Floppy Days 132 - Grundy New Brain History with Steve O'Hara-Smith

Floppy Days Vintage Computing Podcast

Grundy NewBrain History with Steve O’Hara-Smith

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FloppyDays

Sponsors:

• 8-Bit Classics

• Arcade Shopper

0 Floppy Days Tune

1 min 14 sec Vintage Computer Ads

1 min 43 sec Intro

6 min 14 sec bumper - Steve O'Hara-Smith

6 min 32 sec New Acquisitions

22 min 53 sec bumper - Gerald McMullon

23 min 36 sec Upcoming Computer Shows

26 min 51 sec Feedback

30 min 19 sec Interview with Steve O'Hara-Smith

71 min 46 sec Closing

Hello, and welcome to episode 132 of the Floppy Days Podcast; a podcast about home computers in the magical years of the late 70’s through the 80’s. I’m Randy Kindig, your host on this voyage.

We are currently covering computers that were released in the year 1982; a banner year for personal computers. It’s actually going to take quite some time to get through this year in history.

This is the second episode about a computer that few in the United States know much about. It was released in the UK and even there didn’t get much traction. It was a unique beast, with its own personality and quirks; before it went quietly into the annals of history. The machine I’m talking about is the Grundy NewBrain.

As it was so relatively unknown, I’m going to be spending a lot of air time talking about its history:

1. in the last episode (Episode 131) I summarized its history, including a short interview with John Grant of Nine Tiles, whose company did some work on the machine

2. This episode contains an very informative interview with Steve O’Hara Smith, who was involved with development of the machine

3. The next episode will have an interview with Gerald McMullon, also having done some work on the early NewBrain, as well as support after its release

4. Finally, there will be 1 or more episodes to cover the usual topics of tech specs, Web sites, emulators, etc. I will have a special guest co-host for that.

So, as you can see, there’s a ton of upcoming information about the NewBrain. Please join me in learning more about this unusual machine.

Before we get into this interview, I’ll let you know what I’ve been up to and have been able to acquire lately; which continues to grow seemingly beyond my control.

That brings me to some administrative news. In order to provide maximum flexibility for my listeners, I’m going to start publishing a timeline in the show notes. It will have a time marker for each section of the podcast, so that, for instance, if you want to jump straight to an interview and re-listen to just that section, you can do so. This is an easy thing to provide, with the audio editing software I use, so from now on expect to see that information in the show notes.

New Acquisitions

• TS2068/Spectrum group - https://groups.io/g/TS2068

• Wafadrive - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotronics_Wafadrive

• mini-bus expansion board - https://www.andertone.com/product/ts1000-expansion-extender/

• composite mod for TS1000/ZX81 - https://www.ebay.com/itm/175512970894

• 64K RAM pack (Memopak) - https://www.andertone.com/product/memopak-64k-ram-pack/

• TS1500 keyboard membrane - https://www.ebay.com/itm/304824623956

Upcoming Computer Shows

• Atari Party 2023! - Saturday, December 2, 2023, 1pm to 4pm - Quakertown Train Station, Quakertown, PA - https://quakertowntrainstation.org - organized by Peter Fletcher

• World of Commodore - Dec. 2-3, 2023 - Admiral Inn Mississauga, Mississauga, ON - http://www.worldofcommodore.ca/

• Vintage Computer Festival SoCal - February 17-18, 2024 - Hotel Fera Events Center, Orange, CA - vcfsocal.com

• Interim Computer Festival SPRING - March 23-24, 2024 - Intraspace, Seattle, WA - https://sdf.org/icf/

• Midwest Gaming Classic - April 5-7 - Wisconsin Center, Milwaukee, WI - https://www.midwestgamingclassic.com/

• VCF East - April 5-7, 2024 - Wall, NJ - http://www.vcfed.org

• Indy Classic Computer and Video Game Expo - April 13-14 - Crowne Plaza Airport Hotel, Indianapolis, IN - https://indyclassic.org/

• The 32nd Annual “Last” Chicago CoCoFEST! - May 4-5, 2024 - Holiday Inn & Suites Chicago-Carol Stream (Wheaton), Carol Stream, Illinois - https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/

• VCF Southwest - June 14-16, 2024 - Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at UT Dallas - https://www.vcfsw.org/

• Boatfest Retro Computer Expo - June 14-16 - Hurricane, WV - http://boatfest.info

• Southern Fried Gaming Expo and VCF Southeast - July 19-21, 2024 - Atlanta, GA - https://gameatl.com/

• Fujiama - July 23-28 - Lengenfeld, Germany - http://atarixle.ddns.net/fuji/2024/

• Silly Venture SE (Summer Edition) - Aug. 15-28 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2024-se

• Portland Retro Gaming Expo - September 27-29, 2024 - Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR - https://retrogamingexpo.com/

• Silly Venture WE (Winter Edition) - Dec. 5-8 - Gdansk, Poland - https://www.demoparty.net/silly-venture/silly-venture-2024-we

• http://chiclassiccomp.org/events.html

• Facebook show schedule - https://www.facebook.com/VintageComputerShows/