Retro - anyone taking it a bit further ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter slaz
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies Replies 13
  • Views Views 538
slaz

slaz

New member
Joined
May 19, 2010
Posts
382
Country
UK
Region
London
Well - this forum is about retro computing - but what about other retro "things" ?

I'm thinking of - e.g. retro video making, as in analogue videotape, editing etc.
There's no doubting that analogue audio is "back" .... vinyl records (and tape cassette), valve amplifiers etc. , so what about video ?

And ye olde BBS's ? Anyone done a "virtual" BBS on a website/whatever .... I mean faked up modem noises with line-pickup, dialling "tune", followed by a few seconds of modem screeching noise, followed by a black ANSI text screen + login prompt .etc. :-) Needs to limited to about 56k bandwidth of course :-) (Well mebbe allow 112k or so)
Would have the old download/upload sections, local messaging, and ..... FIDONET !! :-)
 
I have been accused of taking things a bit too far :P, at least a few people who have followed my 'thrift shop' postings have told me, anyways...

For me, it's more about having all those things that I saw and wanted as a kid/teen, but couldn't afford, or re-acquiring things I did have but lost/sold over the years, things mostly from the 70s, 80s and early 90s (and of course, older, or newer, depending on what it is...), imo, most things 25+ years old usually fall into the category of 'retro' (ie: for me, Sega Genesis/Super Nintendo (4th gen) have recently fallen into retro status, but PS1 (5th gen) has not...although 3DO and Atari Jaguar are coming close)

some of the 'retro' type things I collect include:

Board, War, Role-Playing, Card, etc Games (ie: tabletop) -I am particularly fond of Avalon Hill, TSR, Steve Jackson Games, some Games Workshop)

Gamebooks -Choose Your Own Adventure, Fighting Fantasy, Endless Quest, Which Way, Find Your Fate, Tolkien/Middle Earth Quest, Interplanetary Spy, etc

Toys -in particular, figures and action figures, Star Wars, Smurf figurines from the 60s-80s, anything I remember from my childhood.

Books -classic literature in hardback, movie related...Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Black Hole, Tintin, Asterix

Video Games -especially 2nd gen, Atari 2600, ColecoVision, Intellivision, Vectrex, some of the handhelds from that era as well (wish the Game-and-Watch ones weren't so pricey
dry.gif
_>" smilieid="189" class="inlineimg" border="0"> ) also NES, SMS, A7800, SNES, SG, TG16

Computers -mostly the late 70s to mid-80s, C64, C128, Apple II, CoCo, TI99, Atari 8-bit, some interest in early Amigas, Atari ST, early Mac, PC (XT-486 era - which I spent many years building, repairing, upgrading as a 'paid hobby')

Software -if I see 'vintage' computer software for a decent price I will usually grab it.

Cards -sports and movie/tv, hockey, Star Wars, particularly scifi from the 70s/80s

Media -recently I have been picking up CDs and LPs again, back in the day, outside of my XTC collection, I don't think I had very much more than 25-30 CDs at any given time, but they are dirt cheap in the thrift shops these days, largely lost interest in cassettes, VHS, Beta and DVD (for the most part)

Comics -used to collect comics back in the 80s and 90s, sold my collection, but have gotten back into it a bit recently, partial to Marvel & Dark Horse, to a lesser degree (when they came out with Alien, Predator and Terminator titles in the 80s), some DC.

Magazines -Heavy Metal, Mad, Cracked, Crazy, CARtoons, Starlog, computer related from the day, like Compute, Compute's Gazette, RUN...been thinking of picking up Savage Sword of Conan when I hit the comic shop, one of these days.

they may have a point. :lol:

here are some peeks at my collections...

Board Games: https://boardgamegeek.com/collectio...ating|comment|commands&ff=1&subtype=boardgame

RPGs: https://rpggeek.com/collection/user...grating|comment|commands&ff=1&subtype=rpgitem

Video Games/Computer: http://gametz.com/user/SaviorX/Collection.html

CDs/LPs: https://www.discogs.com/user/HarpoonX/collection?page=2&layout=big
 
Last edited:
@slaz, @all : There actually is a rather new BBS running on a Pi, maintained by a fellow local Amigan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhxX7QuCQXw
I'm all in for most anything retro, be it memorabillia, toys, audio/video gear and media, music-making etc. When (if) i ever stop making new projects, i intend to start transferring video footage from my countless VHS tapes to digital form. Although i have plenty of VCRs, i need to start looking after them, as some require at least drive belts. Am wondering how to find out what the proper sizes are for replacement; my first VCR is a Hitachi VT-8040E i purchased back in 1982...
 
@salaxi .... yeah VHS machines will almost certainly need some TLC by now. ISTR drive belts are quite a PITA to fit (even after you've found em) - you have to disassemble quite a bit of the drive mech. Some will prob need some re-capping too I should think.
I was kinda thinking of using old professional/semi-pro gear though ..... machines with proper pre-roll, edit controller interfaces etc. like S-VHS, U-matic etc. It's bulky gear though - would take some doing to put together a "proper" edit suite now .... OTOH wouldn't be too surprising if a whole suite pop up somewhere.

The BBS business - whoa cool - will give that a try sometime :-)
 
I got a semi pro camera (got it for free with some broadcast monitors I bought) that output composite to a connected recording device. so because of that one of this days I'll hook my Amiga up with a genlock and framegrabber and other video gear (not toaster since I'm in pal land) and do some vintage recording. :) The best thing is that I can just hook the amiga video gear directly to my video switch and grab footage from say the c64 or another amiga. Or have amiga genlock on top of it.
 
I wear a Commodore LED watch, use a retro calculator and use some retro electronics test equipment. I also restore Valve equipment (Radios / Amps). The wife is also retro (as in she was made in the 70's).

Bryce.
 
moijk said:
I got a semi pro camera (got it for free with some broadcast monitors I bought) that output composite to a connected recording device. so because of that one of this days I'll hook my Amiga up with a genlock and framegrabber and other video gear (not toaster since I'm in pal land) and do some vintage recording. :) The best thing is that I can just hook the amiga video gear directly to my video switch and grab footage from say the c64 or another amiga. Or have amiga genlock on top of it.
Click to expand...

Yup - you could do some pretty wacky analogue compositing that way - especially if (for Amiga) you had a <cough) G2 VC3 genlocker <cough> :-)

I recently heard that in some trendy nightclubs here, they're using assortments of composite video sources including VHS (presumably with a TBC or frame synchroniser of some sort) "mixed" live and projected on to big screens. Apparently it HAS to be analogue- otherwise its not trendy :-)

- - - Updated - - -

Bryce said:
I also restore Valve equipment (Radios / Amps)

Bryce.
Click to expand...

Yeah -well - valve amplifiers (I mean big ones = several 100W type ones) are _very_ desirable in certain segments of the sound system scene ..... especially the reggae ones.
The _original_ Jamaican recordings from late 60s early 70s were specifically mixed and pressed for valve sound systems. I think its largely down to the valve amp soft clipping with exaggerated bass sounding nice, even though the measured distortion is very high :-)
 
Last edited:
The distortion is actually the bit that makes most people like how they sound. Remove that and it doesn't sound like a valve amp any more.

Bryce.
 
I only watch moves on LD. No DVD or blu ray here.

I also make tube/valve amps. I came up with a tube amp that used to cost only about 25$ USD to make. But some scummy company that sells junk out of Indiana ripped it off and drove the prices of the tubes way up.
I have a new amp I'm working on that uses TV tubes and this time I'll trade mark it or something. I don't want the same company ripping it off and clamming they came up with it.
 
Sure, this is my wearable smart device:

casio.jpg

10-year battery life, sweet...
 
Hope you are not into a disappointment in the VHS to digital conversion. I did a number of those, including some hard to find stuff like ahem [Working Girls w/Cassandra Peterson aka Elvira] as well as Elvira the Movie, The 39 Steps by Hitchcock, House of Wax, This Island Earth, Volcano, Short Circuit, and others. Video is pretty grainy, but maybe my digitizer was not quality stuff. Good luck anyway. Tom
 
Tom, i have no complaint about transferring VHS contents to digital form. My only problem is time and mood. As with any hobby, real life steps in, and screws everything. I happen to use this: https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1587788,00.asp
Plextor does the job pretty well and with ease. There's no reason for me to convert movies, it's all personal footage, and it's countless. Luckilly, the machine supports both PAL and NTSC, and that's great because approx. 99,9% of my tapes are NTSC..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom