Paul Young

Since retiring  8 years ago, I have been getting  all the vintage computers that I had kept in my loft since the 1980s refurbished and using them. To me there was no point of having them if they just sat in their boxes. My first computer was a rubber key ZX Spectrum to which I added many interfaces e.g. Interface 1 and Microdrives, Interface 2 plus ROM cartridges, plus  for printing LPRINT 3, Multi-Print and Kempston E,  for disk drives an Opus Discovery and Swift Disc. In the process of getting everything working, I now have about 5 rubber key ZX Spectrums, 2 Toast Racks, plus new modern perhipherals including 2 vDrives ZXs , a PICO MD, and the biggest of them all, a KS1 Spectrum Next. I also have a Pentium II with floppy drive which I originally got to write physical floppy disks from .OPD images to run on my Opus Discovery. Also a few years ago my late father gave me his Atari STe and Tandy 100. All these machines are in my tiny home office. If I ever have to dismantle them it would take weeks to re-wire everything, cosnsdering I also have my 80s Hi-Fi system, and my huge collection of vinyl records, CDs and Cassette tapes - Cassette and Reel to Reel tape recorders! Despite my life long interest in electronic devices and computers, for various reasons I never went down a technical route after studying art, rather than science subjects at University.  My focus has always been trying to get my machines to do everything they are capable of doing as an "end user". My programming knowledge is very limited. I just work out what I need to know to get things working!