John Newcombe

A new old Newbury #Newbear, a set of depressed talking scales and some #Retrofest nonesense. youtu.be/dBDzNDR9Bic

I'm trying to decide which is the best view. Saint Ives or the Office at home.

youtu.be/DScdsdFIP_A?... RetroFest 2026 - The Unofficial Advert

I finally got around to putting a video together for the North Star Horizon. youtu.be/gFO5XHTvKG8?...

Recreating a 1980s weather receiving station.

Can't wait to see the video! We tidied up specially and everything 😄

A massive thank you to @petescircuit.bsky.social and @loudscotsbloke.bsky.social for their generosity in supplying the missing components for my now working ZX80.

If you are interested in trying out an Acorn System 1, but don't have deep enough pockets for an original, then you could try out a 'System 1 Trainer' by Chris Oddy. He also does replica boards for the Acorn Atom amongst other things!

Day 159 - #retrorandom - It was a happy day in 2020 when I eventually got one of the most stylish little computers ever made - the Alice 90. What does it have 90 of? No one is sure. Not kilobytes of memory, that's for sure (it has 32). But who's going to nitpick when you're this gorgeous?

The Museum of Computing would like to thank @shortcircuit.org.uk for organising the amazing RetroFest event in our home town of Swindon. It was a pleasure to collaborate with them and we met so many wonderful visitors and exhibitors. We look forward to supporting next year's event!

Just in case you like Pirate stories... youtu.be/93XWZeG5VDw

Do you need some teletext advertising? 😄

I'll be there with as much Prestel junk as I can fit in a reasonably priced hatchback along with some of my favourite badges.

I'll be there both days! I'm really looking forward to catching up in MR (Meat Reality) with a huge bunch of amazing people. I'll be there with a bunch of other YouTube people representing the Big Red Arrow club.

Time for an embarrassing plug! If you would like some digital downloads for your Aquarius then please check out loudscotsbloke.itch.io If you would like a physical copy of my games, on cassette (yes! tape!), then please head over to Cronosoft cronosoft.fwscart.com/browse/cat53... #mattelaquarius

Weekend to myself. Mrs B is off to Lisbon to visit daughter. Going to do my soak testing and packing for RetroFest. Then a short week - bank holiday for those of us in the UK on Monday, and then I'm off on Friday so that I can take my time loading up and travelling down to Swindon. retrofest.uk

Scream-face.jpg Perhaps spending all afternoon trying to get sigrok to recognise my saleae clone analyser isn’t the best use of time. It’s interesting that all variants fail with the same error though.

I am completely calm about this. So calm. Very calm indeed. Not panicking at all.

It's just one week to go! It's getting full, though. We have more tickets available for Sunday, and it’ll be almost exactly* the same wonderful exhibitors. If you’re just coming one day, please consider coming Sunday, to ensure everyone gets to come to our event! www.retrofest.uk/tickets.php

Isambard Kingdom Brunel would like to remind you that it's just TWO WEEKS until RetroFest! retrofest.uk

Nothing like advertising your own game! Lol. Come and see (and play!) my latest Aquarius game 'Grid Trap' at RetroFest 2025!! www.retrofest.uk

As a small reminder RetroFest is this month, so get your tickets while you still can. I'm going to be there along with many of the retofest regulars, and a number of retro Youtubers who's faces you might actually recognise.

Only 4 weeks!!! Grab your tickets now! I need to start sorting out what I'm exhibiting, but rest assured I will be bringing rare and interesting oddballs! Come and see my incredibly rare Aquarius 2 showing off the event logo in person!

Retrofest2025 is getting closer! The Sinclair QL has properly entered the chat. 31st May/1st June at STEAM in Swindon.

Spending the afternoon getting things ready for RetroFest later this month. Things are finally starting to work! 😀. #RetroFest www.retrofest.uk

Finally sorted the disk 'module' thanks to some Cardboard Aided Design.

Day 104 - #retrorandom - Look at all these lovely pocket and portable computers at 'Made in Japan' in Cambridge in 2023! A combination of my machines and @glasstty.bsky.social's. I am such a sucker for these little machines ...

Day 101 - #retrorandom - This lovely little machine isn't a laptop, it's a portable Minitel terminal! Here it's connected to @glasstty.bsky.social's Telstar system via the internal modem. I can't help but wonder what the market for a machine like this would be in the days before mobile comms ... 1/2

I got a new toy! (thanks @glasstty.bsky.social) So I know it's a capable little Z80 machine with plenty of memory that runs CP/M - there must be more funky things I can do with it than just wordprocessing?

Well, tonight is looking up!! 😎👍🍻

This time it's not just us (you'll be glad to hear) - I spy @glasstty.bsky.social, @onlyretrofans.com, www.youtube.com/@techmadeeas..., @visitthecave.bsky.social and @retrobytes.bsky.social in there too ...

Day 71 - #retrorandom - It's been a while since we've had some Dragons, and now we've got a pair of doozies, getting ready for the 2024 Dragon Meetup. On the left we've got the 'black' Dragon connected to @glasstty.bsky.social's Telstar service via a wifi modem ... 1/2

youtu.be/sf8CMd0w_5s

RETROFEST!!!!!!!

To all you YouTubers and particularly the Big Red Arrow Club... youtu.be/THUADgyaLJU

It's time to sit down with a cup of tea here at ShortCircuit and see what's on TV ... www.youtube.com/@shortcircui...

Retrofest 31st May->1st June 2025, Swindon UK ... www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCZ-...

We thought we'd take advantage of our dashing good looks and natural talent in front of the camera to create a video to tell you a little more about us and RetroFest - please do all the subscribe and share stuff if you want updates on the event (or just like looking at us!) youtu.be/UCZ-BtFW9Ok?...

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!

RetroFest going from strength to strength!

Hey guys, cheap Levi's.

We are VERY excited to announce our first major retro event - RetroFest 2025, to be held at STEAM, the GWR museum in Swindon on 31st May / 1st June. Over 40 exhibitors will be bringing a vast range of computers from the 70s, 80s and 90s. More info - retrofest.uk

Today has brought very high levels of anxiety, followed by euphoria.

Day 4 - #retrorandom - It's the weekend, so a quick post today. I'm not entirely sure why I took this picture back in 2021 - I can't see a theme linking these machines at all. I suspect I was in the middle of a house move and this was simply the contents of one packing box!

Two for one deal today with the NEC V20 & V40 CPUs. The V20 is pin & code compatible with the Intel 8088 and slightly more efficient providing a small speed bump for XT class PCs. The V40 is an embedded version, containing a UART, programmable timer and 8255 parallel port interface.

Do have a few others though, R12000, R10000, R5000, R4000, R4400, R4600 and R3000

Next up is the MIPS R12000. Introduced in 1998, it's an improved version of the R10000 CPU. It was used in a handful of machines from NEC, Siemens, Tandem and SGI. This particular one was pulled from a faulty CPU board in an SGI Origin 2000 deskside system.

After lifting the CPT on and off its trolley a few times today, my spine is insisting that I share this pic just so you can get an idea as to how BIG this thing is. Here’s its rear view in full with a ZX Spectrum on top of it. The Speccy is more powerful too, in processing terms at least.

Found this in a job lot of Z80's. It's a Zilog Z8 micro-controller, introduced in 1979. Although the instruction set is similar to the Z80, this is a different beast altogether. This is a ROMless version, without integrated ROM. However, some were available with BASIC or a one time programable ROM.

I remember when I though a 5Mb hard disk was large, now I think its enormous!