I'm on the Spectrum — and My First One Has a Tape Drive
How a Brazilian childhood clone, a Portuguese Spectrum museum, and a slightly obsessive collecting strategy led to Old Tech Geek's first machine: a Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2.
Article
[ 14" CRT · 1x C:\ PROMPT · NO SIGNAL LOSS ]
OLD TECH GEEK — SYSTEM BIOS v2.6 COPYRIGHT (C) 1981-2026 OLD TECH GEEK CPU...................... ZILOG Z80 @ 3.58 MHz OK MEMORY TEST.............. 640K OK FLOPPY DRIVE A:.......... READY OK FLOPPY DRIVE B:.......... READY OK LOADING NOSTALGIA.SYS ................... OK LOADING GOODTIMES.DRV ................... OK >> BOOT COMPLETE. WELCOME BACK.
Old Tech Geek
The golden era of computing — one byte at a time.
An editorial archive and collection log for retro computing, classic games and vintage hardware — the machines, the software, and the people who built the industry we grew up on. YouTube is the discovery layer; this is the permanent record.
Latest transmissions
Buying a Sinclair ZX Spectrum: A Buyer's Guide
Which Spectrum to buy, what to check before paying, the common faults on 40-year-old boards, and how to modernise one once it's on your desk.
Guide
The Spectrum family joins the GeekDex, and the first article goes live
The first Old Tech Geek article is up, and it brought the entire Sinclair ZX Spectrum lineage — plus the TK90X and the 1977 "trinity" — into the GeekDex with it.
News
Old Tech Geek is rebooting
Old Tech Geek has already begun its reboot: a new static website is in place, the foundational processes are underway, and the next phase is about building the content, documenting the collection, and expanding into YouTube and social media.
News
Directory
- NEWS<DIR>Short dispatches: acquisitions, project updates and things worth knowing.
- ARTICLES<DIR>Feature stories, explainers and deep dives into the machines that mattered.
- REVIEWS<DIR>Hands-on verdicts on retro hardware, games and accessories.
- GUIDES<DIR>How-tos, restoration logs and setup notes for keeping old hardware alive.
- COLLECTION<DIR>The subset of the GeekDex actually owned and tested.
- GEEKDEX<DIR>The encyclopedia of technology worth remembering. Gotta Geek ’Em All.
- HISTORY<DIR>Bits of history, one byte at a time — computing, games and the gadgets alongside them.
- PROFILE<DIR>The people behind Old Tech Geek.
- ABOUT<DIR>What Old Tech Geek is, who runs it, and the rules it plays by.
Elsewhere
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