Andre's Webpage

Since I was a little boy, I have been always fascinated in computers. I can still remember the huge cabinets and the noisy printers in my fathers office. After returning home from school, I switched on my computer and kept on programming, cracking, hacking, and playing computer games until I went to bed. In other words, I was exactly what you'd call a "geek". Despite all disadvantages (less social contacts, less sports, less time for doing homework, etc.) this time actually has kicked off my carrer in electronics and computer technology.

Throughout the 80s and 90s, computer technology has developed amazingly. New home computer systems have been released frequently, and I spent a lot of my (well ... my parent's) money to keep up-to-date. I decided to create this web page dedicated to all those home computers I came in touch with.

My '80s Geek' Resume

In case you have spent your time as a teenager in a similar way, you surely want to know where to get information and free software about emulators of different systems. I decided to provide this information in form of a small resume of my own history as a programmer. Just follow the links.

Year Computer Technical Information What I've used it for Emulators Software

1983-1985
ZX-81 - Z80 processor
- 3.25 MHz
- 1 Kbyte RAM
- 2 Colors - simple BASIC programming - T1000(Win)
- ZX81(Unix) - NVG archive

1985-1987

Amstrad CPC
464 - Z80A processor
- 4 MHz
- 64 KByte RAM
- max. 16 Colors - BASIC and Z80 assembly programming
- Games (of course) - CPC(Unix)
- Caprice(Win) - TACGR

1987-1990
Commodore
C64 - MOS 6510A
- 0.985 MHz
- 64 KByte RAM
- 16 Colors - lots of Games ;-)
- Assembly and BASIC programming
- some small hardware projects - VICE - C64 Games
- Gamebase 64

1990-1993
Commodore
Amiga 2000 - Motorola 68000
- 7.09 MHz
- 1 MByte RAM
- 4096 Colors - started writing programs in PASCAL
- 68k assembly programming
- Text and Graphics processing
- Cool Games ! - UAE(Unix)
- UAE(Win) - back 2 the roots

1993-1995
IBM PC XT - Intel 8088
- 4.77 MHz
- 512 KByte RAM
- 4 Colors - programming in PASCAL and assembly language
- Text processing
- learned programming in C - just put very high dummy load on your Pentium ;-) - XT Computer Web

1995-present
PC 80386, 80486, Pentium I, II, III, ... - Depending on configuration, changing monthly - programming in C/C++ and Java under Linux
- assembly programming
- hardware projects
- system programming
- Text processing
- Internet
- etc. etc. etc. ... - DOSEMU(Unix)
- WINE(Unix) - computer channel

What about your computer history? If you're a 'geek of the eighties', I'm sure we've been playing the same games on the same systems!

Collecting Home Computers

In the end of the 90s, I started collecting "real" systems. Meanwhile, I own a fully working Schneider CPC 6128 system with color monitor, matrix printer, external 3" floppy drive and a cool tape drive. Here is a photo of the computer running one of my favorite games:

The external tape drive allowed you to save games and data on usual audio tapes. My parents owned a stereo set with double-speed drives, so I was the "King of Copy". :-)

Schneider CPC systems had special 3" floppy drives. Since the disks had a hard case and a shutter, they were more robust than the 5.25" ones(Commodore and PC). They were extremely expensive, though. A box of 10 disks was about 75 Deutsche Mark in 1985.

I also have several C64 and C128 as well as other Schneider CPCs with peripherals. If I had more space to store stuff like this, my collection would already be twice as large.

If you have anything to sell or if you need advice in getting old systems working, send me an email.