Vintage Computers

SeRpEnT said:
And I still have an old Sony DVD-RW (black faceplate nogals) in a box somewhere.

Found a .txt list I did the last time around 2008 when I stopped writing "backup" CD's and DVD's going as high as DVD #106. Geez back then always had the urge to backup all of the internet..movies MP3s you name it...
Click to expand...

Has since gone through about +- 150 or so DVD ROMS and CD ROMS that I cut back 15-20 years ago or so.
Kept them in spindles and the spindles in thick plastic bags which was stored in my wendy house in the back yard.
About 80% of them are f%rked. CRC errors galore, many just not responding, some even showing as blank (although there was content on there). Many of the discs stuck together ...one or two to each other... almost liked they were glued. Other ones had strange marks on them and some looked glueey.

By far most of them had divx movies "backup up" ( :ROFL: Oh why why why .... I guess back then that was my way of building a library of low quality movies...) and some had games and some other stuff (ahem!)...
Tried to establish which brand had the biggest failure rate (between Verbatim, Sony, Maxell and many more) but they all seem evenly crap now after so many years...

The couple of games I could however get off the discs however are playing nicely on the fresh XP system.
 
SeRpEnT said:
Has since gone through about +- 150 or so DVD ROMS and CD ROMS that I cut back 15-20 years ago or so.
Kept them in spindles and the spindles in thick plastic bags which was stored in my wendy house in the back yard.
About 80% of them are f%rked. CRC errors galore, many just not responding, some even showing as blank (although there was content on there). Many of the discs stuck together ...one or two to each other... almost liked they were glued. Other ones had strange marks on them and some looked glueey.

By far most of them had divx movies "backup up" ( :ROFL: Oh why why why .... I guess back then that was my way of building a library of low quality movies...) and some had games and some other stuff (ahem!)...
Tried to establish which brand had the biggest failure rate (between Verbatim, Sony, Maxell and many more) but they all seem evenly crap now after so many years...

The couple of games I could however get off the discs however are playing nicely on the fresh XP system.
Click to expand...
Not dismissing your experience but I have around 300 DVD writables that still work perfectly after 20 years, all Verbatim Datalife Plus discs. There are some cheaper CD brands such as Supalife and Eaglepower that did not survive, and some got disc-rot starting from the inner track.

I just wonder sometimes why the discrepancy between what other people experienced. I used to force write my discs at slower 4x speed instead of the max that the DVD-writer allowed and always verified my discs. Perhaps that gave the head-room for the yearly degradation to not affect my discs so much.
 
AnimateX said:
Not dismissing your experience but I have around 300 DVD writables that still work perfectly after 20 years, all Verbatim Datalife Plus discs. There are some cheaper CD brands such as Supalife and Eaglepower that did not survive, and some got disc-rot starting from the inner track.

I just wonder sometimes why the discrepancy between what other people experienced. I used to force write my discs at slower 4x speed instead of the max that the DVD-writer allowed and always verified my discs. Perhaps that gave the head-room for the yearly degradation to not affect my discs so much.
Click to expand...
You probably didn't let them melt in the wendy house in the back yard.
 
Anyone know where I can get my hands on a retro video upscaler for my Speccy above without spending R1500 plus import duties? I know some are edge connected devices and sniff the signal while others use an FPGA (like OSSC). Does anyone have one for sale perhaps?

RF is working fine, but I want pixel perfect HDMI if I can get it.
I'll be doing a couple of mods on this one - the Traco power drop in replacement for the 7805 v-reg as well as the audio isolation fix, adding a power switch and swapping around TR4, TR5 and TR7 which were apparently incorrectly installed at the factory.
 
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From Gemini AI...

Connecting a classic Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer to a modern HDMI display requires a specialized retro-computer video converter or edge-connector interface rather than a standard software AI video upscaler. [1, 2]

Dedicated Hardware Solutions for ZX Spectrum to HDMI
  • ZX-HD Interface: Developed by ByteDelight, the ZX-HD Manual is a plug-and-play expansion unit that attaches directly to the ZX Spectrum edge connector. It monitors video RAM writes in real time using a small internal processor to output a crisp, pixel-perfect digital HDMI signal. [1, 2, 3, 4]
  • TK-Pie / ZX-Pie: A community-driven open-source hardware project that uses a CPLD chip combined with a Raspberry Pi Zero to latch onto video signals and output clean high-definition HDMI natively. [1, 2, 3]
  • RGB-to-HDMI / SCART Converters: Models with specific 15kHz RGB line-compatibility (such as dedicated SCART-to-HDMI scalers or specialized GBS-Control setups) can handle the analog RGB output found on later models like the ZX Spectrum +2A or +3. Note: Generic cheap AV-to-HDMI composite boxes usually fail or produce heavy lag and artifacting with a raw 15kHz retro computer signal. [1, 2, 3, 4]
  • Internal Component/FPGA Upgrades: Enthusiasts looking to modify internal boards can use projects like the ZX Spectrum Component Video Upgrade to output cleaner analog YPbPr signals, which are then easily paired with high-end external upscalers like an OSSC or RetroTINK
 
Did you guys ever use multi boot?

I hate it.

Take out all HDDs but 1. Install the OS.
Remove HDD then add another one. Install OS.
.....

Tell the BIOS to boot from the drive you want. I prefer that.
 
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