4 ms·

I went 2-3 years ago and really enjoyed it, there is so much to see and they have a lot of unusual exhibits. My main gripe, which I did feed back at the time,

I went 2-3 years ago and really enjoyed it, there is so much to see and they have a lot of unusual exhibits. My main gripe, which I did feed back at the time, was they had a wide selection of vintage computers and consoles running but there were no instructions. It’s a long time since I’d used any of them and had forgotten much of even the basics,;they also had Spectrum with the SSD type libraries but again no instructions on how to load and use the games. That meant you could look at them, try and type a couple of things in and hope you get lucky, then move on to the next item feeling frustrated. The museum is continually evolving so I hope that something has been done to help what I felt was a fairly big shortcoming. I appreciate it’s a lot of work creating cue-cards for each one but as you’re encouraged to have a play around it would greatly add to the experience.

parkersweb 7y ago
Yeah - felt similar when I visited. Inexplicably the only command from spectrum days I could still remember was POKE 23609,100 which switched on the keyboard beep! Also really feels like they need a purpose built building - it's housed in an old car showroom at the moment.
fit2rule 7y ago
I run a similar, albeit way smaller exhibit here in Vienna, and we are working on small instruction booklets we can give visitors who want to type things in and play with things .. perhaps I should make these available somehow when we're finished. That said, its quite an adventure to return to that era of computing and re-discover all the old tricks. On some of these machines, there are even still new graphics modes and other features being uncovered by avid hackers. 8-bit machines are still alive!
musicale 7y ago
They should provide a URL and QR code linking to a site where you can read/download the instruction manuals for the computer, OS, and software on your phone. That would be somewhat easier than having to use google to search for them, which is what I normally do. Most old games are hard to play without instructions, but the instruction manuals tend to be detailed and also fun to read. (As an aside: it's always exciting when I find a modern game that includes a printed instruction manual!)

parkersweb 7y ago

Yeah - felt similar when I visited. Inexplicably the only command from spectrum days I could still remember was POKE 23609,100 which switched on the keyboard beep! Also really feels like they need a purpose built building - it's housed in an old car showroom at the moment.

fit2rule 7y ago

I run a similar, albeit way smaller exhibit here in Vienna, and we are working on small instruction booklets we can give visitors who want to type things in and play with things .. perhaps I should make these available somehow when we're finished. That said, its quite an adventure to return to that era of computing and re-discover all the old tricks. On some of these machines, there are even still new graphics modes and other features being uncovered by avid hackers. 8-bit machines are still alive!

musicale 7y ago

They should provide a URL and QR code linking to a site where you can read/download the instruction manuals for the computer, OS, and software on your phone. That would be somewhat easier than having to use google to search for them, which is what I normally do. Most old games are hard to play without instructions, but the instruction manuals tend to be detailed and also fun to read. (As an aside: it's always exciting when I find a modern game that includes a printed instruction manual!)