Roy Templeman

 @loudscotsbloke.bsky.social

Roy Templeman is a retro computing enthusiast with a passion for preserving and demonstrating classic 8-bit machines. Fascinated by the diversity of early home computers, he enjoys exploring and collecting the wonderfully obscure underdogs and oddballs.

Jonathan ‘theJPster’ Pallant

 @thejpster.org.uk

JP will be bringing a few machines from his 90’s UNIX/RISC collection. In addition, there will hopefully be some working external SCSI drives, so we can look back on how bad things were before USB was invented.

The Carter Brothers

 @c-carter-cmas.bsky.social

Dave built his first Newbear 77-68 (Motorola 6800 based micro computer kit) in 1978. At the time the Newbear was nicknamed The Electric Twit which is an expression from an old radio Goon Show where Bluebottle says that he got An electric twit for Christmas.

For Retrofest 2026, a BBC B Micro and a Newbear 77-68 should be controlling a small model railway (with at least one GWR loco, of course) plus a PiDP-11 2/3 scale replica DEC PDP-11 blinking its lights in the background.

John Newcombe

 @glasstty.com

John will be bringing a small collection of genuine, non-original, 1970's machines that were built last year.

There will be beautiful examples of recreated machines such as the OSI Superboard 1, an expanded OSI Superboard II and an Acorn System 6809 running the, once thought lost, Acorn adapted Flex operating system.

However, surely the star of the collection will be his new old Newbury Newbear computer which was built last year from plans first published in April 1977. The Newbear will be presented as a possible computerised upgrade for one of the "I Speak Your Weight" machines that were prevalent in railway stations during the 1950s and 60s. So if you want to be insulted about your weight or want to see if you have the heaviest Unix workstation, why not pop along.

The Big Red Arrow Club

 @BigRedArrowClub

The Big Red Arrow Club are a global network of retro tech YouTubers who like nothing more than to be recognised in public and have their egos stroked. We mean, to share our passion with like-minded people, yeah, that’s it.

They’ll be bringing along projects from their own collections (and channels) for you to look at, talk about, and play around with!

Visiting over the weekend will be:

Spencer Owen

 RC2014.co.uk

A selection of RC2014 retro computer kits based on the Z80, which will be demonstrating some of the things you can do with CP/M, BASIC and Z80 assembly code, along with a few kits for sale so you can build your own Z80 computer from scratch!

Derek Knaggs

 FlameLily.co.uk

Flamelily Retro Store

New stuff for your old tech. If you love modern hardware for old systems you will know about the Raspberry Pi Pico. We are the UK reseller for a few Pico devices, the BlueSCSI, the PicoGUS, PicoMEM and PicoGX. We have wallet friendly kits and fully assembled units for purchase. Come and see all these at our table. We also sell the Denise and Alicia 1200 which are Mini-ITX Amiga recreations and are great projects for restoring a damaged Amiga.

We might even have some of the hot off the press PicoIDE. We are the UK registered reseller for the PicoIDE which is an IDE CD ROM and hard drive replacement.

Ben Coffer

 @sharpworks.bsky.social

Ben will be bringing his Sharp MZ-700 newly kitted out with the hard-to-find Quick Disk drive along with his Sharp MZ-80K - the computer that Col Needham (creator of IMDb) began programming his first movie collection database on. Come and experience some of Col's own games as well as recovered from a chance find of one of his mail order games collections tapes.

Andrew Menadue

 @menadue

I take broken hardware and try to fix it, tending towards replacing broken hardware with modern replacement PCBs. Mostly calculators, but some computers. I also de-cap ICs and try to extract information about the internal circuitry. Recent projects include an emulator for the IBM School’s Computer from 1970, and a rewrite of the Psion Organiser II OPL compiler and runtime.

This year I plan to bring some larger calculators, ‘big iron’ from around the early 80s, together with some smaller calculators from Swiss Micros, together with a TULIP for the HP41C. There will be some of the recreated Psion Organiser Iis to have a look at. If there’s space then some Compucorp calculators... Also, the chance to play a game of noughts and crosses against a program written 55 years ago...

Peter Howkins

 www.marutan.net/rpcemu/

"How about a nice game of chess?"

Peter has fallen down the rabbit hole of computer chess, and will be bringing along some of his collection of Acorn machines running various versions. There will also be some guest machines vying to see which machine is victorious.

Dolo Miah

 @6502nerd.bsky.social

6502Nerd will be showing microcomputers powered by the 6502 CPU, including his original Oric-1 from 1983 and an Atari 800XL from 1985.

Also on show will be his unique homebrew computer, as a nostalgic homage to 6502 micros he grew up with and as a humble nod to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak's Apple 1 which started Apple Computers 50 years ago.

It's a big mess-of-wires which might have to be seen to be believed that it somehow does work!

Sean Billings

 @seanybillings.bsky.social

Sean will this year mostly be showing his collection of small things.

He has always been interested in computing in his pocket long before it was cool to carry around.

Mobile devices running DOS, Windows CE, Symbian, Early Linux devices and some obscure devices including pre-smartphone smartphones.

He is also hoping to re-create the Programming setups he used to use to write commercial software for some of these.

Museum of Computing

 museumofcomputing.org.uk

The Museum of Computing is devoted to the history of computing and digital development. It was the first physical museum of its kind in the UK and is based in the centre of Swindon at Theatre Square. You will find many hands-on exhibits, allowing you to experience computers and related items as they were in the past.

Mark Nias

 @dexterstechlab.bsky.social

Mark from DextersTechLab will have their Quantel DPB-7001 Digital Paint Box running for Retrofest Swindon.

The DPB-7001 Paintbox is known as the 'classic paintbox'. Released by Quantel in 1981 it completely revolutionised video graphics in television throughout the world. Allowing a artist to paint, draw, cut, paste in full broadcast resolution, colour and in real time. This predates Photoshop by 6 years but cost £120,000! Currently there are only two working Classic Paintboxes worldwide so this is a rare chance to experience one.

John Brown

 @RetroBytes

We can't grantee that the weather in Swindon will be sunny, but we can say at least one table will be. We can all have fun fun fun, with some Sun, Sun, Suns. It will be like a 90s computer science lab, with a variety of Sun workstations, including the last model of UltraSparc Workstation Sun ever made, and some usual Sun machines, and some of the classics.

John has been bringing differing Retro Machines to events for a while now, and has a great time talking to everyone, meaning his voice is usually going by the Sunday. A few years after he started coming to the events, he also made the mistake of starting a YouTube channel (RetroBytes), so you might recognise his voice from there. Although typically by the end of Sunday even his own mother would not recognise what’s left of his voice.

Dean Belfield

 @breakintoprogram.co.uk

Dean Belfield aka @Break Into Program is a video games development veteran and will be bringing along a selection of development systems and game demos from the 80s up until present day.

Michael Shilabeer

 GeekyArt.co.uk

After a successful Retrofest in 2025, Geekyart is back with an expanded range of products including framed Z80s, 6502s, 6809s and 68000s.

Look out for a brand new product line which is believed to be a first of its kind!

Tim Gilberts

 @timbucus.bsky.social

Ever since he got a look at programming on a Cambridge Programmable, played on a ZX80 at Maths club and then built a ZX81 from a kit Tim has always had a love for the Sinclair computers which started his career. Here we have a table filled with the history of Sinclair,. Call by and you can see why still in 2026 these machines are popular, spawning may modern machines like the ZX Spectrum Next and and a host of MK14 clones.

Adrian Graham

 @binarydinosaurs.co.uk

This year Adrian is featuring two Cambridge-created machines with a cat theme - The Camputers Lynx and H|H Tiger. Both of these were cover featured in the magazines of the day but never sold in quantity, visit to find out why! Also featuring is the Commodore C128D, perhaps one of engineer Bil Herd's finest creations. It will be running something cat-based for completeness.

Stephen Usher

 @srusher.bsky.social

This year I will be “Quantum Leaping”: Showing the Sinclair QL, its cousin, the ICL One Per Desk, and peripherals old and new. I’ll also be bringing along copies of new games written within the last decade to show that the machine could have been used for games, just like its older sibling.

Paul Gregory

 IndigoBeetle.co.uk

Paul will be showing his new retro game creation tool, Kwyll, and some of the games created with it running on The Spectrum. He has a history of similar creation tools, having cut his teeth on The 3D Construction Kit at Incentive back in 1991. He'll be on hand to answer any questions about Kwyll throughout, and to demonstrate how it works and how you can create the Spectrum games you always wanted to make but didn't know how.

Matthew Harrold

 CuTEL.net

Communications Failures - Celebrating communications hardware from the late 20th century that never quite caught on

Rick Lumb

 PuttyCAD.itch.io

PuttyCAD Presents a collection of original budget games, featuring art by Ric Lumb (PuttyCAD). Includes games from Jeff Murray (PsychicParrot), Nigel Critten (100TinSoldiers) & Rich Hanson (Rich Pea) As featured in RETRO GAMER, PIXEL ADDICT and CRASH magazines

Gareth Qually

 SlowlyMakingSmoke.com

Gareth likes to focus on the creative uses of vintage tech, so he will be exhibiting some of the creative tools that were available on various platforms. Page through some of those classic ring bound manuals, while Gareth demonstrates everything from pixels to 3D rendering. Even have a go with the features of the software packages we all know along with a few hidden gems.

electron.greg

 www.electrongreg.com

Lover of 8bit Acorns (and many other 8bit systems), text based games and programming tech demos.

Wayne Young

Wayne Young will be exhibiting for the first time this year. He earned the nickname Slartybartfast (sic) after creating computer generated fjord-like landscapes while at university in the 1980s. Perpetually pushing pixels ever since, he will be bringing along his first computer; a heavily modified Ohio Scientific Instruments C1/P, and his prize winning graphics accelerator card designed and built in 1987, capable of drawing perspective projected wireframe objects at full video frame rate.

Neil Fraser

 @NeilKnowsRetro

Neil got hooked on computing when he saved up enough money to buy his first computer in 1982 - A 16K ZX Spectrum. He then moved to an Amstrad PC1512 and has mostly stayed an x86 fan with occasional dalliances with Psions, Palms and VAIOs. The growth of the Internet allowed him to stay in IT despite it not being his day job. He started his retro tech YouTube channel in 2024 (@NeilKnowsRetro). He is currently seeking other definitions of his hobby that don't use the word "hoarder".

Tom Stepleton

 @Stepleton

On exhibit but now working: a PERQ 2T2, about six hundred TTL ICs grudgingly working together to make one of the first graphical workstations available for commercial sale. If the chips all feel like working, you'll see a profoundly unusual system running POS (the machine's original Pascal-based OS), PNX (a UK-made Unix with its own graphical environment), and rarest of all Flex (the UK MOD's own idiosyncratic research OS, lately recovered, and now on exhibit for probably the first time in at least 20 years). Visit early to avoid disappointment due to component failure! MG-1.uk

Mark Fisher

I’m a long-time retro computing enthusiast and software developer who loves pushing classic machines beyond what they were ever designed to do.

I’ve been part of the FujiNet core development team since 2021. FujiNet is a network-enabling device (and much more!) for many systems bringing the Internet to old machines.

At Retrofest, I’ll be demoing FujiNet on Atari 800XL, Apple II, and BBC, showing how these machines can connect over modern networks, mount disk images from the internet, and even interact with each other. Expect some fun demos, including a shared “bouncy world” where different computers coexist in the same virtual space!

Alex Brown

 @TheLastPsion

Back in 2018, Alex looked across at his ageing Psion Series 3c and asked himself two fatal questions: "What if?" and "How hard can it be?" Eight years on, he's developed new hardware and software to support these old devices. He's also amassed a reasonable collection of Psion machines, started the Psion Community user group, and prodded developers to open source old code and reveal long lost secrets.

At this RetroFest, Alex will be showcasing projects by people in the vibrant Psion Community: System emulation, new games, spare parts, repairs from the inventive to the downright unhinged, and new ways to develop software for these classic and still very usable platforms. He'll also be bringing a selection of devices from his own collection, including an MC400 laptop.

Psion might be all but gone, but their machines are still very much alive.

Andy Collins

 RandomOrbit.co.uk

Andy Collins has been interested in retro-computing since it was just called computing. When his school offered a computing course, they didn't have a computer, not one, in the whole school. So, the students were sent by minibus to the nearest college and they didn't have a computer either but they did have a Teletype which was clattery and exciting and sparked the imagination. He now collects left-field machines and the niche and unloved.

This year the theme is "Built from a kit".