iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Wire it all up with a ton of cables and we're ready to go! See you all on Saturday and Sunday :)

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Back in the day I had a Cheetah MS6 (and you can meet one of the guys behind it - @bob-p-dj.bsky.social - at Synthesized this weekend!). But now I'm going to use my Amyboard (the red gizmo on the speaker) to emulate one ... 3/4

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The mainstay of my system was the Casio FZ-1 and Atari ST. Here they've both been upgraded with Goteks to make life simpler - plus the Atari has a modern mouse and a lovely crisp VGA output ... 2/4

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HereBeDragons @heredragons.be · 19/06/2026

Okay, so I think I have a plan for #Synthesized this weekend in Cambridge! Nothing like leaving it a wee bit late ... www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/76919/sy... ... I'm going to try and recreate my early 90s setup ... but with modern twists! 1/4

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It's just over a week to #synthesized at Cambridge and I'm cutting it fine. This new toy arrived today - it's a Juno-6, it's a DX7 and it's all programmable in Python too- and it cost just $29! I have 1 week to understand it, program it, write some music for it and be able to demo it. Wish me luck!

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HereBeDragons @heredragons.be · 07/05/2026

Well spotted! There's actually a right old mixture of handheld up there, I really need to display them better.

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HereBeDragons @heredragons.be · 06/05/2026

Oooh, it kinda looks like my Goupil 2 ...

A French Goupil 2 computer. It's very red.

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HereBeDragons @heredragons.be · 06/05/2026

Sun update! The ELC is now booting as nature intended, as a diskless client off the SPARCstation 2. So many ancient skills had to be dusted off, from wiring 10BASE2 coax ethernet to reconfiguring the kernel. Happy days!

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HereBeDragons @heredragons.be · 30/04/2026

Lovely little underrated machine. They'll run CPMish - cowlark.com/cpmish/index... - and even Unix (Fuzix) if you're crazy enough!

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Isn't it gorgeous! Here's my slightly later Japanese version (the MZ-80K2E) with the green lid and light grey keys.

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Indeed, the tapes were used for storage. All the way back to the first, 1978's MZ-80K (seen here with floppy drives too). By 1985 it was clear that floppies were the future - but it still needed a tape for compatibility with older machines. Sadly, I don't think this machine can play audio tapes ...

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It also has a super little foldout doodad on the front that allows you to set the compatibility mode and screen resolution.

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HereBeDragons @heredragons.be · 18/04/2026

New toy alert! It's a Sharp MZ-2500 from 1985, otherwise known as the 'Super MZ', the last of the extensive Z80 based MZ range. Up to 256K RAM and 128K VRAM, it has a 6MHz Z80B and can do 16 colours at 640x400 (if you have all the VRAM). It also looks wonderfully like a top end HiFi separate ... 1/2

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I love mine! So futuristic ...

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HereBeDragons @heredragons.be · 18/04/2026

Ah, the Executel! Oh I wish mine still had grey keys. But at least it works (ignores the dead one in a box in the loft that I cannibalised to make this one).

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Oh and why the nostalgia? My first 'proper' job as a young unix sysadmin was to install a lab of these for the City of London Polytechnic (now London Guildhall University) all booting off a Sparcstation 1. So that's my next challenge, to get it talking to mine!

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It might benefit from a recap, but it's not an easy machine to work on at all. Oh, and I've cheated - I don't yet have diskless booting running, but I've taken advantage of the external SCSI to bodge something together ... 3/4

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There was a design flaw in this however - you couldn't turn the monitor off without turning the machine off too, meaning that most were left on and running for months, slowly cooking the capacitors and burning out the screen. I have been very lucky with this machine ... 2/4

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HereBeDragons @heredragons.be · 12/04/2026

I am sooo happy - and bubbling with nostalgia - to see this gorgeous Sun SPARCstation ELC up and running. This was Sun's low cost diskless workstation - basically a SPARCstation 1 bolted to the back of one of their mono monitors ... 1/4

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Oh definitely a gorgeous little machine, one of my favourites too ...

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HereBeDragons @heredragons.be · 01/04/2026

I prefer the BBC version ...

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HereBeDragons @heredragons.be · 27/03/2026

Okay what have I forgotten? Off to the Dragon Meetup! www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/76704/Dr...

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HereBeDragons @heredragons.be · 24/03/2026

IT LIVES! The three-headed Dragon is alive! Yes, this Dragon has three independently controllable displays - 80 columns via the DragonPlus board, a Yamaha V9958 via the Supersprite board and the Dragon's original display. Come see the beast this weekend! www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/76704/Dr...

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HereBeDragons @heredragons.be · 23/03/2026

What witchcraft is this?! A long lost prototype? a re-imagined Dragon for the 21st century? Well, I'm not going to tell you. All I can say is that it's not mine (although I WANT IT) and you'll have to come to the Dragon Meetup on SUNDAY to find out - www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/76704/Dr...

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Yes, apparently it is. It's a 6847 based display, as used in the Dragon 32. I NEED THIS. So I've gone from being pleased with my new toy to having a brand new super expensive really obscure thing to collect in less than an hour. I hate this hobby sometimes ...

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Is that ... green text on a dark green background? No, could it be ... 4/5

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It's a VIDEO ADAPTER. My dream machine as a kid was a pocket computer I could take home and plug into the TV. So far the only thing I have that can do this is a blisteringly expensive HP75c that I could never have afforded back in the day. I am in love ... but then I saw it working ... 3/5

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I then saw this photo on Reddit. OMG LOOK AT ALL THOSE ADD ONS TO COLLECT! There's acoustic couplers, IO boards, RAM upgrades and ... no ... is it really? ... 2/5

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Here's a lesson in why this hobby is so maddening. This is my lovely new Panasonic HHC, a pocket computer I've been after for quite a while. They're common(ish) in the US but it's rare to find one here, so I grabbed it. It's 6502 based, has 4K and runs a weird type of Forth called SNAP. But ... 1/5

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Link to the original article here - archive.org/details/drag...

The quality isn't great - it's 1 bit, 256x150 resolution after all, with the exposure controlled under BASIC, but I still think it's pretty neat. If you'd like to see it in action, come to the Dragon Meetup at the end of March! www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/76704/Dr...

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... and amazingly he still had the Claw AND the software used to drive the camera (a little more common, sometimes seen hooked up to BBC Micros). Eventually got the software off the Flex disks, compiled it and wrapped it in some BASIC to make it easier to use - and here we are! 3/4

However the wonderfully named Dragon's Claw IO device and the accompanying camera were just too expensive for me back then - and the Claw sold in such few numbers it's been almost impossible to find now. Eventually I got hold of Roy Coates, who wrote the original article ... 2/4

HereBeDragons @heredragons.be · 22/02/2026

I have waited a VERY long time to do this! I first saw an article about connecting a video camera to your Dragon way back in Dec 1985 and it really sparked my imagination. The idea that a camera could be digital and the images stored on a computer were so new and exciting ... 1/4

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Oooh, good, an opportunity to post a picture of my gorgeous Matra Alice 90!