PERSONAL HOME STIMULATION EXCITEMENT

It was our first home computer, and nothing since has rivalled the thrill -and strong smell- of this wonderful machine.

Nearly 35 years later, we're still playing the classic cartridge game 'The Stimulators', and at a recent retro-computing event in Eldroth, we badgered people of all ages to have a go. For a few VIC-20 veterans it was giddy nostalgia, but for some of the children we coerced to our table when their parent's weren't looking, it ended in relentless tears and some pretty hostile confrontations from angry adults.

But most importantly we had a good time, and escaped with very few injuries after leaping over our table with the trusty VIC-20 tucked under our arm, wires flailing behind us like a beached squid.

 

We'll be back at the Eldroth Computer Fair* later this year, so come and say hello if you can make it.

*Over 18's only (children and animals go free).

CELESTIAL NEWSAGENT

During our annual TOMTIT seance meeting on Halloween, we achieved contact with the spirit of P. Parsons, a deceased newsagent and tobacconist. He spoke to us of his celestial newsagents shop, and the many publications he sold to the dead.

One thriving magazine he mentioned was 'TOMTIT Computer', and after a great deal of screaming, he began to send us pages from a 1984 edition via a circle of printers we'd arranged within a chalk pentagram. Sadly, Unmann-Wittering aggressively broke wind before page 2 arrived, and disrupted the proceedings. Contact with Parsons was halted as a result. 

Here is a scan of the spectral printout, which has been examined by a cross section of respected ghost hunters and paranormal experts, all of whom expressed a desire that we don't waste their time any further.

What fools these mortals be !

DATA ENTRY / WORKING LUNCH

We like everything about this picture, including her jumper and her contemplative expression, although a special mention must also go to her earthenware mug, which has a face on it and, no doubt, contains Cup A Soup.  

PC MAC

Ian McNaught-Davis

1929-2014

HOLY RELICS - PROBABLY

This is Guy N. Smith's old Amstrad Computer Word Processor, which sold on e-bay recently for the princely sum of 99p. It could have perhaps achieved more if the seller had been less honest, as stating that it was only 'probably used by Guy to write a number of his well known novels and reference books' might have put off people with two pounds to spend. 

There is an easy authentication test, of course: simply see if the keys v-o-m-i and t are more worn than the rest - if the answer is yes, then congratulations, you have yourself a relic.

THE ZEN OF BLAKE'S SEVEN

 

 

You'll either know what this post is about or not, really, not that it is terribly important either way.

Basically, TOMTIT like Blakes 7, missing apostrophe and all. For some reason we identify with the story of a ramshackle bunch of criminals getting by on stolen technology and acts of petty vandalism. So much so that on our days off we dress up in boiler suits and silver wellies and go and stand outside industrial units and factories and pretend that they are Federation strongholds. Then we kill everybody and burn the place to the ground.

FEARLONO particularly sees a lot of himself in Soo Lin.