I know this is a bindun...
...but mine is completely IRL and practical, I only used tattyshop to resize and crop the image.



I even fired the old girl up, had a few problems with BASIC crashing on boot up, but I eventually got her stable enough to do this:



I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it :)

*EDIT*: The SCSI cables in the background in the first shot are completely circumstantial... I'm an engineer, these things tend to breed and multiply when left in plastic boxes for several months.

From the Recreating Album Covers challenge. See all 221 entries (closed)

(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 17:49, archived)

Krafty work indeed !

( Valin That that is that . . . is that . . ., Sat 22 Nov 2008, 17:54, archived)

Nicely done!

( Redsushi! Whoop! Whoop! Ph.D., Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:00, archived)

Arigatou gozaimasu!
I had a f*ck of a job getting my camera to focus on the CRT in the second shot, it insisted it needed to be blurry for some reason ><
(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:03, archived)

I am also having that problem
with my Sheikh Yerbouti lego man :(
( Redsushi! Whoop! Whoop! Ph.D., Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:06, archived)

Could try Macro mode
and setting the Aperture Priority manually. Or use Focus Lock, that's what I ended up doing.

Not that I know much about these sorts of things, I'm an engineer, not a photographer.
(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:09, archived)

The brightness of the words on the screen will create blur.
Try changing the contrast.
( Mu Sticks™, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:16, archived)

Well what about the lego, smartarse?

( Mu Sticks™, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:17, archived)

Stop bullying me :(

( Mu Sticks™, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:17, archived)

She doesn't have a contrast adjustment...
...only intensity. Too high and she looks blurry IRL. Too low and it's not visible. I found about the right balance, but my camera just refused to focus properly.
(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:21, archived)

Your camera will see the light more intensely than you will.
But if you already played with it then it might just be your lens.
( Mu Sticks™, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:27, archived)

It's a Fuji S5700 Bridge Camera
So I can't really do anything about the lens, except try cleaning it I suppose.

My old Kodak compact had the same problem, I ended up cheating and compositing a shot because I couldn't get a good shot.
(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:34, archived)

Ooooh,
that's awesome!! :D
( Killerkitti You look so dumb and you sound so twee., Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:02, archived)

Ta!
...but you're probably too young to recognise the machine I used -_-
(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:04, archived)

That's a Commodore.
:]
( Killerkitti You look so dumb and you sound so twee., Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:05, archived)

it wasn't made in 2001 though

( Bloop wasn't here on, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:06, archived)

Nope.
1977. Which makes it older than me.
(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:15, archived)

Very astute!
Nothing gets past you, does it?!

It says Commodore right on the casing.
(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:06, archived)

Does it?
;]
( Killerkitti You look so dumb and you sound so twee., Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:08, archived)

not seen one of those in a while!
woo
( Bloop wasn't here on, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:06, archived)

It was given to me...
...by the Centre for Modern Languages at work. I guess they'd bought a 486 by then (this was 2004). I've got dozens of tapes with hundreds of bytes of language tutorial programs written in BASIC. This old PET is a bit faulty though, there's some corrosion on the logic board, and I think some of the massive 8KB of RAM may be faulty.

At the same time I scrounged a BBC B+ (64KB version) and a double-decker 5.25" floppy drive. I've had them for four years and I don't think I've even switched it on. I don't even know if it has a DFS or ADFS ROM installed, although it's likely given that the two were together.

/Retro blog
(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:13, archived)

Oh good work indeed, sir.
Been on a massive Kraftwerk binge recently.
( Ttssattsr lets do talk together, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:06, archived)

I think...
...computerwelt was their best album in many ways, before they sold out and went all digital.
(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:14, archived)

I prefer TEE and the stuff with Neu!.
:)
( Ttssattsr lets do talk together, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:17, archived)

TEE was OK...
...too much vocoder though. Die Mensch-Maschine was the best example of their analogue stuff I think, IIRC Computerwelt used some computers for sequencing and that but almost all of the sounds were still analogue. Excpt for the Speak n Spell samples. ( I think they were also using a Fairlight CMI on this album? Not sure)
(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:29, archived)

Like it!

( The Twisted Omentum Talk about Mudflaps, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:12, archived)

Excellent!
I always thought those things looked like a till with a built on tape player
( Cockweasle http://b3nn3tt.mybrute.com, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:15, archived)

The tape player
was literally just a commodity tape deck that Commodore bolted into the inside.

She's well built though, the whole top of the machine is on a hinge, and when you open her there's a bonnet prop to keep the lid open when you do whatever work inside you might need to do.

You could even 'overclock' the PET in software to increase the video refresh rate... but this could burn out the CRT controller in the machine. Fine example of a 'Killer POKE' or HCF instruction (Halt and Catch Fire).

/retro blog #2
(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:19, archived)

are these the same as a vic 20?
I might have been thinking of that, actually.
/can't remember blog
( Bloop wasn't here on, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:21, archived)

Not even remotely.
Same CPU, similar BASIC but the VIC had colour graphics and sound, which the PET can't do at all. It doesn't even have graphics, the best you can hope for are the Graphics Characters that are built into the PET version of ASCII. It can't even do gorram lower-case characters! Oh, and only an IEEE-488 bus for expansion, no serial ports, cartridge port, joystick port, Video output or user port.

The VIC-20 looked like the early C64 but in wrong colours.
(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:26, archived)

'Graphics' a bit like the ZX81?
I actually wanted one of those or a Video Genie before I got the '81.
( namdrah The cat whisperer, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 18:54, archived)

Exactly!
Although you had more advanced line drawing characters, and the suits from a deck of cards for some reason.

I still have my '81, with a Sinclair 16K RAMpack. It even works well with my Alphacom 32 thermal printer (I cut FAX paper with a craft knife to the correct size)
(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 19:19, archived)

Christ, the thermal printer still works!
Much Blu-tac on the RAM pack then?
(I have lots of oldish PC stuff like ISA (?) interface cards etc. if you're looking for parts at all, message me)
( namdrah The cat whisperer, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 19:48, archived)

Aye...
I got it for use with my Spectrum, but it works fine on the '81 (and the Russian Spectrum clone I have). It tends to feed paper a little too far between each pass, but it is twenty-five years old.

Not terribly interested in old PC stuff, but old Mac stuff and Atari stuff is always useful.
(theSHALROTH Shamble bobble dimble dooble, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 20:13, archived)

i've got one of them!
:D
( SkUG HAS BOUGHT A HOUSE - WOO YEAH!, Sat 22 Nov 2008, 20:40, archived)

Old computers ftw
*click*
( idonthaveafunnynickname Drink-Aware? Sure. I'm aware I want another drink., Sun 23 Nov 2008, 21:05, archived)