Thread for unusual consoles, computers and clones.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Starting this because I watched an interesting video on =https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEg_x3D2sbsYoutube about how after the Soviet Union collapsed Russia was flooded with a cheap Taiwanese famiclone called Dendy.



The company that marketed it eventually caught the attention of Nintendo America who weren't that bothered about the clone and signed a deal with the company agreeing to distribute SNES games and consoles as long as they didn't promote Sega in any way. Steepler went bump because they couldn't profit from selling licensed games in competition with cheap knockoffs.

[Twed]

Any hardware called "Dendy" should have a little face on it. Like Henry hoovers.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Any hardware called "Dendy" should have a little face on it. Like Henry hoovers.

It had a little elephant logo, which you can't really make out on that picture.

[Blue Jam]

Being a Taff I'd love to see one of these bad boyos in the flesh:

[Twed]

It had a little elephant logo, which you can't really make out on that picture.

Ah, there's my Dendy.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Being a Taff I'd love to see one of these bad boyos in the flesh:

I want a go on an Oric-1.

[Cold Meat Platter]

Being a Taff I'd love to see one of these bad boyos in the flesh:

My first computer. Chrimbo 83 I think.
Many hours spent typing in programs from magazines on that chap, some of them even working.
I had the famous Cascade "Cassette 50" for it: 50 games, all of them in BASIC, all dogshit.

[seepage]

The Jupiter Ace home computer from 1982 was unusual in that it ran Forth instead of the usual Basic

At uni in the same year, there were what looked like CRT monitors, but instead housed an HP programmable calculator with a 3-line LED display. Below was a keyboard with a slide-out plastic sheet with the instruction set printed on it.

[NoSleep]

I had an Atari 400, which was a computer but was bought because it had a cartridge port to enable me to play games like Donkey Kong, Miner 2049er, Star Raiders & Pole Position.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Being a Taff I'd love to see one of these bad boyos in the flesh:

There's one in my Dad's cellar if it helps. Doesn't work though.

[kngen]

I want a go on an Oric-1.

The only thing I remember about the Oric (apart from the stunningly shit keyboard) was that you could type in onomatopoeic words and it would make the sound, like 'ping' or 'beep'. (Possibly just those two - I don't think 'woof' worked, or the myriad scatological sounds 10-year-old me wanted to hear).

This thorough examination of its capabilities came from fannying around with it in John Menzies one afternoon, and then thinking "130 quid for fucking 'ping' - fuck that!"

[Cuntbeaks]

The only thing I remember about the Oric (apart from the stunningly shit keyboard) was that you could type in onomatopoeic words and it would make the sound, like 'ping' or 'beep'. (Possibly just those two - I don't think 'woof' worked, or the myriad scatological sounds 10-year-old me wanted to hear).

This thorough examination of its capabilities came from fannying around with it in John Menzies one afternoon, and then thinking "130 quid for fucking 'ping' - fuck that!"

Sounds like you spent your Saturday's in a similar way to me. Simple things, for simpler times.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The Jupiter Ace home computer from 1982 was unusual in that it ran Forth instead of the usual Basic

At uni in the same year, there were what looked like CRT monitors, but instead housed an HP programmable calculator with a 3-line LED display. Below was a keyboard with a slide-out plastic sheet with the instruction set printed on it.

ZAP, PING, SHOOT and EXPLODE apparently.

I thought the Oric could have a Forth rom option but it looks like it was loaded by tape.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2013/01/28/the_oric_1_is_30_years_old/

Forth was also seemingly available as both rom and tape on Acorn machines, expandable wonders that they were.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Sounds like you spent your Saturday's in a similar way to me. Simple things, for simpler times.

Slightly less simple times involved changing the Marquee screensavers on pc's in dixons.

[kngen]

ZAP, PING, SHOOT and EXPLODE apparently.

I did not know about EXPLODE! That would have kept me amused for an extra five minutes.

Slightly less simple times involved changing the Marquee screensavers on pc's in dixons.

Our geeky mate and unending source of knock-off games – 'Joe 90' (naturally) – used to make our 10 PRINT 'Arseflaps': 20 GOTO 10 look as juvenile and basic (heh) as they obviously were. Little bits of code that he'd get from the cracking crews that he'd trade with - stuff that could lock screens to rudimentary porn gfx on a speccy or make a Commodore disk drive emit screechy siren sound instead of its usual 'beep'. We were all immensely impressed when he was banned sin die from all branches of John Menzies and WH Smith in Glasgow city centre.

(We should have probably paid more attention to what he was learning on the side, because when we all ended up on the dole, he started his own company and made a shit ton of money helping companies secure their computer networks from the likes of him.)