Digital Menagerie On 20th May 2008 my wife asked me how many computers I've got at home (not counting her iMac, on which she was composing an email at the time). I immediately reckoned more than 20, but it is (as I suspected) a lot more than that. Most of them are directly programmable but some are not - even so I've included the game consoles as I program those for a living, and hand-held computers/PDAs as I've got ways of programming those, too. Some of these nominally belong to my son Ingo. They're all fully-working unless otherwise noted. Game Consoles 10 Nintendo DS-Lite (this really does belong to Ingo) Nintendo GameCube (standard UK model, plus two drum controllers) Sony PlayStation 2 (UK original model, with HD and network expansion) Sony PlayStation 1 (UK original model, out on loan) Sony PlayStation 1 (110V blue NTSC debugging station, from a skip) Sony PlayStation 1 (110V blue NTSC debugging station, from a skip) Sony PlayStation 1 (120V grey NTSC Japanese consumer unit) Amiga CD32 (with SX-1 HD, RAM parallel and kbd & dud FMV VCD expansions) Sega Megadrive 2 (UK model) Milton Bradley Vectrex (with VecFlash expansion cartridge) I've got most of a couple of other PS1s but those lack CD drives. Hand-held 7 Nintendo GameBoy (original) Nintendo GameBoy pocket Apple Newton Psion Series 3A (with damaged left hinge) Cybiko (with MP3 add-on and SD memory expansion) Atari Lynx (broken, ex Radio rally, loose bits inside) Cambridge Computer Z88 Apple Mac 68K 7 Apple PowerBook 68020 laptop (6 Mb RAM, HD, external SCSI) Apple Mac LC3 63030/25 (32/32 bit, SCSI, Ethernet) - given away Apple Mac LC2 63030/16 (16/32 bit, SCSI, Ethernet) Apple Mac LC2 63030/16 (16/32 bit, SCSI) Quadra 700 68040 (with Radius Pivot, SCSI scanner etc) Quadra 700 68040 (cracked case, but working) Another Mac 2 68030 NuBus system Apple Mac PPC 2 Dual 500 MHz G4 PowerMac (2.5 Gb DVD-RAM, ZIP drive) 800 MHz G4 iBook laptop (256Mb, broken hinge) Amigas (plus CD32 console listed above) 11 A4000/060 100 Mb RAM, X-Surf, Prelude, XG MIDI, Picasso 2+, Cyberstorm 2 A4000/060 Cyberstorm 1, needs attention, SCSI never worked properly A4000/040 (in bits, probably complete (most likely a few swaps)) A3000/030 (18 Mb RAM, SCSI) A1200/060 A1200/040 A1200/020 A500+ SCSI hard drive & RAM expansion A500+ SCSI hard drive A500+ (keyboard missing) A500 (one key missing) IDE hard drive and RAM expansion Older Commodores 2 VIC-20 (circuit board only, probably not working) C64 (circuit board, SID chip moved to a Zorro/PCI Catweasel card) X86 3 I never pay for X86 hardware - skips are full of it and it's rarely worth the hassle of maintaining such undesigned Frankenstein monsters - but have inherited three beige boxes which I've found uses for: 486SX/25, updated to 50 MHz DX, now a LS120-based Debian Linux firewall; this was my wife's computer when first I met her (with a 1x SCSI CD-ROM) AMD K6-2/500, originally for AmigaDE RH Linux work, now on Ubuntu/Debian after sterling service during my years writing for Linux Format (mainly about emulators for older computers) Intel P4/1600, my PC at work at ATD until parent group Kaboom went bust; originally running Windoze 2000, now Ubuntu after experiments with BeOS and Debian Gnu Linux. Z80 based 8-bit home computers (plus Z88 listed above) 10 Video Genie EG3003 (48K inc expansion, disc interface faulty) Yamaha CX-5M Music Computer (with FM cart and mini keyboard) MGT Sam Coupe (prototype, + IDE HD and ATAI CD/DVD expansion) MGT Sam Coupe (two floppy + expansion RAM, Ser/Par, etc) MGT Sam Coupe (in flight case, twin floppy, out on loan) MGT Sam Coupe (circuit board only) ZX Spectrum Plus Three ZX Spectrum Plus 2A (in flight case) ZX Spectrum 48K (issue 1, in bits, not working) ZX Spectrum 48K (issue 3, also in bits) ZX Spectrum 48K (in Fuller FDS case) Sinclair QL-based home computers 4 CST Thor XVI (68000, 2x FD and SCSI HD; drives/PSU erratic) Sinclair QL (UK model + 2Mb RAM Gold Card, 2 x 3.2 Mb FDD) Sinclair QL (US model (Samsung) + Hermes IPS replacement) Sinclair QL (UK model (Thorn-EMI) video and keyboard erratic) Other British home computers 3 Acorn Archimedes 420/I (ST506 HD, 25 MHz ARM 3 accelerator) Acorn Archimedes A3000 (Ethernet) Dragon 32 (in original box) That's 60 and counting... The ones I use most are the Amiga A4000/060 and the K6-2/500 Debian Gnu Linux box. I also have the following set-up with screens and ready to run: MGT Sam prototype Dual G4 PowerMac Mac Quadra 700 Video Genie EG-3003 Sinclair QL + Gold Card The PS2 and GameCube are installed in our living room, sometimes joined by the CD32 or Megadrive. Most of the others are in my office awaiting power and display connections, though a few of the 'swaps' are in our brick shed. Several of these machines (where I've already got 'swaps') can be available to good homes (people who I feel know how to use them and might actually do so) for a low price - just ask. I also have a large collection of related add-ons, spare chips, documents, cables and software, much of which I'd be willing to sell or give away if you have a pressing need for it. Let me know - interesting mails could yield interesting hardware. Simon N Goodwin, 2008-5-22, updated a week later