About two and a half years ago I decided it would be fun to share my personal “Byte Cellar” with everyone out there and took a series of photos of my (highly retro) basement computer room and stitched them together into a panoramic image as well as a QuickTime VR 360-degree movie. It seems to have intrigued a number of folks out there. Since then the room has changed a bit, and I decided the other day to create an update version.
I hope you like it.
I love it when you post photos of your place. I am so jealous of your awesome cellar. Hopefully one day I will have such a place for my toys.
Did you get the email I sent about my collection?
I wish I had a basement… the things I’d do to it..
great collection.. I’ve considered putting together the very same room. Do you have friends that enjoy this with you, or is this more of a fortress of solitude thing?
Dave: Well, my wife has zero interest in such things. I think she appreciates what this room is to a person with such a particular avid interest, like myself – but she’s not at all enticed by technology in any real respect.
A number of my close friends are techie nuts, but I’m the only one of them that’s so much about the oldschool. It’s this reason that my blog here is such a pleasant little project. Most of the few folks out there reading it are of a similar mind. :-)
Glad to hear from you and all visitors. Cheers.
Sweet. Really sweet. What is the poster right about the O2? I can’t quite figure it out.
I wish that I had the collection you do.
Is the ZX-Spectrum 128 hooked up to a display?
If so, what do you use to display a PAL TV signal?
Josh: The poster above the O2 is the 2nd annual Amiga Developers Conference poster.
http://pix.blakespot.com/view/computers/posters/robo_city.jpg.html
The featured graphic is a still from the famed “RoboCity,” a demo animation that was circulated with the release of the Amiga 1000 back in 1985. It was particularly impressive (for the day) given the spots of transparency found in parts of the various characters walking about the futuristic street scene. Even if there were no animation, the backdrop still was basically jaw-dropping to witness as nothing out there in the consumer space was capable of producing such colorful graphics.
CDoty: Actually, the spectrum is not hooked to a display yet. I acquired it a couple of years ago from a seller in the UK and intend to find a power supply that will allow it to operate on 110v. As far as the display, my Commodore 1084S features both analog and digital RGB. As I understand it, with the proper cable, the Spectrum 128 will work just fine displaying to the 1084S via digital RGB. I intend to fashion a cable at some point that will allow this to happen.
There is an app for the PC that allows it to emulate a cassette deck to feed cassette images from PC soundcard to spectrum directly. I’ve got a P3 running 98SE (used for emulation) that should work fine in that capacity.
Just haven’t gotten around to it yet… :-(
Beautiful — absolutely lovely !
8^ ]
By the way, Blake — is there a way I can see the “RoboCity” AMIGA animation ya mentioned on “YouTube” or wherever ?
8^ ]
Man, that room sets a mighty high bar. :) my little collection is a quarter of that and lives in milk crates and a shelf in the pantry, I’ve got to take everything out and set it up to play with and then put it all away and out of sight before the missus gets cranky. We’re looking to move to a larger place next year so hopefully then I’ll have a hobby room to properly set up the various toys.
Congrats, Blake. Nice work. You show some good interior design sense (although I’m hardly an expert!).
BTW is your Gmail account still active? If it isn’t and we want to send you an e-mail what address do you prefer?
Oh, and I really, really want that NeXT poster. ;-)
Cary: Surprisingly, I cannot find an on-line MPEG (or some such) of the RoboCity demo. I will create a quick and dirty capture of it running on my Amiga 2000 when I get back home (on week’s vacation at the beach presently!). Thanks for asking.
Pikemann Urge: Thanks! Click my name below this post to find my main email address.
The NeXT poster is one of my favorites. A great eBay find I got back in ’99.
http://pix.blakespot.com/view/computers/posters/IMG_2520.JPG.html