyone else have one?
I made a Nascom 1 purely to get to grips with the Z80 uP and still have the Op codes going round in my head after all those years
I found the ASCI/MURRAY code conversion abilities of the Z80 fanatstic in sending RTTY in my early ham radio years and wrote many other programs for it. I hooked the Nascom up to a programmable sound generator and added sound to all the games I had, I reckon it was, at the time, probably the most advanced game machine in my Town, perhaps even the county? My most amazing bit of HEX programming was getting a version of Pacman running on what was less than 800 bytes of memory without the stack corrupting the main program. Certainly learnt how to compact Hex code down to the most efficient. LOL! Those days |
6th Aug 2006, 5:15 pm | #9 |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Hertfordshire, UK.
Posts: 24
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Re: Nascom Computer, anyone else have one?
Hi Top Cap,
I was reading your post about writing in hex to the Z80, and i noticed you are in Watford. I live in Rickmansworth, which is just a few miles away. Its a small world. John |
12th Aug 2006, 10:15 am | #10 |
Pentode
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Longfield, Kent, UK.
Posts: 240
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Re: Nascom Computer, anyone else have one?
Hello
No Nascom, but I did build a Compukit UK101 from a kit - it was based on the US Superboard kit. It had a 'proper' keyboard and an amazing 4k of Ram. One of the first programs I wrote in Basic was a hex-decimal converter, it worked fine and I was proud of my achievement. Imagine my disappointment when a week or so later someone published a program for the same routine but with only around 5 lines of Basic, compared with my 30 or so lines. The small amounts of memory back then did teach you to be economical with programming - something no one seems too interested in these days!! Mike |
16th Aug 2006, 1:06 am | #11 |
Octode
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Watford, Hertfordshire, UK.
Posts: 1,270
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Re: Nascom Computer, anyone else have one?
How did the Nascom help me later in life? Well I cannot go into too much detail here as the gear concerned was military and very hush!!! But after programming the memory in high level code the graduate softies found that another routine was required but there was insufficient memory left. The answer? Get someone who knew the Z80 to enter the extra routine into the memory in pure Hex.
How did I get to know about it? They asked me to update the routine one day, it seems that an ol' geezer like me was the only one around who could program a Z80 in Hex code, all the young ones were into Ada, Cobalt, Pascal and C++ only. |