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On top of that, Apple has so far never named a product with a '2'. There is no Macbook 2, no iPod touch '2', no iPhone 2 etc.

But there was the Lisa 2, back in 1984. Then, the next year, it was followed up by the Macintosh XL. Here's an old brochure.

I think id Games used to compile on SGIs. I know MS did some development on Xenix/i286 and Xenix/i386 (somewhere, there's an MS quote about how MS-DOS/Win is not suitable for serious development..hah). In fact, the i286 had a memory management unit, but the only OS (that I know of) which took full advantage of it was Xenix. Minix/i286 may have supported it to some extent, as well.
Some emulator pages....mac&ppc, simos (for SGI/IRIX5), DEC 10 and Big Iron, various DEC emulation, Apple Lisa, Z80 sim&development, yaze Z80, Apricot and Amstrad, bochs x86, ... and there's always emulators that run under DOS that you could run under Bochs or QEMU.

Other possibly helpful links:
emulators on freshmeat
OS kernels on freshmeat
OS's on freshmeat
bunches of old OS disk images
CP/M and MP/M
CP/M disks
Lisa Xenix
LisaOS
tandy xenix
elks and uclinux
freevms
freedos
Apple I (not II) development
reactos - winnt clone
MAME stuff and pinball Mame
info about tandy disk images
solaris minix
minix info and version 3
various free (as in beer and/or speech) OS list
The OS list at tunes.org

Good lord, man. Had to remind myself you were talking about a pointing device, and not a horse!

Just for you, I found a picture of one. Hubba hubba!

(Yes, that's a terribly rare BBC Domesday Machine, not an Archimedes - but it's what my prescient Google keywords turned up...)

Cool. Signatures of the team. Too bad the picture here http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/Commodore/ a1000/a1000.php is not very clear. Anyone have another link? I find it also interesting that the A1000 was only certified for FCC Class A (same link above) instead of the more stringent Class B just like NeXT computers.

Hmm...console as computer or terminal eh? Well the "geeky allure" certainly has nothing to do with novelty, as the concept is far from new. Witness the following:

1. The Bally Astrocade console of 1978 was the first to explore the concept commercially, as one of it's "game" carts was the BASIC programming language and cassette interface.

2. Later in 1978 Magnavox (the producer of the first ever home console called Odyssey) introduced the successor Odyssey^2. Marketed head-to-head with the Atari 2600 as a console, it actually had an integrated keyboard. It wasn't really a computer (The Sinclair ZX81 came standard with EIGHT TIMES the memory of the O^2!) the idea was that adventure/strategy games could better use a keyboard than a joystick, and that expanding it to a computer would simply involve adding a RAM expansion pack.

3. It seems Mattel had intentions from the start to give the Intellivision a computer expansion option, and touted those intentions from the console's intro in 1979. However, they were late in delivering on their promises, and were eventually forced by the FTC to bring out the computer expansion or pay huge fines. They did comply--barely--by selling a few hundred in test markets, then pulled out. Eventually the introduced a newer, quite different design to a wider market, however the result was a major disappointment.

4. Atari beat both Bally and Magnavox to the colour console market with the 2600, but it was a bit later in exploting the computer expansion option. This was probably because they figured the entry-level micro market was served adequately by its Atari 400 offering. In the end the "Graduate" keyboard was never released.

5. Coleco was probably had the most success at turning their Colecovision console into a computer in terms of units produced (300K to 500K, although much of that stock never sold) and time on the market (nearly 1.5 years starting in 1983). This was probably more to do with Coleco selling the ADAM as a self contained computer alongside the "expansion module 3" that attached to an existing Colecovision--which sold in lower numbers. The ADAM in fact simply contained a slightly modified Colecovision and the logic board of the Expansion Module 3 in one case.

And that only covers until 1983. Nintendo Famicom and the Sony PS2 could also be made into a computer (with the manufacturer's blessing and products). There certainly is some appeal in being able to "tinker" and have the flexibility of a full-fledged computer, so why did none of these ideas really take off?

I'd have to say that both price and features had a great deal to do with it--the same reason the whole market crashed in 1984. With the exception of the Coleco products (which failed because of poor marketing/late delivery and poor quality control of its initial run) all these expanded consoles were lousy computers, and the combined cost of the console and expander was the same or more than a better entry-level micro. Why would you purchase an Atari 2600 and graduate if the Atari 400 by itself was a way better system that had great games already? Why buy an intellivision that you MIGHT be able to expand to a computer when you could get a VIC or a 400 or a Speccy that was already a computer for the same price? Not only that, but these computers all came with great games to boot.

I also find the "geeky allure" appealing, but I think the market is limited--in fact I think the drive to "tinker" with some of these devices is because the were commercial failures. Hardcore fans feel like they are abandoned by the company and band together for support and to get the most out of the system. Because the supply of orphaned sys

positron

This is the home of positron, the synchronization manager for the Neuros Audio Computer. This software is primarily intended to support Linux, but will probably be portable to other POSIX systems such as OS X and the BSDs. Currently there are USB protocol issues with OS X, so please don't try it there yet.

The above was taken from a link in the above story. Now, the problem I have is that I own three of these, Acorn Electrons. Can I simultaneously use an Electron and Positron, or am I going to end up annihilating something?

TIA LOL Me too!!!! etc.

Schools in Logan, Utah? I'm surprised they aren't just using those discarded Apple Lisas in their computer labs! ; )

• A mercury delay line driver and receiver from LEO 2
• A PSU from LEO 3
• Acorns, all working:
  • Atom with econet
  • BBC model A serial no 509, with documentation and software
  • BBC model B with econet
  • 6502 second processor for BBC
  • Electron
  • R140
  • R260, with documentation and software (power supply unit dead)
• Sinclairs, all working
  • 6 assorted early Sinclair calculators
  • ZX80
  • ZX81
  • QL, with documentation and software
  • ICL OPD - original designer's prototype, with documentation and software
  • Z88, with documentation and software
• Two Jupiter Aces, including one which was unfinished when the company went bankrupt (ir works, but has no case)
• Memotech keyboard for Jupiter Ace (manufacturer's prototype, nicely badged but doesn't and probably never did work, never went into production)
• Memotech MTX 512, working
• Newbrain AD, with documentation still in shrink-wrap, working
• Enterprise 64, working
• Oric 1, working
• Psion Organiser II
• Microwriter, working, with documentation
• Apricot PC, (charcoal, with 10MB hard disk!), working, with software and some documentation
• Dragon 32, working
• IBM badged Tadpole RS6000 laptop, hard disk is dodgy.

I've also got a late model 32k Commodore PET with dual disk drives, but as it isn't British made I don't think of it as part of my collection and will happily swap it for an interesting early British machine.

Yes, I know this is all pretty ggeky. But this is part of our history - in my opinion an important part of our history - and these machines are being thrown into dustbins all the time. Somebody needs to preserve them. So if anyon'e got a Nascom, or an Acorn Model 1 or Acorn Cambridge Workstation that they don't want, let me know.

• A mercury delay line driver and receiver from LEO 2
• A PSU from LEO 3
• Acorns, all working:
  • Atom with econet
  • BBC model A serial no 509, with documentation and software
  • BBC model B with econet
  • 6502 second processor for BBC
  • Electron
  • R140
  • R260, with documentation and software (power supply unit dead)
• Sinclairs, all working
  • 6 assorted early Sinclair calculators
  • ZX80
  • ZX81
  • QL, with documentation and software
  • ICL OPD - original designer's prototype, with documentation and software
  • Z88, with documentation and software
• Two Jupiter Aces, including one which was unfinished when the company went bankrupt (ir works, but has no case)
• Memotech keyboard for Jupiter Ace (manufacturer's prototype, nicely badged but doesn't and probably never did work, never went into production)
• Memotech MTX 512, working
• Newbrain AD, with documentation still in shrink-wrap, working
• Enterprise 64, working
• Oric 1, working
• Psion Organiser II
• Microwriter, working, with documentation
• Apricot PC, (charcoal, with 10MB hard disk!), working, with software and some documentation
• Dragon 32, working
• IBM badged Tadpole RS6000 laptop, hard disk is dodgy.

I've also got a late model 32k Commodore PET with dual disk drives, but as it isn't British made I don't think of it as part of my collection and will happily swap it for an interesting early British machine.

Yes, I know this is all pretty ggeky. But this is part of our history - in my opinion an important part of our history - and these machines are being thrown into dustbins all the time. Somebody needs to preserve them. So if anyon'e got a Nascom, or an Acorn Model 1 or Acorn Cambridge Workstation that they don't want, let me know.

There's a UK site called Binary Dinosaurs that does this properly...

There are plenty of complete systems out there, and though this person doesn't have the discs there were several thousand copies made, and some are still in good working order (eg. Science Museum). The problem is getting it into a version that can be distributed today on CD-ROM, impossible because of the archaic filesystem which, while revolutionary, has little in common with modern filesystems.

Gareth