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How many "hobbyist" PCs do you have?

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Reply 80 of 100, by Sabina_16bit.

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butjer1010 wrote on 2025-03-13, 20:43:
Sabina_16bit. wrote on 2025-03-13, 11:11:
Depends on the overall budget dependencies. We r both sick,but her sickness is insufficient to get pension,thus we have 1 incom […]
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butjer1010 wrote on 2025-03-13, 06:40:

Heheheh, no it's not stored in the bedroom (not yet), i have 2 rooms full of my stuff, so there's the problem. Anger adequate to the amount??? I didn't think about that also! Maybe this is the main reason of her anger??? Not the lack of space for her things 😀

Depends on the overall budget dependencies.
We r both sick,but her sickness is insufficient to get pension,thus we have 1 income for 3 persons(the 3rd is the Cat,who 1ce caused 1 of my best monitors to fall & brake,thus probably it also was a protest?),& thus when I buy some HW,she gets angry immediately,when it arrives &/or when the account is empty,the 1st question of her interrogation is:"How expensive it was?",the 2nd question is:"Will it somehow serve me too?",I can lie for the 1st question to temporarily reduce her anger,but the main effect of any transaction comes @ the end of the fiscal month,because if the account is empty for 1 week,she is angry for 1 week,if the account is empty for 2 weeks,she is angry for 2 weeks,quite a difference...
But sometimes she is angry & I am innocent,because sometimes she is able to empty the account herself,but her 1st mind then is,I sure bought some HW & if I didn't,I must open transaction records on the account & show her & then she is really surprised,this time that was not my fault,that the account is empty...
& sometimes she orders an audit,when she has a suspicion,I might be over my half or too close to it...
The main trouble,if U have this hobby & a partner @ 1ce,is,Your partner(unless sharing the hobby) will always see all Your money invested into Your hobby as those money,she/he/ze cannot invest into her/zer/his hobby,so she/he/ze sees Your hobby as a concurrence to Your hobby.
Probably the only solution is to think ahead,when U r dating & chose a partner,who shares Your hobby,which is almost impossible & now we would fall into a pit of analyzing,y there r so few Women with this hobby & even fewer of them with compatible orientation...
So maybe only those very welthy of us may live in peace,as when U will give 100000$ monthly to Your partner,then she/he/ze will sure lovely tolerate Your (whatever) hobby.

Ahahahahahahha, You got me laugh decently!!! All You wrote here is true, period. But i have found a way to calm her even when the account is empty 😀 We have 2 children, daughter 20, and son 18 years old. I convinced her that those computers and parts will be more expensive over time (probably will be), and that this is the "heritage" i will left to my kids when i'll be gone 😀 Sometimes that story can calm her, but when she sees my rooms, we can start again 😀 Even if had to risk my life, i will never stop to collect old hardware, because this is like gambling - You cannot stop 'till You winning! And every new purchase seems like winning 😀 As a matter of fact, in time of writing this, i just bought CT1750 with all new capacitors 😀

Congrats.
& yes,U r all right here too.
But when I am using the strategy,that that HW will be more valuable over time,she replies often something like "we may have about 10 years left,will that gain value within this time?!"...& we know,only 286s & maybe some 386s will get more value in time reasonable for her...& true,the difference is,we do not have kids...except for the adopted Cat...
& about addiction:
For me upgrading is more addictive than hoarding whole systems.
I promised Her,I will not buy any other PC,I will just continue saving scraps or trading newer for older,etc.& I am quite capable to do so,no gambling @ this level,but then,when I get comps for free,here is my gambling-the obsession to upgrade them to its max.,& then I buy stogare of maximum capacity supported by MoBo/OS & same with RAM,then some expansion cards,in case of laptops often also new battery & the account gets drained like my old EV's battery,when I am driving uphill(i even started to call the known hills by the consumption needed to get to them,for example "4.5KWh hill" drains 45% of my battery...yes...it is only 10KWh),but it is not so easy to recharge the account as to recharge the vehicle & for example when I use 10% of my pension for buying computer parts,I feel,I did the worst sin,which can be done in a relationship (with a non-hoarder),but that is so addictive,U get the comp for free,but then U wish to install the best possible HW into it,fill all slots,all connectors...yes...this part is the gambling part for me,even more than the final gaming on the finished system,if I just could sell them @ the end,then she would be happy,but I cannot,if I give several hours to it,make a satisfying machine again out of the scrap,I cannot sell it then,it becomes part of my family...yes,I have silicon kids...

Reply 81 of 100, by butjer1010

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Yes, the worst thing is to give away something that become the part of family 😀 Especially when there is no interest, and You need to sell it for "not satisfying" price! For a few times i went a little to high with my "gambling" addiction, and bought too many things. At the end of the month i needed to sell something that i didn't make hard connection with, and that was my biggest problem 🙁 When i earn extra money, i am very sad because i have sold those things earlier... but at that time i didn't had any other money to pay the monthly costs..... Though addiction is this "silicon family".....

Reply 82 of 100, by Sabina_16bit.

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butjer1010 wrote on 2025-03-14, 16:08:

Yes, the worst thing is to give away something that become the part of family 😀 Especially when there is no interest, and You need to sell it for "not satisfying" price! For a few times i went a little to high with my "gambling" addiction, and bought too many things. At the end of the month i needed to sell something that i didn't make hard connection with, and that was my biggest problem 🙁 When i earn extra money, i am very sad because i have sold those things earlier... but at that time i didn't had any other money to pay the monthly costs..... Though addiction is this "silicon family".....

I express U deepest condolences for all Your loses within Your Silicon family.
The most important is,when U really have no other option,sell only to other collectors,never to som1,who could dismantle & scrap Your silicon relatives.
But there is a Karma,whoever will destroy a Legacy PC,will sooner or later become victim of the revenge from Siliconia.

Reply 83 of 100, by butjer1010

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Sabina_16bit. wrote on 2025-03-14, 19:13:
I express U deepest condolences for all Your loses within Your Silicon family. The most important is,when U really have no other […]
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butjer1010 wrote on 2025-03-14, 16:08:

Yes, the worst thing is to give away something that become the part of family 😀 Especially when there is no interest, and You need to sell it for "not satisfying" price! For a few times i went a little to high with my "gambling" addiction, and bought too many things. At the end of the month i needed to sell something that i didn't make hard connection with, and that was my biggest problem 🙁 When i earn extra money, i am very sad because i have sold those things earlier... but at that time i didn't had any other money to pay the monthly costs..... Though addiction is this "silicon family".....

I express U deepest condolences for all Your loses within Your Silicon family.
The most important is,when U really have no other option,sell only to other collectors,never to som1,who could dismantle & scrap Your silicon relatives.
But there is a Karma,whoever will destroy a Legacy PC,will sooner or later become victim of the revenge from Siliconia.

If i hate some people, this is the only reason i do!!! When i see people disassembly old working Commodore or Amiga (or any other retro computers), just to get more money, i become instantly sick. As You stated, i hope there is some kind of revenge from siliconia to those people!!!

Reply 84 of 100, by oldhighgerman

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I want the Hrvatska/Croatian made PC clone. Am I hallucinating again, or did it have an 80188/80186? Is my memory faulty? Which might make it only partially PC compatible, if at all. But not on account of the CPU alone necessarily. Oftentimes that is the case though.

Reply 85 of 100, by Jo22

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butjer1010 wrote on 2025-03-14, 21:30:

If i hate some people, this is the only reason i do!!! When i see people disassembly old working Commodore or Amiga (or any other retro computers), just to get more money, i become instantly sick. As You stated, i hope there is some kind of revenge from siliconia to those people!!!

You don't need to worry too hard, though.
The mainboards of both A500 and A2000 had been replicated already.
So it's possible to build authentic replicas. The chassis also have survived, in parts.
The Commodore C64 plastic chassis for example, are still being made using the original forms.
But yeah, it's kind of sad that working computers are being disassembled and sold in pieces.
What I'm concerned of are the keyboards of old computers.
You can use converters with modern keyboards, but using a PC keyboard for a non-PC platform is not really satisfying.
I wished the old keyboards wouldn't end up at the scrapyard so often.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 86 of 100, by Sabina_16bit.

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butjer1010 wrote on 2025-03-14, 21:30:
Sabina_16bit. wrote on 2025-03-14, 19:13:
I express U deepest condolences for all Your loses within Your Silicon family. The most important is,when U really have no other […]
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butjer1010 wrote on 2025-03-14, 16:08:

Yes, the worst thing is to give away something that become the part of family 😀 Especially when there is no interest, and You need to sell it for "not satisfying" price! For a few times i went a little to high with my "gambling" addiction, and bought too many things. At the end of the month i needed to sell something that i didn't make hard connection with, and that was my biggest problem 🙁 When i earn extra money, i am very sad because i have sold those things earlier... but at that time i didn't had any other money to pay the monthly costs..... Though addiction is this "silicon family".....

I express U deepest condolences for all Your loses within Your Silicon family.
The most important is,when U really have no other option,sell only to other collectors,never to som1,who could dismantle & scrap Your silicon relatives.
But there is a Karma,whoever will destroy a Legacy PC,will sooner or later become victim of the revenge from Siliconia.

If i hate some people, this is the only reason i do!!! When i see people disassembly old working Commodore or Amiga (or any other retro computers), just to get more money, i become instantly sick. As You stated, i hope there is some kind of revenge from siliconia to those people!!!

Quite true,just I am angry & sad even for a P4,for any Legacy PC it is same crime.
Inquisitor on U,disassemblers!

Reply 87 of 100, by Sabina_16bit.

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oldhighgerman wrote on 2025-03-15, 00:37:

I want the Hrvatska/Croatian made PC clone. Am I hallucinating again, or did it have an 80188/80186? Is my memory faulty? Which might make it only partially PC compatible, if at all. But not on account of the CPU alone necessarily. Oftentimes that is the case though.

If U find a 80186/80188,get 2 of them,I want 1 too.
I do not know about Croatia PC production,but try to buy something from Tesla Slušovice,it is so rare,the price is now higher than for some very demanded old Macs & on par with the most rare Macs,maybe Lisa is still most expensive,but Tesla Slušovice on 2nd plece of most expensive PCs...
But it would be 3rd,if som1 would sale Siemens PCD1,but that will never happen...

Reply 88 of 100, by Sabina_16bit.

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Jo22 wrote on 2025-03-15, 03:58:
You don't need to worry too hard, though. The mainboards of both A500 and A2000 had been replicated already. So it's possible to […]
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butjer1010 wrote on 2025-03-14, 21:30:

If i hate some people, this is the only reason i do!!! When i see people disassembly old working Commodore or Amiga (or any other retro computers), just to get more money, i become instantly sick. As You stated, i hope there is some kind of revenge from siliconia to those people!!!

You don't need to worry too hard, though.
The mainboards of both A500 and A2000 had been replicated already.
So it's possible to build authentic replicas. The chassis also have survived, in parts.
The Commodore C64 plastic chassis for example, are still being made using the original forms.
But yeah, it's kind of sad that working computers are being disassembled and sold in pieces.
What I'm concerned of are the keyboards of old computers.
You can use converters with modern keyboards, but using a PC keyboard for a non-PC platform is not really satisfying.
I wished the old keyboards wouldn't end up at the scrapyard so often.

Replicated MoBos/whole vintage comps:
Finally a good new.
Scrapyards:
I would be grateful for a law banning scrapping of functional vintage machines(not just computers) & enforcing them to be redirected to museums.
I would also ban dismantling of functional vintage machines,so they would only be sold whole,never in parts,but sadly every human regime has historical values on last place.
I was recently protesting against destroying an industrial railroad in Brno with very unique construction(it was built of streetcar tracks) & even the ministry of culture ignored totally my protest,that it is an industrial monument to be destroyed.The same ministry(which should protect cultural monuments) allowed destroying historical building in the city center of Praha & scrapping both of the existing railroad units 470,even we have a law,that 2pcs of any type of vehicle must be preserved for museum purposes,but still 0pcs left of the unit 470(Kraken) & no problem for the offices...
There is a general problem with governments not willing to pursue some real & working care for historical values & it loox to be a worldwide problem,but some countries r worse than average in ignoring historical values of all kind.

Reply 89 of 100, by oldhighgerman

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I love trains. Especially miniature ones. Too much in fact. I think I have a problemm and it's ruining my life

Nah bull schnitzel. My life was already in the toilet/bedet.

Can you flush a bedet? I mean if not, wow. I hate toilet paper. Mostly because it hates me back.

Reply 90 of 100, by zb10948

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oldhighgerman wrote on 2025-03-15, 00:37:

I want the Hrvatska/Croatian made PC clone. Am I hallucinating again, or did it have an 80188/80186? Is my memory faulty? Which might make it only partially PC compatible, if at all. But not on account of the CPU alone necessarily. Oftentimes that is the case though.

What Croatian PC clone? I'm from Croatia I wasn't aware we had a local clone. Ivel made Apple II compatible stuff in the early 80s.

Why would anyone in Croatia try to make a PC clone when it was still expensive to import "clone components" from Asia which would make the machine as expensive as western one. But seeing it's a 16-bit design maybe it was more workstation alike, do you have more sources for it?

I used to visit a big tech buerau in late 80s, beginning of 90s just before the war as a kid, most of their stuff was Olivetti and IBM.

To answer OP's thread question, I categorize my stuff I only a few PCs, tho I have a significantly larger collection of components and can build or just boot up a lot more

- Olivetti M19
- Olivetti PCS 5130
- Olivetti Modulo-M 233
- P4 3.2GHz
- Atari 1040STe

I mainly work around M19, it has been severely upgraded from its historical configuration.
The PCS 5130 I've specialized for DOS, it has Stingray Pro and Orpheus II in there.
Modulo-M I had back in the day, so I got it again. I mainly run older Unix stuff on it.
Pentium 4 is built for 32-bit speed, but comes with a DOS capable PCI soundcard.
Around the Atari I have a ton of stuff.

Reply 91 of 100, by oldhighgerman

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I saw a flyer on here sometimes ago (perhaps up to 1 or 2 years ago). I wasn't suggesting it was made in Croatia, don't know. Besides Pumas and N scale American trains, I don't know what else is/was made there. My mother and oldest sister were born there.

Reply 92 of 100, by zb10948

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Sabina_16bit. wrote on 2025-03-14, 19:13:

But there is a Karma,whoever will destroy a Legacy PC,will sooner or later become victim of the revenge from Siliconia.

Thx, I'll use this as quote or signature 😀

Reply 93 of 100, by zb10948

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oldhighgerman wrote on 2025-03-15, 13:20:

I saw a flyer on here sometimes ago (perhaps up to 1 or 2 years ago). I wasn't suggesting it was made in Croatia, don't know. Besides Pumas and N scale American trains, I don't know what else is/was made there. My mother and oldest sister were born there.

Tried to use search, but to no luck...I'm also interested.
However there were a fair amount of big ITC companies in the 80s that provided hardware and software services for enterprises. Some of them might've build an straight off the shelf OEM machine and "brand" it, e.g. put their own metal sticker.
So it might've not been "made in Croatia" but just built locally.

What was/is made is a large diapazon of things. There is a pistol that USA police sometimes uses. Who knows what else was made for USA market back in the 80s...there was a regular Yugoline bulk carrier line between Ploce and New York.

In the retro-era I remember Magmedia diskettes, they were a joint venture between a company from New York state and company in Dalmatia.

https://www.njuskalo.hr/image-w920x690/inform … a-172955785.jpg

Reply 94 of 100, by butjer1010

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oldhighgerman wrote on 2025-03-15, 00:37:

I want the Hrvatska/Croatian made PC clone. Am I hallucinating again, or did it have an 80188/80186? Is my memory faulty? Which might make it only partially PC compatible, if at all. But not on account of the CPU alone necessarily. Oftentimes that is the case though.

Yes, they made IBMs clones in eighties. IVEL from Ivanic-Grad made it. I watched some TV documentary about how they done it, since in Yugoslavia, at that time, it was forbidden to own a computer at home! We all had Commodores that was illegally transported beneath drivers seats, without boxes of course. Only in late eighties, Tito, the president of Yugoslavia, allowed importing and making of computers. It was 1988. i think, when i first time saw how the box of Commodore 64 looks like 😀
I saw only once some guy selling IVEL 8086 computer on local listing sites (njuskalo). I think it was sold for about 400€ if i remember right....

Reply 95 of 100, by butjer1010

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zb10948 wrote on 2025-03-15, 16:20:
Tried to use search, but to no luck...I'm also interested. However there were a fair amount of big ITC companies in the 80s that […]
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oldhighgerman wrote on 2025-03-15, 13:20:

I saw a flyer on here sometimes ago (perhaps up to 1 or 2 years ago). I wasn't suggesting it was made in Croatia, don't know. Besides Pumas and N scale American trains, I don't know what else is/was made there. My mother and oldest sister were born there.

Tried to use search, but to no luck...I'm also interested.
However there were a fair amount of big ITC companies in the 80s that provided hardware and software services for enterprises. Some of them might've build an straight off the shelf OEM machine and "brand" it, e.g. put their own metal sticker.
So it might've not been "made in Croatia" but just built locally.

What was/is made is a large diapazon of things. There is a pistol that USA police sometimes uses. Who knows what else was made for USA market back in the 80s...there was a regular Yugoline bulk carrier line between Ploce and New York.

In the retro-era I remember Magmedia diskettes, they were a joint venture between a company from New York state and company in Dalmatia.

https://www.njuskalo.hr/image-w920x690/inform … a-172955785.jpg

It was made in Yugoslavia, not Croatia, that's way Your search was unsuccessful. IVEL as You stated up there... If i find this TV documentary, i will share a link

Reply 96 of 100, by oldhighgerman

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I found it.

Re: Creating 80186 Based System

The poster says it was.fully PC/XT compatible, but the 80188's integrated peripherals are utilized. Not possible.

Tandy claimed their model 2000 was 50% software PC compatible in the early days. The truth is it wasn't even 10%. Maybe not even 5%. And the 2000 utilized all of the same ic's except for the 8237 dma controller. But they chose a graphics subsystem that was not low level compatible with cga/mda/etc

Reply 97 of 100, by zb10948

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Yes in late 80s Tito directly banned computers from the grave, what a great leader, never stops working even when dead 😁 😁

The Yugoslav goverment tried to impose limits on import capability, you weren't allowed to import machines above N kB of RAM, etc. They were protectionist.
Those restrictions were lifted during the early 80s.

People smuggled computers before, and after. Even in 90s, early 2000s it was common to just go to Austria or Germany, register a personal item "laptop" when departing Cro, buy new laptop in Austria, get the tax back at their customs, and at Cro customs claim it as the one you brought (you dispose of your old one properly) 😀 😀

So the Commodore trip was to get around the personal "bring-back" limit which was probably somewhere 2 or 3 times less than machine's worth.

My late friend's father just ordered and paid for a Xerox machine back in 1983/4 when seeing it at a tech fair in Belgrade. Xerox thought he was representing a company, the bank had absolutely no problem transferring his funds, and Xerox was completely clueless and they sent a machine worth thousands of dollars declared, to a private person in Yugoslavia which can import like $100 😁 He was ahead of the time and wanted to open a print shop for school kids, the ones that started spurring up a decade later. He thought he was going to charm the customs somehow, maybe use the party line or whatever.

But nope. My friend used to tell this story as a 15 minute tale to laugh your ass off. The machine traveled between the various customs points around Split, and father + the family frequently went to customs offices just to stare at it. After a few years it was finally released and full of dirt and small animal life.

Reply 98 of 100, by zb10948

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oldhighgerman wrote on 2025-03-15, 23:00:
I found it. […]
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I found it.

Re: Creating 80186 Based System

The poster says it was.fully PC/XT compatible, but the 80188's integrated peripherals are utilized. Not possible.

Tandy claimed their model 2000 was 50% software PC compatible in the early days. The truth is it wasn't even 10%. Maybe not even 5%. And the 2000 utilized all of the same ic's except for the 8237 dma controller. But they chose a graphics subsystem that was not low level compatible with cga/mda/etc

That machine is from Serbia (Novi Sad), if the original author of the post said Yugoslavia as a whole I wouldn't search just for Croatia.

Anyways, neat machine.

Reply 99 of 100, by oldhighgerman

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zb10948 wrote on 2025-03-15, 23:09:
Yes in late 80s Tito directly banned computers from the grave, what a great leader, never stops working even when dead :D :D […]
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Yes in late 80s Tito directly banned computers from the grave, what a great leader, never stops working even when dead 😁 😁

The Yugoslav goverment tried to impose limits on import capability, you weren't allowed to import machines above N kB of RAM, etc. They were protectionist.
Those restrictions were lifted during the early 80s.

People smuggled computers before, and after. Even in 90s, early 2000s it was common to just go to Austria or Germany, register a personal item "laptop" when departing Cro, buy new laptop in Austria, get the tax back at their customs, and at Cro customs claim it as the one you brought (you dispose of your old one properly) 😀 😀

So the Commodore trip was to get around the personal "bring-back" limit which was probably somewhere 2 or 3 times less than machine's worth.

My late friend's father just ordered and paid for a Xerox machine back in 1983/4 when seeing it at a tech fair in Belgrade. Xerox thought he was representing a company, the bank had absolutely no problem transferring his funds, and Xerox was completely clueless and they sent a machine worth thousands of dollars declared, to a private person in Yugoslavia which can import like $100 😁 He was ahead of the time and wanted to open a print shop for school kids, the ones that started spurring up a decade later. He thought he was going to charm the customs somehow, maybe use the party line or whatever.

But nope. My friend used to tell this story as a 15 minute tale to laugh your ass off. The machine traveled between the various customs points around Split, and father + the family frequently went to customs offices just to stare at it. After a few years it was finally released and full of dirt and small animal life.

Xerox 6060 (made by Olivetti)?