[plug] Slightly OT.. 5 1/4 Drives

[Ben New]

Ahhhh memories...

Acorn was the company and the computers were called BBC Master 
Compacts.  They were standard issue in WA schools I think.  They had 
those dodgy ribbon cables between the box and the keyboard, and that 
submarine game with the wierd caterpillar thing.  At that stage I had an 
Amstrad CPC 664 which was much better IMO, and had at least the same 
stuff that was useful - BASIC and LOGO.  Of course the C64 was the most 
popular but they always had those horrendous tape drives (they had 
floppy drives but nobody seemed to have them).  Very resistant to 
physical punishment, though (probably a requirement caused by the tape 
drive...) and it also had a cartridge slot on which Wizards of Wor could 
be played ;-)

Going back even further... check out this baby, it's got pots!  (don't 
think it will run Linux 2.6 though):
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=787

Ben

PS.  I promise I'll stop leading threads waaay off topic now ;-}  I hope 
there's nobody on this list from their main POP email account on a 
dialup connection...  :-/



Chris Caston wrote:

>/me shakes his head. The only kids games I ever played were on the Acorn
>(also known as BBC) computers.
>
>Those things didn't even have HD's, instead using only floppies and some
>kinda build-in read-only MOS system.
>
>About the most useful thing on them was the BASIC interpretor which was
>the only thing that kept us 6 year olds occupied (; 
>
>regards,
>
>Chris
>
>On Sun, 2003-12-21 at 21:22, Daniel Pearson wrote:
>  
>
>>They're some really old educational games, have sentimental/nostalgic
>>value - ABC Fun Keys, Balloon Speller, Funnels & Buckets, Googal Math Games,
>>Kindermath, School Mom, Clock Game, and Tell Time.
>>
>>Also, for anyone who has any old games that run too fast on their PC - you
>>can use a great opensource program called DOSBox
>>(http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/) in either Linux OR Windows to play them.
>>
>>Regards,
>>Daniel
>>
>>----- Original Message ----- 
>>From: "Chris Caston" <caston at arach.net.au>
>>To: <plug at plug.linux.org.au>
>>Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2003 9:07 PM
>>Subject: Re: [plug] Slightly OT.. 5 1/4 Drives
>>
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Yeah those were the days.
>>>
>>>I remember buying space quest III and getting two sets of disks both 5
>>>1/4" and 3.5". Due to only having a 5 1/4 drive at the time (I threw it
>>>out about 6 months ago your too late ;-) I gave the 3.5" disks to a
>>>friend so he could play it.
>>>
>>>So what is the game(s) that you can't find and on and old school ftp
>>>site or find a freeware or open source replacement?
>>>
>>>regards,
>>>
>>>Chris
>>>On Sun, 2003-12-21 at 20:07, Daniel Pearson wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Hi Guys,
>>>>I've just found a few old games that I *really* used to love playing
>>>>        
>>>>
>>when I
>>    
>>
>>>>was quite young, only problem is they're on 5 1/4" disks.. does anyone
>>>>        
>>>>
>>have
>>    
>>
>>>>a computer that can read these, and if so can we get them onto some 3.5"
>>>>disks?
>>>>
>>>>Regards,
>>>>Daniel
>>>>
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>plug mailing list
>>>>plug at plug.linux.org.au
>>>>http://mail.plug.linux.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plug
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>plug mailing list
>>>plug at plug.linux.org.au
>>>http://mail.plug.linux.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plug
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>plug mailing list
>>plug at plug.linux.org.au
>>http://mail.plug.linux.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plug
>>
>>    
>>
>
>_______________________________________________
>plug mailing list
>plug at plug.linux.org.au
>http://mail.plug.linux.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plug
>
>  
>

-- 
Ben New
ben at leftclick.com.au

Leftclick Software Development
http://www.leftclick.com.au/