We want so tell you about the idea, that led to the beginning of 8bit-wiki!

(by Dieter Hucke, www.dieter-hucke.de , 2021)

Since about 1985 I have been working with 8-bit computers. Over the years, I (as certainly many others) had accumulated a stately hodgepodge of schematics, ROM images, manuals and several other treasures, mostly in the form of images, PDF files and text files. Since I later got other home computers, at some point a mess of files proliferated on my hard drive, sometimes twice or with a different name. ROM images with meaningless file names, circuit diagrams for which I lacked the most important information: what was that for again??

So I started sorting it all out by starting with an empty folder and moving everything that belonged to a certain type of computer to that folder. The most important subfolders ROM image, hardware (schematics), photo and software were quickly created.

Soon I had a passable collection for "my" home computers, in which I could accommodate quite well sorted due to the standarsized structure.

Later, the desire grew for an Internet directory in which this "database", as I simply call it now, could be published. The discussion started in a forum of the ZX81 friends,

forum.tlienhard.com

Together we came up with the idea of realizing the database in the form of a Dropbox, so that there is general access from the Internet, but you can also easily give others a write permission for other Homcomputer-models. This was important because I quickly realized that my knowledge was basically limited to the Sinclair computers. It was necessary for other "authors" to get involved, who then take over other types of home computers.

Another elementary idea was to create a web interface over the Dropbox, in which the websites can be maintained and extended descriptions for files can be created. In my opinion, this was a fantastic solution, especially to add reasonable comments to the ROM image files.

A group of authors quickly formed, who are currently supplementing and expanding the individual Sinclair computers in particular. I myself am actively involved, but the individual authors have all the possibilities and permissions for "their" area. We called the whole thing "8Bit-Wiki" because it is a collaborative project, and of course we hope that it will be equipped with new interesting computers by other authors.

In August 2021, we moved the 8Bit Wiki to a new server at Strato. Dropbox was/is no longer necessary, and minor technical improvements have now become possible. Among other things, we can now offer the 8bit-wiki bilingually german-english, there are file counters and a reference to directories in which new files are available. 

We hope that this still very small collection of data will grow and invite you to cooperate. We have limited ourselves to 8-bit computers to keep the scope manageable, and programs (games) are only wanted in exceptions, here the copyright restrictions are to be checked and also the storage space is limited.

Ultimately, the following "resources" should be available for all 8-bit home computers:

* Manuals, manuals, links to fan clubs and specialized websites
* ROM images (or boot disk images) used to back up the operating system
* Circuit diagrams of the home computer, interfaces, specifications
* Emulators, and to a small extent software, if copyright-free or released
* other files, articles, clones and replicas

What is the purpose of this wiki:
The 8Bit Wiki is intended to give the interested visitor an impression of how a certain home computer was (is) structured, to tell its history, peculiarities and characteristics, and to provide basic software and hardware documents, as well as emulators to experience these unique home computers even today.

What is this wiki NOT supposed to be:
We do not claim to make everything available for a home computer. We can do that neither in terms of storage space nor in terms of effort. That's why we are also happy about specialized websites that provide extensive additional material.

My thanks go above all to the authors who made it possible to launch such an extensive project!

Dieter Hucke, September 2021