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heredragons.be
Also known as @herebedragons3 on the other site. Collector of all things Dragon - and much else beyond. Occasional fixer of computers, more commonly a breaker of them. See also https://retrofest.uk/ and @shortcircuit.org.uk for exciting events info!
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Day 59 - #retrorandom - Time for some chaos back in 2023. Given it's November, I presume I'm dragging out stuff I might be taking to the Retro Computer Festival in Cambridge. Or maybe I'm just untidy and my place always looks like this. You decide!

submitted 3 hours ago • 1 comment

Day 58 - #retrorandom - It's 2022 - and more importantly it's 40 years after 1982! This was one of my favourite festivals we did in Cambridge - a celebration of the huge variety of machines that were launched in that year. Here's we've just got set up and we're waiting for the crowds to arrive! 1/2

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

Day 57 - #retrorandom - Back in 2020 I got this beauty, probably the most gorgeous portable computer of the 80s - the Olivetti M-10. It's technically identical to the much more common Tandy Model 100 (both share the same Kyocera design), but done with real Italian flare ... 1/2

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Day 56 - #retrorandom - So why was this poor Dragon naked back in 2022? I'm going to guess, given the output of the diagnostics card and the bodge wires that this machine was upgraded to 64K - for free! 1/2

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Day 56 - #retrorandom - An early retro computer purchase today - the Apple IIe Platinum that I bought almost ten years ago. The Platinum itself dates from 1987. I'm currently with @glasstty.bsky.social, admiring his, and thinking I must drag mine out of the loft and actually use it!

submitted 3 days ago • 4 comments

Day 55 - #retrorandom - What witchcraft is this? An 80 column Dragon? With green on black text?? Well, it's actually a Compusense DragonPlus board, a period add-on from 1984ish that added another 64K of memory and an 80 column text mode to the Dragon (but no graphics) ... 1/2

submitted 5 days ago • 4 comments

Day 54 - #retrorandom - This gorgeous machine joined my collection of French oddities back in 2020. It's an Exelvision EXL100, from 1984. Technically, it's a close cousin to the Texas Instrument CC-40 handheld I posted a little while back - same CPU and possibly BASIC ... 1/2

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Oooh, so close! Can't believe I might see this working one day ...

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Day 53 - #retrorandom - Sometimes you get the great honour to be the first person to use a computer, one that's been in its box for 35 years - like I did, back in 2017, with this mint Micro-Professor II from 1982 ... 1/2

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

Day 52 - #retrorandom - I don't have as many Sharps as I do Dragons, but it's getting worryingly close. This beauty is my Sharp MZ-80K2E - a limited edition version of the standard 80K, made to celebrate them producing 100,000 machines ... 1/2

submitted 8 days ago • 9 comments

Day 51 - #retrorandom - I'm starting to realise I keep a pretty messy workbench from the pictures I'm posting here. And today, among the mess, we find my Memotech MTX512. It didn't take much to make it work, I just needed to take it apart, push the chips in and re-assemble ... 1/2

submitted 9 days ago • 4 comments

In case you were wondering how the "PETSCII Flying Toasters" for the Commodore PET are doing: working nicely, but there may be still some things I want to polish. – Stay tuned! 😀 See below for the state of affairs: #petscii #mos6502 #commodore

submitted 9 days ago • 3 comments

"on a ZX Spectrum!"

submitted 9 days ago • 3 comments

Day 50 - #retrorandom - its an Executel repair day in 2022. I had a dead Executel with a complete keyboard for years - and recently purchased a working one with missing keys ... so time for a keyboard swap! 1/2

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

Day 49 - #retrorandom - I think I've posed this question before ... is it possible to have too many Dragons? It's September 2023 and I can only presume I'm getting ready for that year's Dragon Meetup ... 1/2

submitted 11 days ago • 2 comments

Day 48 - #retrorandom - Ah, Retro Computer Festival, 2022. The increasing popularity of the event meant we needed to start limiting exhibitors to just one table, rather than being allowed to spread out. This meant some exhibitors got ... vertical!

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Day 47 - #retrorandom - It's 2022 and I'm adding colour to the wonderfully green screened Sharp MZ-80A. Apparently, Sharp had planned to do this all along - if you have a look round the back you'll see the empty socket where the video output was meant to be ... 1/3

submitted 13 days ago • 2 comments

Day 46 - #retrorandom - It's the 2019 Dragon Meetup, and the theme this year is 'things you can plug into a Dragon' - like cartridges, upgrades, floppies and mice. Hang on ... mice? 1/2

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

Oh wow, it works. I put in a (refurbished) battery and the SIM from my phone and it just worked! It's not 100% - the front display is a bit messed up, but the internal computer (a 386 running GEOS, would you believe?) is working just fine! And it's THIRTY years old ... 1/3

submitted 14 days ago • 2 comments

Day 45 - #retrorandom - Now here's a machine you don't see very often - the Vtech Laser 500! I got mine back in 2021, and I really must dust it off again some time and see what makes it tick. It might be another 'nearly MSX', but I'm not sure ... 1/2

submitted 15 days ago • 2 comments

Day 44 - #retrorandom - My Yahama CX5M, photographed here back in 2018. I got this machine for my 18th birthday and it still gets used regularly - mostly because of nostalgia, but also because it's still a pretty useable synth - basically a Yamaha DX9 in an MSX computer ...

submitted 16 days ago • 2 comments