Opening a Giant Pile of Retro Tech Oddities and Things!
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
Raphael
dont know if anyone has said it yet, but Thames Water is a public utilities company over here in the UK.
Unsurprisingly, they deal with water supply and sewerage etc.
We dont pay for fresh water over here, instead we pay for the maintenance of the infrastructure that supplies the fresh water, so its six and two three's really. We got a lot of educational games like this through the 90's.
As for how long schools were using Acorn computers, I worked as the IT engineer for a while in an English school, leaving in 2001. As with every other UK school up to that point, there had been a heavy investment in Acorn computers, right from the BBC to the A7000+.
When I left that job in 2001, the school I worked in had implemented an interestingly complex solution to migrating to a Windows based environment.
Basically, all of the Archimedes and A7000+'s were used as dumb terminals to connect to a Citrix session running Windows. The school no longer purchased Acorn machines at this point, opting to get budget desktops instead. Supporting this infrastructure was a complete nightmare at times.
I only worked there for about a year, I had been a student at the same school back in the day and remember using a lot of the same machines that were still there when I came back to work there.
I dont know if this was the same situation for Scottish, NI and Welsh schools at the time. But I do remember that as a student, when I moved up to the next school, we had to be introduced to Windows 3. 11.
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dont know if anyone has said it yet, but Thames Water is a public utilities company over here in the UK.
Unsurprisingly, they deal with water supply and sewerage etc.
We dont pay for fresh water over here, instead we pay for the maintenance of the infrastructure that supplies the fresh water, so its six and two three's really. We got a lot of educational games like this through the 90's.
As for how long schools were using Acorn computers, I worked as the IT engineer for a while in an English school, leaving in 2001. As with every other UK school up to that point, there had been a heavy investment in Acorn computers, right from the BBC to the A7000+.
When I left that job in 2001, the school I worked in had implemented an interestingly complex solution to migrating to a Windows based environment.
Basically, all of the Archimedes and A7000+'s were used as dumb terminals to connect to a Citrix session running Windows. The school no longer purchased Acorn machines at this point, opting to get budget desktops instead. Supporting this infrastructure was a complete nightmare at times.
I only worked there for about a year, I had been a student at the same school back in the day and remember using a lot of the same machines that were still there when I came back to work there.
I dont know if this was the same situation for Scottish, NI and Welsh schools at the time. But I do remember that as a student, when I moved up to the next school, we had to be introduced to Windows 3. 11.
reply
dglcomputers
! We had Archimedes machines at secondary school a while into the 2000's, they only got their first windows machines in 1998/9 (PII 300? with Win98(SE) and they were primarily to the two computer rooms, replacing A7000 machines that were originally purchased with a grant from Acorn themselves, when they got replaced by XP machines they ended up being relocated to regular classrooms primarily for the new computerised register system.
They also had the full network system and had two? RISC PC's as network servers, which were still there unused when I left I believe and Econet sockets dotted around the place (you didn't need that many as you daisy-chained machines.
I know in one of the IT rooms there was a small cupboard full of A3XXX machines and my GCSE electronics prodject used an A7000 PSU!
In a lotof ways Acorn machines were ideal for classroom use as the most damage you could really do to one is erase/meddle with the configuration settings, the OS beimg on ROM was impossible to delete or really be affected by viruses, especially on units without a HDD.
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! We had Archimedes machines at secondary school a while into the 2000's, they only got their first windows machines in 1998/9 (PII 300? with Win98(SE) and they were primarily to the two computer rooms, replacing A7000 machines that were originally purchased with a grant from Acorn themselves, when they got replaced by XP machines they ended up being relocated to regular classrooms primarily for the new computerised register system.
They also had the full network system and had two? RISC PC's as network servers, which were still there unused when I left I believe and Econet sockets dotted around the place (you didn't need that many as you daisy-chained machines.
I know in one of the IT rooms there was a small cupboard full of A3XXX machines and my GCSE electronics prodject used an A7000 PSU!
In a lotof ways Acorn machines were ideal for classroom use as the most damage you could really do to one is erase/meddle with the configuration settings, the OS beimg on ROM was impossible to delete or really be affected by viruses, especially on units without a HDD.
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Janne
Starting soon LGR - COMPUTER RESET!
WE FIX Everything and some stuff we store to years to come! You could find Everything from our warehouse.
But seriously, stuff like that could be hard valuable for insurance care.
That motherboard is so nice weird thing for very weird build. You cannot say ISA is useless. Maybe for Soundblaster (yeah ac97 integrated, cannot speak even same day those shiddy) Everything necessary must be in cards, especially every i/o cards. But have seen agp + pci-e in same board, could be it was this guy's collection. At old days you could put own PC museum. Today is still possible found nice stuff with not at bad price. But it's crazy how some random parts start to get bigger and more prizes.
Flip-flop clock is masterpiece. Like flip dot displays.
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Starting soon LGR - COMPUTER RESET!
WE FIX Everything and some stuff we store to years to come! You could find Everything from our warehouse.
But seriously, stuff like that could be hard valuable for insurance care.
That motherboard is so nice weird thing for very weird build. You cannot say ISA is useless. Maybe for Soundblaster (yeah ac97 integrated, cannot speak even same day those shiddy) Everything necessary must be in cards, especially every i/o cards. But have seen agp + pci-e in same board, could be it was this guy's collection. At old days you could put own PC museum. Today is still possible found nice stuff with not at bad price. But it's crazy how some random parts start to get bigger and more prizes.
Flip-flop clock is masterpiece. Like flip dot displays.
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Daniel
In my school in the UK we had labs full of Archimedes computers until at least 1998 or so, and I'm sure that's fairly typical. Honestly it was a downgrade when they replaced them with Windows PCs. PC software of the time was in most ways inferior to what we had on the Archimedes. We still used Archimedes for some purposes even when I left in 2001. For example the technology department still had an Archimedes with a plotter that we used to plot masks for PCBs, because it was more than up to the task and it wouldn't have been worth spending money on a Windows PC that could do the job half as well. I think people underestimate just how powerful the later models of Archimedes were, it took a long time for Windows PCs to catch up at a reasonable price point.
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In my school in the UK we had labs full of Archimedes computers until at least 1998 or so, and I'm sure that's fairly typical. Honestly it was a downgrade when they replaced them with Windows PCs. PC software of the time was in most ways inferior to what we had on the Archimedes. We still used Archimedes for some purposes even when I left in 2001. For example the technology department still had an Archimedes with a plotter that we used to plot masks for PCBs, because it was more than up to the task and it wouldn't have been worth spending money on a Windows PC that could do the job half as well. I think people underestimate just how powerful the later models of Archimedes were, it took a long time for Windows PCs to catch up at a reasonable price point.
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Crazy
After binging all the unboxing episodes, seeing one posted just two days ago is actually great timing! I love yer videos man, keep up the great content! I have yet to find a proper source of income so I have to get my retro computing fix from your videos, and they essentially keep me from wasting what little money I have buying old retro tech just to experience the childhood I never had. I definitely wish I was born in the 90s(or even the 80s) rather than 2001, just so I could have experienced the golden age of tech! Regardless, thank you for bringing us the experience some of us might never experience otherwise!
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After binging all the unboxing episodes, seeing one posted just two days ago is actually great timing! I love yer videos man, keep up the great content! I have yet to find a proper source of income so I have to get my retro computing fix from your videos, and they essentially keep me from wasting what little money I have buying old retro tech just to experience the childhood I never had. I definitely wish I was born in the 90s(or even the 80s) rather than 2001, just so I could have experienced the golden age of tech! Regardless, thank you for bringing us the experience some of us might never experience otherwise!
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michael1234252
Just seeing that interplay mug and the prototype Sidewinder Dual strike. Brings back memories of 21 years ago of me playing Descent 2 and 3 on my computer in my room on a Saturday afternoon. At that time I was a young kid about 6 or so and yet my parents let me play those T rated games along with some other more kid friendly games. That was one of my true earliest memories of playing a hardcore FPS game. I super fondly remember playing Descent 3 and getting to a level where I spent a long time trying to find one of the door keys after I've already killed all the robotic enemies.
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Just seeing that interplay mug and the prototype Sidewinder Dual strike. Brings back memories of 21 years ago of me playing Descent 2 and 3 on my computer in my room on a Saturday afternoon. At that time I was a young kid about 6 or so and yet my parents let me play those T rated games along with some other more kid friendly games. That was one of my true earliest memories of playing a hardcore FPS game. I super fondly remember playing Descent 3 and getting to a level where I spent a long time trying to find one of the door keys after I've already killed all the robotic enemies.
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senilyDeluxe
12: 50 I have that scope and I believe my drivers disk is for Windows 3. 1x. Haven't tried it out yet though.
And I have one of these Mitsumi 1x CD ROM drives. the 1x one reads pretty much everything no matter how scratched up it is.
I bet someone already commented this, but the scary analog sounds you're picking up is probably your camera and/or WiFi router and stuff. Just go ask Shango and Techmoan.
Edit: Black Lights Matter! (that radio looks awesome)
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12: 50 I have that scope and I believe my drivers disk is for Windows 3. 1x. Haven't tried it out yet though.
And I have one of these Mitsumi 1x CD ROM drives. the 1x one reads pretty much everything no matter how scratched up it is.
I bet someone already commented this, but the scary analog sounds you're picking up is probably your camera and/or WiFi router and stuff. Just go ask Shango and Techmoan.
Edit: Black Lights Matter! (that radio looks awesome)
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Yoda
I remember getting my first Mac in 2008, and realizing they don't have the spiral-bound manuals anymore. I was a sad panda. The Mac was great thankfully!
I desperately wanted a Toshiba Libretto in 2007-2008, but had to settle for something like the Fujitsu Lifebook. People had never seen a computer that small, and it was an instant conversation starter. Life before Netbooks!
Almost forgot to turn on the snarky subtitles. -chuckles in dust bunnies-
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I remember getting my first Mac in 2008, and realizing they don't have the spiral-bound manuals anymore. I was a sad panda. The Mac was great thankfully!
I desperately wanted a Toshiba Libretto in 2007-2008, but had to settle for something like the Fujitsu Lifebook. People had never seen a computer that small, and it was an instant conversation starter. Life before Netbooks!
Almost forgot to turn on the snarky subtitles. -chuckles in dust bunnies-
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hobbyhands
Well I'm back to thrifting. Had a good thrift, but almost had an amazing one. I picked up an n64 for $50. Also a few games and some really neat official posters. I also picked up a Appleiic with monitor and printer for $349, and TRS-80 4P FOR $129. Finally tried my Texas Instrument 99/4a. And it also works: . If the guy does not sell I am picking up a working commodore PET this Saturday. I really hope to get that!
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Well I'm back to thrifting. Had a good thrift, but almost had an amazing one. I picked up an n64 for $50. Also a few games and some really neat official posters. I also picked up a Appleiic with monitor and printer for $349, and TRS-80 4P FOR $129. Finally tried my Texas Instrument 99/4a. And it also works: . If the guy does not sell I am picking up a working commodore PET this Saturday. I really hope to get that!
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Hugh
Interesting that Creative did surround stands - I never even knew they existed. I remember seeing the floor stands but never that setup.
They certainly explain the rather shortish cable length on their rears though - clearly their market was using it for enclosed setups like this rather than a full on huge living room system. I would have loved to see a bifold version of this for their later 7. 1 setups
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Interesting that Creative did surround stands - I never even knew they existed. I remember seeing the floor stands but never that setup.
They certainly explain the rather shortish cable length on their rears though - clearly their market was using it for enclosed setups like this rather than a full on huge living room system. I would have loved to see a bifold version of this for their later 7. 1 setups
reply
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