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Oliver Klink (kolli)

@kolliretro.bsky.social

150 followers 150 following 140 posts

It's all about vintage computers. Collecting, repairing, using, showing. I'm not particularly a gamer per se. More interested in old hardware, old OS, using obsolete tech like dot matrix printers, modems, rotary phones. Like to go to retrocomputing events.

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Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Mar 31

Unbelievably good! 😱

Reposted by Oliver Klink (kolli)

Atari Scene News @philsan.bsky.social · Mar 31

Intruder Alert!, #Atari8bit computers game for BASIC 10Liner Contest 2025. Gameplay: youtu.be/PsbD_jUDYLY Info & Download: www.vitoco.cl/atari/10line... #atari #retrogames #BASIC

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Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Mar 31

Yes sure. That's possibly all my fault...

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Mar 31

And they're much more entertaining than the grumpy one that most of the time only recycles existing content...

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Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Mar 25

It's been some years now that I got my Intellivision. I own only 5 game cartridges and have been dreaming of a multicart ever since. But I wasn't willing to buy the RTO for over € 100. Now I've built a PiRTO II. That's a cheap and simple project based on PI Pico. Happy! 🤩

Intellivision console with a bare PCB sticking in the cartridge port. It's a PiRTO II Multicart based on PI Pico.

Donkey Kong (2nd level) running on Intellivision from PiRTO II Multicart.

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Mar 9

Atari ST help: Here's the URL with the download link of the 1GB HDD image I mentioned in my Youtube comment.
atari.8bitchip.info/DiskImgPP1.h...
Be aware that booting this up only shows icon of drive C. Drives D and E are there but you have to add the icons to the desktop by yourself.

Image of DOS/TOS disk

Disk image with SW

atari.8bitchip.info

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Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Mar 6

I've bought some old literature!
First edition in German from 1982.
For a long time I was wondering if I would like this classic. And if I should read the English original or the German translation.
When it turned up for cheap I thought I'll give it a try now.

Title of the German translation of Tracy Kidder's 'The Soul of a New Machine'.
It's about two hardware development teams at Data General around 1980.

This one was released in 1982 in German. The English original came out in 1981.

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Mar 3

Oh wow! 😱 I'm envious...

Reposted by Oliver Klink (kolli)

Adrian's Digital Basement @adriansdigitalbasement.com · Mar 1

Long persistence green phosphor is a thing of beauty.

The deep green color can't properly be captured by the camera.

The slow fade of the image when it changes is magical.

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Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Mar 1

I only have very few games cartridges and it's not easy to find other games for a reasonable price in Germany. Apart from the 2 player sports games I don't like that is...
But at least I have some of the other great classics like Frogger and Q*Bert! 😍

This is my entire games collection for the Intellivision: Burgertime, Space Armada, Frogger, Tennis, Q*Bert, Poker & Blackjack...

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Mar 1

From time to time you have to get things from your collection out and try if they still work!
This time I took my Intellivision. Still working fine what a relief! 🤩 Especially as I want to build a Pico based multicart for it in the near future.

Intellivision games console from 1979 on the left in all it's woodgrain, brown and bronze coloured glory

One of the quirkiest controllers of all times. The directional disc actually has a total of 16 digital directions.

Burgertime is in my opinion the best arcade port of the console

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Feb 23

Well I like the red machines that came from different manufacturers. But in the end it's only cosmetics. MSX is MSX is MSX (mostly). 😉

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Feb 23

Various other things...

This guy's decoration always looks like a child's bedroom to me. Space ships, mascots, blinky blinky...

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Feb 23

MSX goodness and an Oric 1!

A Sony HitBit MSX 2 Computer running a game I don't know

Yamaha CX5M 'music composer' is an MSX 1 computer that was originally sold with a keyboard and I believe has MIDI

My Sony HitBit 75D is the German version of the 75. With QWERTZ keyboard and umlauts.

Testing an Oric 1 with an Erebus SD card device.

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Feb 23

It's not that common to see 2 Mega 65 and 2 Apple IIc at the same event here in Germany!

A Mega 65. Modern FPGA implementation of an expanded Commodore C65. There's a small business card standing on it telling about Retronetzwerk Nord, the retro community of northern Germany.

Dirk's Apple IIc is a bit yellowed. It's a north American version with QWERTY keyboard and NTSC composite output. A SmartPortSD device is connected to it.

That's my Apple IIc. A German version with QWERTZ keyboard and monochrome PAL composite output. In order to get colour out of it there is an RGBtoHDMI connected to the expansion port. Also running a SmartPortSD.

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Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Feb 23

For the Bubble Bobble highscore competition you had to play it on 3 different computers. The Commodore C128 (in C64 mode), the Commodore Amiga and the Atari ST. Incidentally all those came to the market in 1985. That's 'XL' years ago.

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Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Feb 23

Interface XL
Doesn't stand for extra large interface, but for the 40th 'Interface' retrocomputing event that happened yesterday in Klausdorf near Kiel, Germany!
Mostly four times a year happening since around 2013. Couldn't find out exactly.
More photos coming up...

Group photos of yesterday's attendees. Some of those have been there from the beginning. As usual it's a bunch of old guys.

There was a Bubble Bobble highscore competition. You could win an ArcadeR joystick for example.

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Feb 16

How did the SmartPortSD project go on? Well, in the end I made two of them. Had a wrong firmware on the Arduino at first. Took some time to diagnose. Then I had to print my own DB19 plug because a standard one won't fit the Apple.

Two SmartPortSD devices. One in a white 3D printed case and one in a black one.

A look at the DB25 socket of the white SmartPortSD

Two 3D printed DB19 plug cases. The white one is connected to the Apple IIc's socket for external drive.

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Feb 2

Other things to look at...

Thorsten was playing the new port of 'Elite' on his VIC 20 for hours!

Never seen this wireless gamepad by 'Commotron' before. Works like a standard Atari 9pin joystick. Here plugged into the keyboard of an Atari Mega STE.

Someone made a really small SX 64 replica...

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Feb 2

Oddly enough there were a lot of MSX machines on display...

Beautiful Panasonic A1MkII MSX 2 with an even more beautiful Panasonic CRT screen

Unknown MSX computer on the repair workbench. Stefan fitted a Pico PSU inside.

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Feb 2

The event was themed 'emulation on vintage and modern computers'. So I showed my emulation work horse from back then, the Atari ST. Got some emulators running on it: Spectre Macintosh emu, TRS-80 emu, ZX Spectrum emu and PC Ditto software emulation of an XT class PC...

'Manic Miner' works just fine on ZX Spectrum emu. Even in monochrome high res.

PC Ditto is emulating an XT class PC on an 8 MHz 68000 machine. That's impressive in one way and very slow in another. Good for running text mode software, but much too slow for games. 1987 Spectrum Holobyte's Tetris in CGA took literally minutes just to drop one tetramino.

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Feb 2

Auto correction hit again. It's meant to be 'is a' but not 'ISA'!

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Feb 2

February has begun and this ISA month with no less than 3 retro events for me.
Started already at the 'connected' in Uetersen, Germany, yesterday.
Pictures following...

Overview of one of the 3 rooms with people at their vintage computers.

Guys looking at phones in front of vintage computers. Some working, some torn apart and some strangely modified.

A guy sitting in front repairing an old computer and talking to another guy standing next to him

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Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Jan 30

Aladin, a Macintosh emulator for the Atari ST

Oliver Klink (kolli) @kolliretro.bsky.social · Jan 26

What am I doing? Building a SmartPortSD drive for my Apple IIc. I want to be able to use the Total Recall image, a menu driven games collection.
Project site of SmartPortSD: https://github.com/djtersteegc/smartportsd

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