Back to Basics UK Retro Event

Hey guys! anyone is up to come over on the 4th?

Im sure the retro computer museums will announce the times very soon, but put 11am to 6pm in your diary

Cx5mer- bring your work, we can have a look at it

We should have some msx t-shirts available to buy on the day for anyone interested.

@djh- that is a real shame, but dont worry, we are hoping that this wont be a one off. We have some ideas in the pipeline.

Great! I'll have to actually create the work first, though. I have owned and used more than one retro computer system, though. I never did any artwork on my CX5M because of the SCREEN 2 colour bleed, so I only did artwork on computers without this problem. I'd like an MSX T shirt, but then some people who might just be there could see it, call me a traitor, then jump on me for wearing it. I've checked on their forums and they don't mention this event, though.

I wonder which members on here are coming to this event? It would be great to meet some of you! As for me, I was very worried about getting lost between Leicester and Swannington, so I've bought a compass and a road map of the East Midlands. There was no street atlas of Leicestershire available. I considered an Ordnance Survey map, but the only map which showed Leicester didn't show Swannington as well, so that was no good. The map shows that Swannington is about 15Km from the centre of Leicester, but I can't see wherer the railway station is. A search for a B&B anywhere nearby has said that there aren't even any B&B's in Leicester, let alone Swannington, but also that I needn't worry about this because it seems I can't afford to stay in them either, especially after buying some components to build a custom PC, which I recently did a course about. It seems my hopes of attending this event now rest on getting a train or a coach from London early enough on the same day so that it's not almost over by the time I arrive. It would be really great if someone could offer me a lift, but I doubt if that's possible.

A very good day for the msx here in the uk. Lots of interest and.... we have been invited back! We will post a few photos of the event soon.

I really wanted to go to this event, but in the end I failed, mainly because it was held at a remote venue not near a railway station or even a coach station. Swannington is about 15Km from the middle of Leicester. I would have had to take three buses to get there from Leicester and back. I didn't even know how much the fares for these buses were. Matters were made worse, because I also had to buy some components to build a PC, although I couldn't afford to buy them all at once, so this means I can't build it until 1 or 2 weeks from now. I hope there will be another MSX event in the near future and that it will be held somewhere not far from a railway station or even a coach station, not requiring 3 buses to get there. I can't help thinking that that there either won't be another MSX event in the near future, or that it will be at another venue in the middle of nowhere. Now I'm just going off to try and get my old PC from 2000 working again so I can copy The Digital Designer and some other software onto floppy disks. This involves struggling with PS/2 adapters, a USB keyboard and mouse, and trying to reinstall Windows Me or XP just so I can use the floppy drive.

Some nice pics there. It's hard to tell if all the computers apart from the Virtuality system are MSX though. I was imagining just two small tables with 2-4 MSX computers on them. I'm glad to hear that the next event about or including MSX may be in Manchester, so after I arrive there it should be a just a short ride to the venue on a bus or the Manchester Metro. BTW, after a few hours of work with my old PC from 2000, two keyboards connected via PS/2 and USB, an old Linux Mandrake distro and the Linux rescue kit Rescatux, I finally managed to install Windows Me. Now I just need to find out if it recognises my USB memory stick so I can transfer some more software to floppy disk, or I may have to install Windows XP. The Magical Editor instructions are very complicated and I still haven't got any instructions for Philips Video Graphics, but I hope to produce some MSX2 artwork soon. I probably need an MSX mouse adapter as well. I've noticed there's a Philips MSX graphics tablet on eBay, but it seems to be designed for Philips Video Graphics which I don't know how to use.

I'm afraid that I need some instructions for Philips Video Graphics because everything I tried ended up with the few lines I drew quickly being wiped out. I didn't have any luck with one or two other graphics packages I tried either.

I just used whatever Linux distros I had available and tried to install them on that old PC, but nothing worked. The latest news is that after a few hours work, then leaving the PC with Windows Me installed, I went to bed without plugging in the USB drive, because I guessed that the USB drive wouldn't be immediately recognised and I'd had enough. Finally, I got up and turned on the old PC again then it went BANG, and all the lights, etc in my flat were turned off by the circuit breaker. I turned them on again, moved the PC case slightly to make sure it wasn't making contact with anything else, plugged in a different mains lead, turned on and it went BANG again. After this, I opened the PC case and found out that at least 3 capacitors, or even 5, on the motherboard have gone bad, meaning they're bulging at the top. They could be replaced, but I realised a few months ago that I had forgotten almost everything I knew about soldering, which wasn't much, so I can't solder. After this, the easiest thing to do would be to try and install the floppy drive in one of my other PCs. Meanwhile, I still can't create any MSX2 artwork!

I gave you some instructions for DD-Graph AGE5 in another thread...

Gentlemen, had a holiday of a lifetime in Nigeria with my children. I hope to be here for the next event? The photos of the event look great, glad a great time was had by all.

Perhaps next time we might be able to arrange some sort of a shuttle from Leicester railway station to the event location? (i.e. all meet at a certain time and order a Taxi)

There are plenty of b&b's and guest houses around Leicester Railway station too.

It's amazing news that there will be some more MSX events in the UK later this year! I hope that they will all be somewhere near a railway station or even a coach station, instead of in the middle of nowhere. How about Birmingham, Coventry, Nottingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, or Sheffield?

Although places in city centres cost a lot of money to hire, the venue doesn't have to be in the city centre. You could also charge higher admission to avoid using a venue requiring 3 buses or a taxi to get to or back from.

Some good news coming very soon. Stay tuned!