I live on the Isle of Man and collect and restore vintage computers, Valve radios and tellies as a hobby.
My first computer I owned was a ZX Spectrum 48k but the first computer I saw was in primary school when I was 6 - a BBC Micro.
I have a couple of ZX81's but recently I was asked to help a lady clear out her dad's things - amongst which were his collection of Sinclair Computers, software and hardware. Boxes and boxes of stuff and right at the bottom of a dusty old box, forgotten and nearly thrown in the tip, was a white polystyrene box. I carefully uncovered it from wires, junk and old tapes, reverentially laid it on the floor in the dusty spare room in this lady's house.
"What have you found?" She said
"Wonderful things" I said.
Upon opening said polystyrene lid, was greeted with an original, unadulterated ZX80, with manual, PSU, audio leads and TV cable. She said "what is that?" I explained to her how rare it is to find one of these in the wild, especially here on the IOM. "You look after it then, my Dad would be so happy to know someone is going to look after and enjoy all his computers"
She let me have everything. For free. So I helped her empty a few rooms and stuff out of the loft into the tip.
I am so lucky, I got:
ZX80 - Working
Memotech MTX - Not working
Atari 800xl - Working
Spectrum +3 - Working
3 ZX Spectrums including one in a memotech case - All working but need membranes
Acorn Electron - Working
Amiga 600 - Working
Opus Discovery Drive - Not working yet
Dozens of computer magazines from the late 70's and early 80's
Hundreds of Sinclair software
Lots of other bits and pieces.
A toolbox that he must have used to maintain/fix these computers as its full of spares
I am not bragging, just wanted to share. Sometimes it pays to "Pay it forward"
Turns out - the gentleman whose house it was worked for Sinclair in the late 70's, not sure in what capacity but there are letters and things that suggest that. She said they did live in Cambridge for a few years in the 70's.
Anyway. Ramble over.
Anyone else from the IOM?
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