I can't say I watch many (or any) unboxing videos... but I can still say, with certainty, that your's are the best ever!

at last, an unboxing i can follow

The only Acorn machine I have is an A3200, never saw the 8-bit machines except a BBC once at school. So this was great to watch, plus your natural comedic timing and delivery is a bonus!

Excellent stuff! Looks like a System 3 to me, and I agree 100% about letting computers live on in new hands rather than end up being unused, unloved and forgotten.

The "Unboxing" bit made me spit out my coffee...wasn't ready for that. Great video!

Thanks for the video, a real trip down memory lane. I only ever saw pictures of the System computers in magazines. My first computer was an Atom, which I expanded all the way to a disk system. I did build a Richard Russell board at work, which was the Z80 prototype for the BBC Micro. That was before Acorn showed the BBC their Proton, which became the model A/B. I have enough electronics projects on the go, mostly RF related, so I shall steer clear of the vintage computer, modern builds, as it looks highly addictive. Glad you have found a support group though. Good luck. Nick.

Ian McCollum, in one of his videos, brings up very similar points regarding donating collections to museums, allowing collections to be split up, and comparing with selling. Good points all around!

Great to see somebody who really knows what they’re doing .Back in 1976 here in Calgary Alberta Canada I went to the first computer Shop in the city called believe it or not The Computer Shop anyways to make a long story short it would cost me about $4000 to build some kind of S 100 kit computer and my older brother talked me out of it but that didn’t dissuade me. I ended up taking a computer science degree and spent probably close to 30 years working with main frames, PCs and other paraphernalia.

Fantastic video. Really interesting build and a very good point about museum preservation can mean taking machines and putting them in a glass box never to be touched.

Computers of Theseus!

Excellent. I've only warmed to Acorn in the last few years (especially after Micro Men movie). I was always a committed Nascom fan (built mine in 1980 at the age of 19). I love Z80 assembler and I've always found 6502 code a little nausea inducing. One of my first jobs was fixing Microtan kits and building Acorn Atom kits (my boss was saving 40/50 quid by buying kits and I could build 2 in a morning and only cost him 30 quid). My Nascom still exists and is partially working but not used since about 1985 when I got my first PC.

I still have my acorn system 1, bought in 1979, in my lab.

Interesting, and boy are you keen. I followed the glasstty bit and was pleasantly surprised, especially seeing the old Telecom branded colour monitor from a computerphone. I used to work in a repair lab fixing them. I did have one of those screens, but disposed of it long ago, however I still have a few black & white units. I downloaded the Viewdata client terminal software, it worked straight away, now I'm kind of interested in setting up a server..... I will have to try and find the software for my old Tandy TRS-80 model 1, that I used to access the Australian version (well I think I did that), a challenge due to lots of incompatibilities. They were fun days, until Telecom jacked up the prices to the blazes and basically killed it.

Very interesting, and with a nice dash of humor. 🙂

This is just wonderful and awesome in every possible way. You've got yourself one more subscriber! Cheers from Sweden. :)

I had an Acorn Atom in the 90s, from the local recycling centre. (which was an Aladdin's cave of "retro" stuff back then. We had over 70 computers and consoles from there at one point. It got a bit out-of-hand. lol) Included with the Atom were some DIN 41612 cards built on stripboard. One of them had a Dallas RTC chip on. I think another was for interfacing to an RTTY modem, so likely a HAM enthusiast owned it originally. Sadly, in a bizarre twist of fate, the whole lot got run over by a Land Rover. :( 5:36 - If only it were that easy. lol

I love how this keeps escalating. These things can really turn into never-ending hobbies.

What I enjoy about kit computers and early computers like the Apple II is you are active working on your investment. It was a investment since those machine was used for at least a 10 good years or longer. Nobody thought about upgrading the whole entire machine. You just continued to add to it. I wish I could explain it better. Now it just seems so generic to upgrade your machine. For instance if I upgrade my pc right now. I'm looking at ram, processor, motherboard and possible larger psu. Then technically I'm still limited with older video card, monitors, etc. Do I need to upgrade them. No. But that leads me to a brand new system. No magic in it.

Brilliant video! You got me laughing on the floor with the boxing and unboxing of all the pcbs 🤣It was a pleasure meeting you at the Dragon meetup, and I'm happy to see my big, shiny head around 10:10 XDDDD Cheers!

I did not get a proper look at your system 2-3 at retrofest, so it's nice to get a proper look at them now. Looking forward to the follow up videos. You've got a good point about a lot of this stuff just being locked away in storage rooms with nobody using it. If that's where all these machines end up, then there will nolonger be anyone left who knows how to use them, and they just become objects shorn of thier meaning gathering dust.

Absolutely fascinating and a presentation style I feel very much at home with! Also an unboxing video to end all unboxing videos!

Hi John. Great to see you back! I know what you mean about the soldering bug - I have far too many serial boards for my homebrew machine 😂. I understand your argument about the authenticity of your machines and was thinking about Trigger's broom before you mentioned it. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... Also, the human body replaces almost all its cells every 7-10 years, so is anyone the same person they were? Still love your quirky style 👍😁♥️

Splendid stuff sir, and much chuckle at the unboxing as usual 😆

Solid content as always!

Great video, love your style.

I'm slowly getting back to my econet stuff again after Nov. It will be good to catch up in May if you're going as I'm thinking I might be getting close to the point of being able to link econet networks over the Internet thanks to some of the bridge code from Andrew.

Fabulous job. Love it :)

I look forward to the video of where you have a half-rack full of Acorn System 3s + one System 2. Personally I wouldn't stop at genuine non-original cards though. I'd also build some non-genuine original cards for the system, maybe a z80 expansion card that lets you run Spectrum software/games. That said, if I had the money to do all this, I'd probably just opt to build an entirely custom Eurocard based computer running Forth.

very good and very funny!

Fantastic I have been looking for a video on the Acorn or Microtan rack. I've been looking at racks for a z80 project but they are silly money

Bugger! There was a Control Universal keyboard on eBay only a couple of months ago. The seller had on idea, but I recognised the black atom case.

What does or doesn't make something original is a bit tricky. It feels like it has to come from the original manufacturer to be original, otherwise it's a clone or replica. What I do know is my lack of room is preventing me figuring out how to build my own. Although I did have a lot of fun building my RC2014...

This Video came at the perfect time. iv been wanting to build a card style "replica" computer for a while! Do you have any recommendations on where best to buy the Rack hardware? Subbed!

I'm afraid once the generation that has a nostalgic memory of wanting these systems but not being able to afford them pass on, no-one is going to be interested in system that is a 1000 times slower than a cheap mobile phone.

tres amusant

13:42 its like the Theseus ship, just keep replacing all parts, now do you have a new ship or its the old one ? I say its the old one because the "form", aka, the abstract interconnection of components is what makes the thing, not exactly the specific atoms that make the actual parts. The soul of the machine is the form and function, not the atoms and parts.

Hilarious! thanks

Enjoyable video. Great work. Do you have a link to that hole drilling service on eBay? Sounds handy for some nasty fiddly stuff.

i'm still trying to get my hands on a working bbc B or master 512. hard to get stuff over here in the states. saw a couple mbut they wouldnt ship it anywhere but the paypal address even though i have a house in the UK too lol

At 9:44 is that a 100 mm by 160 mm prototyping card with a DIN41612 layout on one end? If so where did it come from please?

Lovely stuff, but have you considered the option of making another Acorn System, erm "system"? 😉

I'm almost afraid to ask whether the rack size is metric or imperial !

the rack itself costs more then a complete pc. engineering a complete system is not easy at all if you mush account for the final price.

Programming principles apply here, premature-optimization is the root of all evil!

You can have whatever opinion you like. The fact that you have an opinion has no bearing whatsoever on it's validity. I can probably help you with the solder. How many kilo's do you want? 😁