Are you thinking about just switching video/audio inputs or are you wanting to power down the computers with each switch? Does keeping the old computer on hurt them?
Maybe, but it will certainly generate a lot of heat. They used to use linear supplies…
Depends on the computer. the sinclairs in inventory, and most 8 bitties for that matter, don’t care either way. The Mac’s though have a hibernation mode so they already shutdown when not in use.
sounds like a good electrical engineering challenge to devise an “upgraded” power supply.
Then again we could just disregard the “software guy’s” possible misunderstanding of power inverters if that’s not even feasible.
I like the idea of just focusing on one computer and it’s software for a while. One can get an emulator with a MESS of hardware configurations if they want to switch. I want it to be like was back when I used the computer. We could even get some ads for the computer put around it
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That’s why there’s an archive of dosbox sitting in the classroom commit’s folder which contains GEM, Turbo C, QBasic, Lotus123, tcp trumpet, and a few other niceties.
Same goes with the BBS9000 that has an NES and c64 emulator on there.
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A display like that would be kewl!
Shelves could still be built above it to store related books, posters, memorabilia, etc related to “The Vintage Computer of the Month”… I think something next to it with covered bins, drawers, etc would be nice to tuck away accessories, etc…
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Exactly what I was thinking … I would love to see some of the old books and magazines that I used as a kid …
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You are better off renaming this topic rather than starting a new one … it is hard to reply to someone that is not in the thread …
Well, it looks like mess.org is mainly focused on “games” and namely the kind of stuff that VECTOR would care about.
I’m not apposed to the “all-in-one” emulation but my biggest concern is how well does it emulate the actual hardware? Slso is it able to interface with the hardware of the day? (ie can we connect to a C2N to an arduino then access that over serial usb or some interface of the sort to use the C2N as intended with the emulation station?
Don’t even see an option to do that
Might already have a couple of them and we could also do like an e ink or table display for a few as to save space.
At the very top of the thread… you have to scroll up all the way … there should be a pencil next to the title …
What about SimH? I think a VMS VAX and a PDP/11 are best experienced in simulation…
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I’m not advocating using emulation in place of actual computer hardware … I just mention that if people want to switch back and forth they could do it at home on their own computer … I want to have the experience of one computer like Lisa suggests or even a family of computers . What was it like to use one of these vintage computers?
To rename a thread, just edit the subject…
Do you want one thread for all of the posts so far?
Or keep this thread on focusing on building up the Vintage Computers Committee (to be)?
Do you want to split off new thread(s) for software, hardware, programming, display and space utilization, etc?
Let me know if / how you want messages split off, and I can move the messages you want moved to the new thread(s) in a few minutes…
I’ve worked with SimH in its early days and its a strong option for us. Heck, I’ll be more than glad to get that ported over to an aws instance and we can use a “dumb terminal” with 3d printed cases to match the machine we’re emulating.
I have a SimH based PDP/8 running on a Raspberry Pi with a look alike front end…
It is an interesting design that allows a SimH virtual machine to run the software (potentially faster then the original) with a nice 3/4 scale UI that provides the original look and feel.
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