Cashing In On Antique Computers

mwillems writes: "The Economist posts this story this week about how old computer hardware can be worth money. At the Vintage Computer Festival East, a lot of old hardware was seen, swapped and admired. An industry is emerging, it seems: an Apple One apparently fetched $25,000 at auction. Time to dust off my Ohio Scientific OSI Challenger 4-p!" These festivals sounds like a lot of fun -- can anyone offer some first-hand reports from the Boston one? Hmm. The local thriftstore has a working Mac IIci for $1.98 -- maybe I should put it on eBay as a collectable.

Comments

Re:These aint old computers...Clay tablets.

[Anonymous Coward]

For sale:
Two clay tablets.
Slightly cracked & chipped.
Former owner,Moses.
Best offer accepted.

Re:I have an old 386, what's that worth? {EOM}

[fubillgates]

Great sig, in this day and age, the boot is Microsoft.

Old keyboards

[Mike Schiraldi]

I'd pay big bucks for an old IBM AT keyboard in good condition.. I still have my IBM PC XT's keyboard even though it unfortunately won't work with modern computers (though the very next generation IBM made, the aforementioned AT keyboard, is very similar and does work with modern machines)

You know these things:

• good solid click when you type
  
• the ` key next to the ' key
  
• the \ key on the left, mirroring the / key
  
• the * key near the ., so it was easy to type stuff like "*.txt"
  
• Ctrl on the left, Caps Lock way the fuck out of the way where you could never accidentally hit it
  
• Esc next to 1
  
• Function keys on the left
  
• Only one set of arrow keys
  
• A gigantic spacebar that goes all the way from Alt (which is where Left Ctrl is on modern keyboards) to Caps Lock (which is where Right Ctrl is nowadays)
  
• Oh, that wonderful solid click when you type. I have to mention it again.
  

Re:Old keyboards

[Mike Schiraldi]

Wait.. You think the lower left corner is great for Ctrl, since you can hold it down easily, but it's an awkward place for Meta?

Re:Old keyboards

[ubugly2]

funny that you mention it,out of all my other keyboards,this is my favorite,heavy as hell solid and has survive massive abuse.i just wished i could find the drivers so i could program it. you might want to check surplus at local schools,that's how i wound up with 9 pallets of assorted computer toys

Re:Old keyboards

[v6stang]

I know, what an idjut, replying to himself. Spare me.

Doing some further research, I find that my beloved keyboard is *not* the 84 key IBM PC/AT but it's predecesor (sp?), the 83 key IBM PC/XT.

Whole different can of worms there. I may have to dig out the old 8086 to see if this keyboard still works. Of course, that assumes that the 8086 would even boot assuming I could make a DOS boot disk with a 5.25" floppy, also assuming that one of the dual floppy drives still works, and also assuming that the yellow monochrome monitor still works after almost 10 years sitting on the damp dirt floor of my garage... Probably would give me cancer just from being in the same room if it did.

Still, sounds like an interesting project! :0)

Re:Old keyboards

[v6stang]

I've got one of these IBM AT keyboards on my lap right now (heavy sumbitches, aren't they?) with one of those stupid MS Word templates stuck to the top (Part No. 04295). It must be an ancient version of Word, because the keyboard was attached to my dad's 8086 from ~1985, and he never seriously upgraded it untill he stepped up to a 486/DX2 in 1992. The reason he moved up was because the 20MB hard drive finally gave up the ghost. The 8086 is now sitting in my closet intact along side the recently retired 486.

I can't remember if the keyboard is still functional, because I can't seem to find a working computer with that AT keyboard connector. I heard a rumor that there is one around at my community college, and I'll have to follow it up.

I grew up with this keyboard, and to this day I still use the numpad with NumLock off for my arrows instead of the seperate arrow keys. That is, when I'm not using WADS for my arrow keys. :0)

Enough of my rambling!

Re:Old keyboards

[Mike Schiraldi]

Funny you should mention that .. in lieu of an old IBM keyboard, i use a Gateway Anykey. One of the ones that actually has a right Ctrl (the newer ones don't; they decided that a second windows button was more important than right ctrl) but not one of the really old ones, where you could just press Program Macro instead of Ctrl-Program Macro.

Re:Old keyboards

[FrostedChaos]

Emacs rules. And btw, it should be obvious that if you move keys around, you'll have to "relearn keyboard layout"... whether or not they are alt keys or backtics...

Re:Old keyboards

[bogdant]

Oh, yeah! I am using an IBM AT keyboard (1989, as far as I remember), and I agree completely! ;) Wouldn't switch it for anything in this world!

Re:Old keyboards

[Mike Schiraldi]

I appreciate that a lot of people have been replying by email and pointing me to places like this, but these are much later models. Note the function keys on top, ESC floating by itself in the corner, backslash up on top, two sets of arrow keys, caps lock on the left, and backtick far from fronttick.

If only the Happy Hacking people would take notice of how great the old layout was.. Maybe i should send them my XT keyboard.

Re:Old keyboards

[spudnic]

Heh, my keyboard isn't one of the originals, but it is pretty old and I just love the way it feels. It's still got a "WordPerfect for IBM Personal Computers" keyboard template stuck to the top of it.

I like my neighbors to hear me when I type!

Re:Old keyboards

[jamoke]

You're the second person I've encountered that likes those old keyboards. Email me your name and address and I'll ship you one. Shindler@juno.com

Re:Old keyboards

[elohim]

F keys on the left are great. I like the large spacebar of my MS natural keyboard, but the rest of the keyboard leaves much to be desired. OT: does anyone know of a hardwired DVORAK keyboard, one that -doesnt- have a QWERTY legend next to the DVORAK legend?

Re:Old keyboards

[cpt kangarooski]

Heck, I have one of those sitting around. If you're really interested lemme know, but you'd have to pay for the shipping - it weighs a ton.

(Although I love the feel, the AT layout doesn't do it for me -- I prefer the Apple Expanded II I've got rigged up with an adapter to my P3.)

Re:Old keyboards

[Ed Avis]

I'd pay big bucks for an old IBM AT keyboard in good condition.. I still have my IBM PC XT's keyboard even though it unfortunately won't work with modern computers (though the very next generation IBM made, the aforementioned AT keyboard, is very similar and does work with modern machines)

I believe that although the connector (5-pin DIN) looks similar, the electronics are completely different. It's a real pity that nobody makes XT-to-AT convertors (or if they did once get made, that they're no longer available).

You know these things:
good solid click when you type

Well lots of keyboards will give you a solid click, for example the various IBM PS/2 keyboards. which are what I use most of the time. The difference with the XT is the _metallic_, ringing echo you get after hitting each key... it sounds almost like a futuristic typewriter :-).

the ` key next to the ' key

Strange... I have a couple of XT keyboards here which have no backtick character at all. Oh, I know why, they're the UK version (livre sign on Shift-3). BTW the ` and ' are not symmetric characters in modern character sets, so it's arguably a misfeature to make them look like they are (unless you use TeX a lot). I don't know whether the PC-XT had them as left and right quote characters or as backtick and upright quote.

the \ key on the left, mirroring the / key

My PS/2 keyboards and clone keyboards still have this. Again this must be due to the British keyboard layout, which I believe is a variant on the general 'International' PS/2 layout. (At first I was annoyed that adding one currency symbol to the keyboard should cause several other things to move about randomly, but there are some redeeming features like the bigger Enter key. I wonder whether the 'US International' keyboard layout has these things. The Acorn Archimedes keyboard is an example of how to include a pound sign without screwing about with the location of other keys.)

the * key near the ., so it was easy to type stuff like "*.txt"

Again, my XT keyboard doesn't have this; * is on Shift-8 just as on modern keyboards.

Ctrl on the left, Caps Lock way the fuck out of the way where you could never accidentally hit it

Actually, for Emacs use I think I probably prefer Ctrl in the corner, so you can hold it down with your little finger and tap out X C, X S, or whatever. Holding down the key to the left of A feels more awkward.

Esc next to 1

Of course what's really needed is *zero* next to one...

A gigantic spacebar that goes all the way from Alt (which is where Left Ctrl is on modern keyboards)

Again, this is a bit awkward for use as a Meta key in Emacs. But I agree, the big spacebar is cool.

Re:Old keyboards

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to that brother. I dread the day when I have to get rid of my keyboard (apart from being one of only 2 components left from the original machine i bought many years ago, the other being the power lead). I _hate_ windows keyboards, they constantly remind me of the arrogance of the company that thinks having instant access to its program launch menu is more important than 2 inches of spacebar. And besides it messes up playing 'doom'. grrr

Re:Old keyboards

[Anonymous Coward]

You can me ship 800 for my employees whom all prefered the IBM click keyboards. It better not be thoose crappy 101 key versions though.

Re:Old keyboards

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes! I have one. It's missing a spring on the numeric keypad's zero key, but it's still in 100% working condition. I once threw it through a plate glass window and it didn't even break the casing (which is more than I can say for the window, which didn't survive the encounter).

I hear some company still has the tech and produces them, but I forget which.

Re:Old keyboards

[Anonymous Coward]

The one I want is a Space Cadet keyboard. Actually, a newly produced one with Linux drivers would work too. Then I can REALLY use Emacs ;-)

Re:Old keyboards

[Anonymous Coward]

You can me ship 800 for my employees whom all prefered.
You're referring to the employees whom everyone preferred. (As opposed to the employees whom nobody liked).
If you're talking about the employees doing the preferring, say "who".
He runs.
Who runs?
I hit him.
You hit whom?
It's really quite simple.

Re:Old keyboards

[Anonymous Coward]

My keyboard features a Dvorak layout without Qwerty letters, but then again I just popped out all the keys and rearranged them, so it's not hardwired. (Incidentally, it's a IBM keyboard from 93, with a different layout than the one mentioned above, but with the same construction.)

Works for me. Who looks at the keyboard anyways? I still feel around for the keys even though I would find them if I just looked down.

Re:Old keyboards

[Fred Ferrigno]

Feh. I checked the wrong button.

Re:Old keyboards

[efuseekay]

You just gave me another bullet in my eternal vi war with emacs squadron here : No Need To Relearn Keyboard Layout!

Re:Old keyboards

[Anonymous Coward]

A company by the name of Unicomp holds the patents necessary to make the old IBM-style keyboards. AFAIK, they only make PS/2-style keyboards, but they're still much better than the crap that most computers come with these days. I have one on my PC at home and I love it. You can order one here

Re:Old keyboards

[stmpynode]

i would love to be able to find an old gateway2000 programmable keyboard. mine is broke and i don't know how to fix it :\

Re:Old keyboards

[Ed Avis]

Wait.. You think the lower left corner is great for Ctrl, since you can hold it down easily, but it's an awkward place
for Meta?

You have a point. I started trying to type Emacs stuff on my XT keyboard, putting my thumb on the Alt key, since that's what I'd do on an ordinary PC keyboard (without Windows keys). Of course putting your thumb on Alt is a bad idea if it's over in the corner, you should use your little finger instead. But I didn't think that far, I just thought 'hey, this is really awkward' and gave up. Duuh.

Re:Old keyboards

[jamoke]

One nice thing about posting on /. is that you get fucking spelling and grammar lessons for free/

Re:Old keyboards

[jamoke]

.. was gonna say, if that's an AT keyboard and not an XT, you could test it with the 486 .. never mind. Truth is I never me anyone that really liked the original XT keyboard, AT yes, XT, no.

(the grammar girls are gonna go after this one, duck!)

Re:Old keyboards

[Anonymous Coward]

I know what you mean. I have five PC-AT keyboards now. I've been collecting them so that I can have a lifetime supply. Only one of them has broken in 17 years, so I think I'm in good shape. These kids nowadays, they don't realize that people could once touch-type the function keys.

Re:Old keyboards

[mjflory]

Look around for a Northgate keyboard... I think they were made by the same folks who made the IBMs, and they have the same feel, plus extensive programmability in some models. They had a female PS/2 port on the keyboard and a cable that went to an AT connector. Just substitute a male-male PS/2 cable (the kind used with multiple-PC KVM switch boxes) and hook it up to your new PC. I forget just where all the keys are, but they did have models with the F-keys on the left. They are invaluable for anyone still using WordPerfect for DOS. (YES, it's still in use.) Our lab heads, a husband-and-wife team, still use their twin Northgates with XyWrite II!

Re:Old keyboards

[efuseekay]

Ah, but only where the @%$!@ ESC and the : keys are (which thankfully does not change). vi is king! (If I have used emacs, I will have had my brain damaged when some idiot put the CAPSLOCK key next to A....)

Osborne computers (CPM)

[user flynn]

I have an original model-1 with the little screen. :) Osborne portable computers kick ass.

And TRS-80, and timex sinclair- 1000 with the 16k ram upgrade.

Re:Old Computers

[fubillgates]

Frogger, Decathalon, Astroids, Missle Command, Pac man. What else needs to be said.

How much would an Amiga 600 be worth?

[jonnydigital]

Amiga 600HD. It's not in perfect condition, but how much might it be worth?

Re:How much would an Amiga 600 be worth?

[jonnydigital]

Well, £30 is okay - I bought one second hand for £20, I use it for spare parts :)

Re:How much would an Amiga 600 be worth?

[Anonymous Coward]

about £30, sorry mate, there are far too many of those for it to ever be worth much

is there a place...

[Kwantus]

... to get a paper-tape reader/punch without going broke? The what I can find is about $500 and I can't afford that just now. (I have a few TeX files I want to put on a long-life medium.)

I'm still too sentimental to my C64 to sell it :)

Re:is there a place...

[dario_moreno]

I suppose you have a printer...just print those files with a large Courier font, in case everything goes wrong, you can always OCR them with on my opinion the same reliability as paper tape readers from the fifties. Darn cheap and durable backup for, say, less than 100 kb

Re:Apples... okay. Anybody a Symbolics box for sal

[aboulanger]

I have three 3645-3650 class machines. Two with
color.

I also have a SOL (old CPM days) machine.

Re:Apples... okay. Anybody a Symbolics box for sal

[wolfen]

Heh... well I've got a working 3645-3650 machine also.
and a full set of manuals... (grin)
Color? who needs color? :P

Re:Old Computers

[Reziac]

Since it got mentioned... As of about 10 years ago, a complete set of original Star Wars toys was worth (are you sitting down??) HALF A MILLION DOLLARS.

Re:really rare machines

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, almost bought one once; it had a slot in the side for a ROM. I think it was overpriced at the time so I didn't get it. There are web pages on this old box ... eg. http://www.lisp.com.au/~michael/exidy/

really rare machines

[Pope]

I knew a guy back in junior high with an Exidy Sorcerer!

Anyone else have one or even heard of it?

Re:Oddly valuable items....

[Reziac]

I've got a whole pile of old cards -- MFM controllers, mono video adapters, floppy controllers, assorted memory boards... and an old Mac Radius fullpage monitor. Anyone want to start the bidding? :)

Re:Me Too

[JediTrainer]

They have personal value to me, and in the future, I'm sure others will feel the same.

I, for one, feel the same way. They DO have personal value to you!

Re:Collectible?

[Anonymous Coward]

But that's when things *do* become valuable! Millions made, millions of people had them, millions of people threw them away and trashed them. Millions of people in 10 or 20 years time remember the things with fondness, and remember chucking it out (shriek!) and go hunting on eBay for a replacement.

Keep hold of your first gen PalmPilots folks...

Re:Please help me

[Anonymous Coward]

Break out a fresh jar of vasoline, rub it all over your body, and fire up some good-old fashioned porn site and jerk away...

Virtual Antiques

[sstaton]

The oddest thing about collectible computers is how many are emulated on existing platforms. This, in effect, makes ancient computers more readily accessable by the average person than any other kind of antique (other than the words/images from ancient books). The box shouldn't matter; Apple II emulators are a darnsight easier to use than the physical machine.

But, there is something special about booting an Apple II+ when it was the one of few personal computers you could actually handle in 1980. I had an OSI C2-4P, and access to HP 67 and Apple II/II+. I'd love to reaquaint myself with these old slugs. It'd be fun to have a glass extension on my home where I keep them on display but away from my scrappy teenage son and his clever, trickster friend Ferris. I'd hate for anyone to actually turn them on and burn them out ...

Re:Virtual Antiques

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but no computer is ancient or antique.

Re:Please help me

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think they do it like that in Europe.

I once read of a UKian minister who was found dead in women's clothes with an orange stuck in his mouth and whip marks all over his body.

The honorable first poster might want to try something like that.

Show me the money!

[bryan1945]

I got an original Mac from work, it was buried way back in the corner of a closet. Only problem is that the CRT is burnt out. I wonder if this could be worth any money in the future?

I'm guessing that my 286 clone won't be getting any money any time soon, though. Bummer.

Re:Show me the money!

[hqm]

The CRT usually stopped working because a big capacitor in the drive circuit on the board blew out, you can often just replace this.

Re:Show me the money!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. And since it's and Apple, good luck. You'll have better luck selling buffalo chips, at least they can be used for something.

I have a barrel of RDRAM, soon to be a collectible

[Mustang Matt]

Get yours while it's hot!

Collectible?

[sakusha]

I have to laugh when I hear people saving Mac SEs and Stinkpads, thinking they'll become collectible. Not a chance in the world. These were mass produced by the hundreds of thousands, and have zero chance of becoming collectible. Scarcity means value, and these machines are too plentiful to be worth anything even as salvage.
On the other hand, I own a Sol-20, which is a true collectible. Now I just wish I could find a buyer, since it is supposedly now worth around $1000-1500.

Re:Collectible?

[chef_raekwon]

anything is worth nothing, unless you have a buyer.

Re:Collectible?

[trash eighty]

useless why? no old computer that works is useless, as long as you have an imagination.

Re:Collectible?

[foonf]

So does this mean my old Apple Lisa (still working but upgraded to 2 meg RAM, scsi, and running System 7.1 might actually be worth something someday?

Hell, that things worth something NOW. You could probably sell it for over $100 even if it didn't work. And the upgrades certainly make it highly unique. Hold on to it. It would definately be a plus if you still had the original Lisa software sitting around somewhere, also.

Re:Collectible?

[spudnic]

So if someone manages to hang onto a Mac SE for say, 125 years, you don't think that some museum would be interested?

Everything will have value to someone if you keep it long enough (except maybe food ;).

Re:Collectible?

[trash eighty]

indeed SEs are very plentiful, but look out for Workgroup Server 60s... much more rare ;)

Re:Collectible?

[Anonymous Coward]

So does this mean my old Apple Lisa (still working but upgraded to 2 meg RAM, scsi, and running System 7.1 might actually be worth something someday?

Re:Collectible?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, production counts in the Millions! And the Sol-20, should fetch you $0.00, unless a time machine comes with it.

Re:Collectible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft would donate theirs before you could even wipe the dollar signs from your eyes. Too bad, but you loose. Everything will have value to someone if you keep it long enough. NO

Everything will have value to someone always and forever. Including food.

Re:Collectible?

[Anonymous Coward]

But still just as much a usless peice of shit. What do you think, it can't be reproduced?

Re:Collectible?

[nettdata]

125 year old food? I betcha a Twinkie will outlast that Mac SE!

Mac Classic

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone tell me if the Mac Classic(where the monitor and hard drive are all in one piece) is worth anything?

Let's not forget CARDIAC

[ebh]

Bell Labs' CARDboard Illustrative Aid to Computing, where you got to be the CPU and the program counter was a bug. I used one for the first time in the late 60's or so, and I still have it.

My dad had a KIM...

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember he used a telitype machine as a printer, hooked up a tickertape machine to store hardcopies of his programs and even found a way to hook up a Westinghouse terminal to it so he had a monitor... most of that was before other on the block kids even had Atari.

Mac IIci

[clustersnarf]

I could use one of those, I have a copy of A/UX i need to run. But it has to be an 030 or 040 class machine with an FPU and No DSP chips. Must ... complete.... unix farm.... I did however get Debian running on a PowerComputing PowerCenter 132.

Re:Mac IIci

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't bother with a nasty old IIci.. Get yourself a nice SE/30! Pump it up with 32MB RAM, a big HD, and etherhet, and you'd be hard pressed to find such a powerful, small, nearly fully capable UNIX machine. A/UX is neat, but NetBSD is great on those things..

Re:Mac IIci

[Anonymous Coward]

Locate a IIfx -- all sorts of fancy custom hardware that only worked under AU/X. Finding the f*ing 68-pin SIMMs might be a bit of a chore, however. AFAIK, this machine is not supported by any *bsd or linux, so it's the perfect AU/X monster (and, the GNU ban has been dropped, so gcc and some software has finally been ported.)

Re:Mac IIci

[ksheff]

The IIfx is supported by linux but not by NetBSD.

Re:Woz

[Anonymous Coward]

hmmm... maybe it's like the orignal amiga, with the developers signatures actually etched on the PCB.

Moneymaking

[lavaforge]

I don't know about the value of many old computers, but I myself have made a tidy sum off of the sale of old computer monitors. They seem to have some materials that can be economically reclaimed.
Not only that but I did sell one artist-type about 40 ega displays to make fishbowls out of.

Antiques of the future.

[Kris_J]

I just rescued an injured Goldstar 3DO from a swap-meet today. (The problem is the cable that connects to the CD drive/tray -- it isn't there at all, I'm looking for a replacement.) I bought a Sega Saturn a couple of weeks back. There are a bunch of decent little decks of the same vintage that suffered more from bad marketing and a depressed market than from any technical problems. These devices that quickly sank without a trace in a saturated market are the vintage computers of 2020. And they're fun to collect and repair now.

sorry, not collectible

[jchristopher]

The local thriftstore has a working Mac IIci for $1.98 -- maybe I should put it on eBay as a collectable.

Seeing as eBay already has a shitload of IIci's for $9.99 (with 0 bids!), I wouldn't exactly call a IIci 'collectible'. They made FAR too many of these for them to ever be of any value due to scarcity.

Re:sorry, not collectible

[joe52]

Agreed. There are lots of IIci's out there. Apple made that model for years. My roomate has two of them. One of them has two NICs in it and is our router (it runs ipnetrouter on the Mac OS). Quiet little box, just sits in a cabinet and runs.

-joe

Re:Old Tech

[fubillgates]

There is nothing that compares to the excitement of Space Invaders, Asteriods, or Missle Command. These games were the bomb. Of course, I may have one or two too many beers to distinguish a good game. But, oh, the memories that come back playing them.

loser

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, first post, by the way.

hahahaha

Buying and Selling...

[Mike1024]

Hey,

The local thriftstore has a working Mac IIci for $1.98 -- maybe I should put it on eBay as a collectable.

Ebay has a Sinclair ZX Spectrum or two for £2.99... maybe I should buy one and put it on ebay as a collectable.

Hold on, there's something wrong with this plan...

Michael

Oh yeah?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is hard to love something made of grey plastic.

Tell that to my girlfriend.

No, you sick son of a bitch, i'm talking about her credit card.

(I think i'll post this one anonymously)

I've been collecting for a number of years now

[Simon Brooke]

There are an aweful lot of machines which were produced for quite short periods or in quite small numbers in the seventies and eighties; many of them were of interesting or influential design. I started actually hunting for specific machines to add to my collection about five years ago. Some of my machines have been tracked down through contacts, some have been donated by friends, one or two have come through interested antique dealers. But the majority now come through eBay.

I believe these old machines are important parts of our history. They are certainly rare and there aren't going to be any more produced, so they may well be good investments. But if we, as geeks, don't conserve our own history no-one else is going to.

Oh, first post, by the way.

Re:Thank You Slashdot

[DCowern]

The problem isn't the supply and demand... it's the fact that all of a sudden, http servers running on ZX80's are going to be gettin 50,000 hits an hour! Poor old things, leave them alone!!!

Re:Old Computers

[Bangback]

Speaking of Atari 2600s, there's a whole group of people dedicated to classic gaming consoles (these computers are actually still useful). There's even Classic Gamer magazine . I focus on Intellivision, ColecoVision, and Atari 5200 since they're somewhat rare, in the nostalgia range of guys like me who have money to buy the cartridges I couldn't afford when 12, and have decent enough graphics/gameplay to be playable today. Most interesting is that a niche market of game designers for these ancient games has started and are publishing a couple games a year.

Re:Oddly valuable items....

[Anonymous Coward]

you have an altair??

so what if it has a little gundamage/rust from its days at the range. The question is, does it still work? I would buy it, if no chips were missing! (_not_ for more than 150 bucks but hey.)

Re:Old Tech

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to tell you this, but there are people out there that collect old sewing machines. Personally, my own Singer is 30 years old and has only been overhauled once. The classic 218 Featherweight sells at a huge premium because quilters love that thing - about $300-500 depending on the parts that come with it. You can buy the toy machine I learned on in pristine condition for about $30 on eBay. Someplace among my belongings is a listing for an auction next month of antique sewing machines. The particular model you got is not a really valuable one, though. Now, as for computers, someplace around here I have a board for a 40 year old IBM mainframe. Reaching into my desk drawer, I find an original IBM PC parallel port card and some other stuff I never bothered to clean out. I think I finally gave away my last strip of PC memory chips. My original PC was the second model - the one without the cassette port. But still it managed to last a good long time. When it finally died I think only the case was original as I had upgraded the heck out of it. It lasted far longer than the 486 Gateway I replaced it with. Real Soon Now, I'm going back to the real world and buying Apple and running Linux on it.

Re:Please help me

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I forgot to preface my post that it applies to non-Brits...

That said, if you are Brit, put on a fresh pair of stockings, a wig, heavy make-up, stick a dildo up your arse, open a fresh bottle of vasoline, surf to a good old fashioned cross-dressing web site, and jerk away...

Re:Me Too

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you planning on storing them someplace safe?

A house can burn down or be robbed. A bank safety deposit box would sound about right.

Woz

[blair1q]

A few months ago, one of the local Silly Valley school districts (Los Altos, iirc) Yahoo-auctioned off a working Apple I, signed by Steve Wozniak, complete with a picture of the Woz signing it.

It went for $350.

I didn't buy it.

--Blair
"D'oh!"

Re:Woz

[RumbaFlex]

Would it have gone for $400 if it hadn't been signed?

Re:Woz

[cpt kangarooski]

No, it was a working Apple IIe, IIRC. I wasn't all that interested, since my Christmas gift to a friend of mine last year was a working IIgs that I had had the Woz personally sign. Shipping stuff cross-country wound up costing more than the machine itself!

(however, the Woz likes to read and answer his mail himself, and it eats up a huge amount of his time, so I can't really recommend bugging him with requests -- I probably wouldn't've had I known.)

Now if I can just get Steve to sign my NeXT Cube, I'll be all set.

Re:Woz

[Anonymous Coward]

An Apple *I* ? This would be *very* surprising.

Do you actually know how an Apple *I* looks ? There is no case. The apple I is just a board.

Very few were made. There aren't much left.

Re:Woz

[driehuis]

I still have an original MacPlus at home. I still feel it is So Cool to have all those signatures cast inside the casing that I just couldn't get myself to ditching the thing.

It's been years since I opened the thing, but I remember going through them with friends and trying to make out the individual signatures.

Really, anyone who has not seen Waynes World should not be taking part in this discussions.

Me Too

[XBL]

I am saving both a Mac SE, and an IBM Thinkpad 701C (Butterfly keyboard) in great condition as collector's items.

They have personal value to me, and in the future, I'm sure others will feel the same.

Re:Me Too

[Anonymous Coward]

The Butterfly was a unique design and probably will be worth something someday. However, I wouldn't bet on the SE ever being worth more than a couple bucks unless you have the box, manual set, and so on.

BTW, the 701c was the last machine I saw with ROM BASIC installed (disconnect the HD to see).

Oddly valuable items....

[HamNRye]

I have long been a collector of old computer equipment. Not in the as a hobby thing, it just seems to keep piling up. I was selling alot of it on e-bay and found this:

Old (I mean pre 1975) monitors are at a premium. Many of these exhibits have working machines, but no terminals or monitors. (Note: This means you'll get up to 1,000 or so for verrrrrry rare ones.)(Yeah, it ain't much, but it ain't a kick in the teeth either.)

Anyone still got an Altair?? Some of the old Commodores? Nostalgia carries a premium.

Oddly enough on a side note, I sold 8 PDP7's, with terminals and keyboards (To the tune of 48 working sets) and only got 300$ And noone even wanted the old Sun INP. (SunOS 3.5 not good enough?) Heck, that thing even has an Apple I model processor from Motorolla.

I have also had good luck with front bezels and name plates in good condition, power supplies, etc...

Finally, the expansion boards. There things sold for 5K and up initially, and will still go for that if you're paitent. Post a web page with all of the names and model numbers and a contact addy. Someone will search the net and hit your page and buy that board. I have sold video boards for 8K, comm and memory boards have gone for as high as 12K.

I find that the old washing machine hard drives aren't worth the shipping, so strip em and sell off the parts. Same for most other large equipment.

Now, would anyone like to place a bid on 25 IBM 8585 models?? Featuring a 386/25 processor and a full 4MB of Ram... I think they'd make great doorstops. (Unless you already have an Apple IIci)

~Hammy

Re:Oddly valuable items....

[FooBear]

You sold 8 PDP-7s? I'd love to have one of those -- who'd you sell them to?

Re:Oddly valuable items....

[leereyno]

Apple I processor from Motorola?

The Apple I used a MOS 6502, just like the Apple II/II+/III and early IIe's and IIc's did. Later IIe's and IIc's used the 65c02 and the IIgs used the 65816.

The chip that you're actually thinking of is the Motorola 68000, which was used in many different systems including the early macs, Amigas, Atari ST's, etc. etc. as well as the Sun box you've got.

The 6502 was indirectly derived from the architecture of the Motorola 6800 (note 2 zero's, not three) whereas the 68000 was inspired by DEC's VAX architecture.

Re:Oddly valuable items....

[Anonymous Coward]

I still have the Altair I built.

it wasn't good for anything, so I use it as my shooting computer.

Re:Oddly valuable items....

[Anonymous Coward]

What would you do with it, besides cut a hole in it so you could fuck it.?

Re:Oddly valuable items....

[RainbowSix]

Finally, the expansion boards. There things sold for 5K and up initially, and will still go for that if you're paitent. Post a web page with all of the names and model numbers and a contact addy. Someone will search the net and hit your page and buy that board. I have sold video boards for 8K, comm and memory boards have gone for as high as 12K.

WHAT! HOLY SHIT! I've been breaking these things with baseball bats!!

Re:Oddly valuable items....

[linuxophen]

You know, if I could sell my 16K & 64K memory boards for the $400 or so I paid for them - I'd be a happy camper!!!

---

Re:only $25,000?

[DuranDuran]

$25,000 - that is a very low price, considering the rarity of the object.

That's right...there's only one 3.5" floppy disk in the world with my signature on it in gold pen - imagine how valuable that is!!!

It would take Steve Wozinak twenty five seconds to sign all the produced models of the Apple I, so the fact that it was signed is pretty much neither here nor there.

If that's the case, I bet he's really cursing the fact that his mother didn't give him a name that'd take longer to sign like "Steven Ivanovich Rasputin Kubechesky De Soto Nimitz Wozniak".

router

[Anonymous Coward]

Did the /. router just go all wak? I refreshed, and all I got was "SELECT * FROM tzcodes,dateformats WHERE tzcodes.tz='' AND dateformats.id= " Time to whip the serverpimps!!

Re:router

[IAT]

I just refreshed and got a page full of stories from 1999!

Re:router

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit?! It's /., retro-tastic

Re:router

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you expect from an idiot who wraps a Linux distribution around his cock.

Rrrrgh

[Faust7]

Some years ago, when I was little, I acquired a mint-condition '78 model Apple II, yeah, the very first II. I, being little, fried it one day by removing and reinserting an interface card while the machine was on. I have never forgiven myself.

VIntage Computer Festival East

[Jason Scott]

At the VCF east, I picked up a Radio Shack Model 100 for $40, including case and manual, a bunch of old Creative Computing Issues for $1, and an obscure Psygnosis game for the Amiga called "ORK", shrinkwrapped, for $10.

Maybe I'm being weird, but this little Slashdot Blurb implies these older artifacts are going only for premiums, and that's not the case.

Re:VIntage Computer Festival East

[Tackhead]

> At the VCF east, I picked up a Radio Shack Model 100 for $40, including case and manual, a bunch of old Creative Computing Issues for $1, and an obscure Psygnosis game for the Amiga called "ORK", shrinkwrapped, for $10.

Yeah, in addition to drooling over the exhibits and expensive/rare stuff, I picked up some pretty cool stuff at VCF 4.0 last year. Lots of old software, hardware, and parts.

(Yes, this is another shameless plug for VCF 5.0, September 15-16th, in San Jose. Why wait until after it's over to read about it on Slashdot? ;) VCF East was the first time the VCF crew put on a show for the East Coast crowd, and it should grow over the next few years.

Meanwhile, for the Silicon Valley crowd, VCF 5.0 is also under the same roof as CA Extreme, a weekend of all the 80s arcade machines and prototypes you could imagine. Serious dr00l.

WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF just happened to Slashdot? Someone better post a story about what happened. I couldn't login, they were a bunch of weird stories, etc.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a router this side of the site went bad. Although I can't explain the aforementioned retrograde displaying of 90's stories. Perhaps some sort of "Oh Shit" page?

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are seing why MySQL is a poor choice as the backend, and why Perl is a poor choice for the middle.

But what would you expect from Debian users, more of an understanding of the system than other distro users? Ha

;-P

The more modern ones, though...

[HerrGlock]

Should be taken to the nearest school and donated. It doesn't matter if you can take it as a tax deduction (usually can) but even some of the more monied school systems can figure out a use or a home for them.

They may not be the latest on the block and you may not want something two years old, but the kids sure can use them.

DanH

My collection...

[RainbowSix]

Luckily for me, I'm a comptuer nerd going to a computer nerd school. I was looking to test a floppy cable, and I ran into a faculty member. I said what the heck, and asked him if he had a floppy cable. He says "here" and hands me an Apple 2CI. Of course there was nothing in there I could use, so I stripped it for collectible parts and use the case as a box :) The other day, a computer lab threw out around 30 old Apples, I grabbed an MAC LC because it looked kinda neat... this school can't help but to build on my collection of old hardware.

Re:My collection...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you new to computers?

Re:My collection...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just smashed a IIc with a sledge hammer about a week ago.

Apple Never Changes

[Anonymous Coward]

an Apple One apparently fetched $25,000 at auction

See, twenty million years after it's introduction and it's still OVERPRICED UNDERPOWERED JUNK.

AMD FOREVER!!

Re:Apple Never Changes

[leereyno]

You're thinking of the computers that Steve Jobs takes credit for creating, the Macs. You are right, they are overpriced and underpowered. I wouldn't call them junk, because most are well made from an engineering standpoint (hardware that is).

The Apple II series on the other hand, were wonderful computers. I've still got the II+ that I got way back in 1978. It's in my closet, wrapped up in plastic, but it still works. The II's were great because they were an open architecture (unlike the macintoy) and anyone could create accessories and cards for them. I remember back in the late 80's my high school had a IIe with a SCSI hard drive and CDROM, not bad for a design originally created back when Starsky and Hutch was still on the air. It didn't have internet access, but who did in 1987?

In many ways the modern PC is an example of what can happen to a unimpressive platform that has enough money thrown at it. The original PC was no better than the Apple II. The first "five slot" pc shipped with 16 to 64k of memory, no hard drive,a mono text only video card (no bitmapped graphics), and a cassette interface of all things, the floppy drive for it held 160k and was an option. By the time the "eight slot" XT had come out a couple of years later floppies were standard, the motherboard could hold up to 640k, 4/16 color CGA graphics was available, a ten meg hard drive was a common option, and the floppies would do 360k. The platform continued to grow and expand from there because it was popular and IBM kept trying to improve their "branded" PC to keep up with the cloners.

So don't forget that your Athlon/PIII/P4 can trace its roots all the way back to a metal box with an 4.77Mhz 8088 processor and 16k of memory, which itself was influenced in no small way by the open architecture of the Apple II. The PC was a radical departure for IBM, up until then everything had been closed and proprietary and done in house as much as possible. With the PC they used off the shelf parts and created an open and viabrant design that hit the ground running, just like the Apple II did.

Lee

Thank You Slashdot

[SecretAsianMan]

With the Slashdot Effect you've now brought upon the classic computer market, the market will soon be gone thanks to everyone selling and no one buying. Thank you Slashdot.

Re:Thank You Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I read this in your jerk off magazine in the 80's moron, it was called Byte.

No one wants to buy your shit computers. Let your lame ass hobbie die its deserved death, you matress fucker.

Re:Thank You Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Think again...

I know we aren't supposed to post "me too", but...

[unitron]

I didn't see the weird stories, just the default home page, it wouldn't let me log in, wouldn't let me change the view on this story down to negative one. Did a google on Anne Tomlinson, to see what other sites might be discussing Slashdot problems and when I went to check non-cached geekazoid, got a page saying they're being DoS'ed.

OBSCENE CONTENT WARNING!!!!!!!!

[BassGuy23]

The above post is a link to some nasty pictures! DON'T FOLLOW IT!!!!!

Amstrads!

[Idimmu Xul]

if anyone wants to buy my working Amstrad 6128 complete with TV/Radion tuner and tape deck for £5000, id be just as happy to sell it to you for £500 :)

So Macs are collectables now?

[theneo]

Seems to be the fad.

Everything that has no use, no worth, and quite frankly is pure crap, is worth more money just because of that.

Whatever, I have a bunch of cruddy Macs from my early days of computing, maybe I can get some money off of them.

Although no amount of money can replace the life force that those bastard machines stole from me....

Re:So Macs are collectables now?

[jamoke]

I wouldn't start counting the cash yet. Seems to be a few eccentrics out there paying big bucks for so called collectable computers. What for? Bragging rights? A lot of collectable things are still useful, or at least have some artistic or culturistic value. What value is an old mac (for example) that you can't really fire up and do anything really useful with in todays computing world ? Now give me an Altair, a real mans computer :-)

Collecting Macs

[Brian Kendig]

I've got a collection of old Apple hardware -- prototypes of the Mac Plus and Mac II, an Apple II+ with Apple Computer Inc. asset tags on it, some Newtons, various Quadras, Macs with asset tags on them from Kaleida and Netscape (all obtained legally), et cetera. Most of what I have was donated for free by people who wanted to clear out garage space. I've cleaned it up, restored it to like-new condition, and put the operating system it shipped with back onto its hard disk.

If anyone out there is in the Orlando, Florida area, and you've got any old Mac stuff to get rid of or if you know of anyplace that's getting rid of old Apple equipment for cheap or free, please drop me a line! (The BEST place I've found for this sort of collecting is Weird Stuff, www.weirdstuff.com, but that's in Sunnyvale California.)

There was a wonderful coffee-table book published a few years ago titled 'AppleDesign: The Work of the Apple Industrial Design Group' which goes great with my collection; it really shows off the design talent behind these old computers.

Re:I know we aren't supposed to post "me too", but

[Anonymous Coward]

i saw the wierd stories, but everyime i opened one it had no comments, even stories that have comments now, had no comments.

I've been waiting for this....

[dbCooper0]

I've got plenty of green and amber screens (MGA) as well as some VIC-20 and C-64 boxes. My first love was (of course) Atari 8-bit machines, which I've religiously kept by virtue of my pack-rat habits. More interestingly, who wants an IBM Model 4 (2 8" floppies, 16k RAM, complete with daisy wheel printer...?) Shipping would be horrendous - damn stuff came close to giving me a hernia when I carried it off to the basement. I could go on and on, but that seems to happen too often on /.

Nonetheless, let me add some printer sharing stuff by Falcon - for Apple ][ complete with SuperSerial cards...dropped off by a good-natured friend who had no idea that I would even care...(I do, but why am I keeping it???)

Mac IIci?

[trash eighty]

just bought one off ebay for 10 pounds... so thats about $16 for you americans... so if i was you... go and get that cheap one! ;)

Re:I know we aren't supposed to post "me too", but

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Anne Tomlinson is extracting revenge? You know, for the sexual harassment charges.

So what can I get for...

[Anonymous Coward]

My KIM-1? that pre-dates the Apple by many years. the Kim-1 is what I call the first home computer, it was under $2000.00 was programmable by a normal person (not the low-IQ droolers we have as computer users now) and was even available as a kit form. I remember using my KIM-1 before I even heard of the name Apple, or steve Was-his-name.

Re:So what can I get for...

[zeppelin71]

according to previous actions on ebay ~$150-$200

How about Morrows?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got about 8 Morrow CP/M Z80 machines, in working order with software and manuals. One MD-2 (SS/SD floppy), some MD-3's (DS/DD floppies), an MD-5 (5Mb HD) and an MD-10 (10Mb HD). If anyone is interested in these, eMail me at OEBOMJYGXNDS@spammotel.com. Oh yes, there's a Kaypro also.

Commodre Vic 20

[ioman1]

How much do you think I could get for my old Vic 20? :-)

Re:Commodre Vic 20

[Carbon Unit 549]

Ahhh yes, I remember programming them in K-mart to say "I suck, don't buy me.....I suck, don't.."

These aint old computers...

[Lumpy]

Sorry, but I was messing around and making robots with my KIM-1 way before Apples came around. you could do more, you actually could interface the thing, and it spawned more creativity than any apple did in that time. Granted, the Apple was not sold as a hobbyiest computer (it was apple's nightmate to have people tinkering under the hood, while the KIM-1 told you how in the manual.) Sorry, if you want vintage home computers, you have to go farther back than apple.

Re:These aint old computers...

[DuranDuran]

Sorry, but I was messing around and making robots with my KIM-1 way before Apples came around.

You were lucky to have a KIM-1! When I were a lad, if we wanted to 'compute' something we had to use a boonch of stones sorted into piles. Lose one and all your calculations go to hell! No manual! No interface! Oh sure, it weren't a hobby computer, but it were a hobby computer to us!

But you try telling the young people of today that, and they won't believe you.

Antique?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but no computer is antique. Except for maybe the abacus, but that's not what we ment. is it.

Duh!

Re:Assertion Failed: Yuo!=Fagot

[spork_testicle]

You dumb fuck. A/UX was a bloody abortion. Unbearably slow, incredibly unreliable, mostly useless, and just plain featureless.

TI-99

[Carbon Unit 549]

I recently bought a TI-99 computer with about 10 cartridges for $1.00 at a garage sale. A little longer ago I bought an Apple II+ for $2,500 --what a deal!

Home Computer Museum - Russian Home Computers

[Markmarkmark]

Ok, I'll admit that I collect old computers. I've even got a little site documenting my collection of 'home computers' (you remember, the little all-in-one console-style machines that hooked to a TV). I like these machines because they represent the original path 'home' computers were on before the incipient 'beige-dom' of PCs overwhelmed the market. These little guys were sold in department stores (you know, like furniture) and some featured quaint pictures on their packaging of housewives entering recipes into them (for storage on audio cassettes). Hmmm, those were the days.

Sure there are lots of common ones like the C64 and Ataris but there were dozens of different kinds of fascinating machines from less known manufacturers all around the world. What's cool is that many of them were so unique in terms of shape, design, peripherals and OS. I even have a couple of little home computers from Russia. While I have about 70 different machines now, there are lots that I don't yet have and have only heard of. I know there were many unique models made and sold in South America and Arabic countries in the eighties. I have one machine designed and built in Yugoslavia in the early '80's called the Pecom 64. It's based on an RCA 1802 processor.

You can see my collection at: www.homecomputermuseum.com. Stop by and drop me a line if you also collect these kinds of machines.

--- Mark

Re:Home Computer Museum - Russian Home Computers

[Anonymous Coward]

I've even got a little site documenting my collection of 'home computers' (you remember, the little all-in-one console-style machines that hooked to a TV).

mm..coco. :)

which makes me wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is how much a working American computer from back then is worth, imagine how much a working Soviet computer from back then is worth now! After all, they only ever made a couple of hundred thousand computers.

My Computer Museum

[Umanity]

I'm saving my computers, not for profit, but becaue I love the machines. I have a pretty big computer museum {1 bedroom in my house}. In it I have four Apple ][ models, from the original Apple II, the Apple II+, and the Apple //e. I have Disk II drives for each and parallel printer cards. I have music synthesizers, voice synthesizers, voice recognition, X10 controller, Paper Tiger printer, etc. I also have 2 C64s, 1 C128, 1 Commodore Pet, 1 Atari 400, 1 Apple Mac Classic and a Commodore Amiga 2000. I have software for all the machines. And they are all in working condition...

I am saving them because they were the best of the times. I couldn't care if they were worth $1.00 or $1,000.00. I'm inventorying all the items and will have a webpage with pictures and links very soon.

Check out my site @ http://www.softwaremagic.net

Old Computers

[humblecoder]

Actually, I've got a (small) collection of old computers. I do it mostly for the nostalgia factor. Most of the machines I have are things that I used to play around with when I was growing up during the 80's. I even got a working Atari 2600 with a whole slew of games. Playing Pitfall on that old thing brings back lots of fond memories!!

I wouldn't be surprised if the market for old tech toys takes off in a couple years. It seems like everything from my youth, from those metal lunch boxes to Star Wars action figures, is collectable nowadays. If I had only saved some of my junk...

If you are interested in buying old computers, don't bother with eBay. I found that most of the stuff on there is overpriced. You get the best deals from thrift stores, flea markets, Salvation Amry, etc. Also, being able to repair stuff really comes in handy. If you have a little bit of knowledge, you can turn a non-working computer into a working one without much effort.

Re:Assertion Failed: Yuo!=Fagot

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd have to say that all non modern computers are a peice of shit. If you want to continue to live in the past, be my guest. But there is no way in hell that computers that were produced in the millions will ever be anything more than landfill. I wouldn't even give $0.01 to have a C64 or Atari or Amiga or all the other shit that is thankfully been replaced with more capable hardware. If you don't think so, go play with your 4004 based PC, at least it will keep you off here.

Speaking of old Mac IIcis..

[Ryan Amos]

My house was recently flooded by tropical storm Allison and I had a couple old Macs (a IIci and a Centris 610) sitting on the floor. They were completely underwater, they're worth a grand total of MAYBE $15, but I put in a claim for them anyway. To my surprise, the insurance company gave me over $800 for both of them. Why they couldn't have done that for the other, more valuable appliances in my house, I don't know. If only I had that old, broken Ascend Max 6000 sitting on the floor...

Paper IS long term!

[mwillems]

I used to install telephone switches in the 80s, in the Libyan desert. These were loaded in 30 minutes using paper tape. I know what "pathcing" really means: the platic pastch tape you stick over incorrect holes or over breaks.

Point being, these things no doubt still run. Papertape is very durable in adverse conditions. Like deserts with sand storms and 120 F temperatures.

Erasing HD? Re:The more modern ones, though...

[joneshenry]

The only thing keeping me from donating an old HP 6170S is that I don't know what to do about erasing the HD. I'm using Sami Tolvanen's Eraser, a GPLed utility, but I'm still a little nervous. Of course there is the option of simply destroying the HD, but this particular monstrosity has a very flaky BIOS that somehow makes it extremely difficult to install new HDs.

only $25,000?

[GC]

Only a handful (yes, a handful) of Apple I's were ever made.

All of them had a motherboard made out of balsa - (yes balsawood!).

$25,000 - that is a very low price, considering the rarity of the object.

It would take Steve Wozinak twenty five seconds to sign all the produced models of the Apple I, so the fact that it was signed is pretty much neither here nor there.

Some dude on eBay

[Anonymous Coward]

is selling a supposedly rare NeXT cube.

Man, I wish I could afford one of those!

sigh

[zurmikopa]

My old mac. (1984 one) got melted when a student set fire to the school it was residing in at the time. Perhaps I should have kept it, maybe some day there will be a market for creativly demolished clasic computers. Let me go check ebay...

Hey, you never know...

[xkenny13]

I grew up on an Apple //e myself, and spent many years decking it out in pretty much every conceivable fashion.

Once I'd moved on to more modern platforms, I decided I didn't want to just dump it ... figuring there *had* to be some Apple // hobbyist who would kill for some of the hardware on this puppy.

This was in the days before E-Bay ... so I ended up posting a note on comp.forsale (or something similar), offering my machine:

• Apple //e (enhanced)
• Upgraded 8MHz CPU
• 3mb RAM (Ramworks /// card, I think)
• 64mb SCSI hard drive
• No Slot Clock chip
• 3.5" Floppy Drive
• Apple Imagewriter II Color Printer
• 2400 Baud Modem
• Mouse
• A handful of technical books and copies of "Open-Apple", Softalk, etc.

I was asking $500, obo. I got no takers for a few days, till finally someone Emailed me and basically said he saw my ad and was interested in my machine. He asked if I would ship it to Japan, and said he wanted to pay $600 for the whole package.

SOLD!!!

The sad thing is ... this guy ended up paying $900 after the el-cheapo shipping charges (ie: if we can't find the address, we leave it). I never did hear back from him, but I hope he was happy with the machine.

I do miss my Beagle Bros. software, though... :-)

Didn't want people tinkering around???

[leereyno]

Didn't want people tinkering around under the hood? Exsqueeze me? The original II and II+ shipped with shchematics and a complete dump of the roms. The case top popped right off and lets not forget the 8 expansion slots that Woz demanded the machine have.

It wasn't until the Mac came out that Apple took on the attitude that it didn't want you messing around inside the machine. You can thank old Steve Jobs for that nonsense.

Lee

Old Tech

[bmo]

Oh geez, I mean really....

20 years old is _ancient_?

I picked up some old tech last Saturday for 15 dollars at a yard sale.

It's a Singer 128-18 sewing machine assembled on February 11, 1942, shortly before Singer stopped making consumer sewing machines to contribute to the war effort.

(btw, I must say that 1942's version of "consumer level" is about the same as 2001's "industrial" level. It's got a cast-iron body and base.)

All of it works. Flawlessly. It even has the (now very delicate) owner's manual. How much repair did I have to do? I only cleaned it with spray cleaner, to get the nicotine off of it.

You want old tech? There ya go. It's even still useful after all these decades, too. Compare that to an old Altair, which is only fit for sitting in a display cabinet.

Re:Old Tech

[phillymjs]

You want old tech? There ya go. It's even still useful after all these decades, too. Compare that to an old Altair, which is only fit for sitting in a display cabinet.

So I guess you're going to use that old sewing machine often, and to do productive work?

Most of us who collect the older computers and video games do so for nostalgic reasons, not for profit. The new stuff is nice, but nothing takes me back to the good old days like firing up my Atari 2600, ColecoVision, or Commodore 64.

~Philly

Re:Old Tech

[bmo]

No, I'm not going to use it for "production". It sits in my back room, for useful and useless projects.

And yes, I do like to go back in time sometimes and fire up an old game or two or three. I'm not putting down the nostalgia angle, but I do have an issue with calling these things ancient. They're really not that old. Most of the users on this weblog were around when the machines you speak of were introduced (avg 25 yr old geek was born in 1976, and was banging away at an apple IIe at the age of 9, or in my case, 15).

However, when you get into stuff that your grandparents used, it's a world away. The NAZIs were running rampant all over Europe, we had just been attacked almost exactly 2 months before by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, getting our wake-up call, television was a novelty for the wealthy and the geeks (ever see a mechanical tv?), Stalin was our *ally*, and a "computer" back then was a human being.

I remember 1976. It wasn't all that different from today.

Re:Old Tech

[sieler]

I've a friend who still *uses* the Altair
8800 he built! (He uses it as a PROM
programmer.)

Apples... okay. Anybody a Symbolics box for sale?

[motzkie]

Has anybody any idea where to get one of these?
Old Apples are quite neat, but a LISPm would be _really_ nifty...

Stay tuned,
Moritz

In case anyone notice this post

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been about 200 Apple I

Wired made a story about the auction of the very first model built (starting price 40K$)
http://www.wired.com/news/topstories/0,1287,2027 1, 00.html (remove spaces as usual).

Best quote of the article:

"It's the first Apple I built and sold by Apple," claims auctioneer Risley Sams, who will open the bidding on Tuesday 29 June at 11 a.m. "We offered it to Steve Jobs, but he said he had such a hard time selling it in the first place that he didn't really want it."

ROTFL.

Cheers,

--fred

I have an old 386, what's that worth? {EOM}

[dh003i]

{EOM}

Ann Arbor terminals

[Standfast]

I'm definitely not looking to "cash in" (at least on this), but I've been interested for years in finding out just how sweet it would be to use an Ann Arbor terminal. My understanding is that their keyboards were considered the best in the world for programming, around the early '80s. But I never did get to play with one.

I wonder how to find one in working order?

-David.

Re:Ann Arbor terminals

[Anonymous Coward]

I had ane of these back in '94, first one I hooked to my first lin box on first high speed internet connection. Grey screen instead of green or amber. I think the thing had a 132x50 text format too. Excellent machine.

I bet I can sell this.

[Mr_Icon]

I have a Russian PDP-11 clone called BK-0010-01. I got it in 1988 and it was one of the few consumer-level household microcomputers available in USSR. I learned my programming skills on that baby and my first computer language was therefore a beasty called "Focal". BK had a horking 32K RAM (16k video) and an LSI-11 processor (clone).

Still in working condition. :) I'd put it on e-bay, but I don't have it at hand -- it's over the ocean at my parents' house. Wonder how much cash "exotic hardware collectors" would give me for this...

What about Digi-Comp?

[dpilot]

Now THERE'S an old personal computer. I used to want one as a kid, back when I couldn't scrape up the $6.00 for one, and my parents thought that anything like that made of plastic and rubber bands wasn't worth getting for their son.

Re:What about Digi-Comp?

[cr0sh]

I actually saw one of these go up for sale on Ebay - the amazing thing was it was in "perfect" condition - the parts weren't even out of the plastic wrap. Let's just say it went for a bit more than $6.00...

On a side note - I have both of the "wired" computer Radio Shack used to sell in the day (you know, with the spring clips). One was just a wired computer, which when you flipped the switches, basically caused logic to light up lights under these plastic "window" things for answers. The other one you wired together, and programmed in assembler (using a hex keypad, with a single digit hex display and 8 leds - woohoo!). It apparently used some simple (4 bit?) microcontroller as the base CPU...

vintage analog computers

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you are on the topic of old abd vintage computers . . . If you want a real collectable, eBay sometimes has old analog computers for sale. A Heathkit Analog EC-1 from 1960 recently sold for almost $800, while an EAI TR-20 sold for about $400. These old analogs are also popular at computer fairs. Don't know if you know a lot about analog computers, but they sure are more vintage than that Mac IIci or anything in the 70s for that matter. "Is that a sliderule in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"

Wonder what these are worth?

[Faust7]

So I've got an Apple II+, Apple IIe, Apple /// (yeah that old monster), Laser 128EX, Sinclair ZX-80 (not 81!), TI-99/4A, and a Unitron Apple II clone. Everything works. Wonder what I could get for all of it? I bet my 90 or so disks of cracked games (Cracked by Mr. Krac-Man! Call the Safehouse! etc) would be even more desirable, but there's no way I'm parting with those. :)

Antique Software?

[ho9509]

Does anyone know where WATFOR, WATFIV and WATBOL can be obtained for VM/CMS? These systems were done by the University of Waterloo for IBM 370 systems but now seem to be gone. I cannot find anywhere on the web where they may be sold or obtained (I already know about the PC versions, I'm interested in the mainframe versions). Can anybody help?

Re:Assertion Failed: Yuo!=Fagot

[No Tears In The End]

I remember a couple of years ago the guys at l0pht set up an Apple ][ web server, just because they could.

Hobbyists do many things more for the joy of doing it than for the practical application.

Piston heads often will spend FAR more time and money on a car to customize or restore it than they could ever make off of selling it when finished.

Gun Collectors will sometimes spend twice as much on a gun and the parts to customize it than that gun will ever be worth.

Geeks will do things the long, and hard way with the computer(s) only because they want to be able to say that "I did this". Even if it would have been cheaper, easier and faster to just buy it that way.

What's the big deal? If it makes you happy, go for it.

Just for the record.

[/Idiot\]

I feel like I gotta balance out the Apple nostalgia here...

What I do have is a 1987 DEC MicroVAX III with:
- KA650a CPU
- a 2Gb Compaq SCSI disk (lucky to have SCSI ya know :-)
- 32Mb of RAM. That's a lot too.
- GPX framebuffer.
- 1x DEC vt320 attached.

It runs NetBSD (currently 1.4.3, waiting for time to cobble together a 1.5.1 set, or maybe -curent)

The only thing it lacks is IEEE Floating Point and NetBSD support for my framebuffer!

But the lesson that you learn from this gear is what real OS & hardware design is about. NetBSD/VAX is lightweight and this 14y/o box holds it's own on my LAN.

Makes a lot of noise, very dusty, Extrordinarly _heavy_ (I don't know exactly, but at least three times what my vintage Compaq Proliant RAID case weighs and then a bit)

The best bit of all is that it cost me AUD$0 from a kind removalist who didn't wanna carry it round.

Great Source for "Collectibles"

[Triple D]

Anyone who's looking for really old stuff should contact a small non-profit in their area. You can trade in your "so last year" computer for something collectible! And help a small non-profit at the same time! Like the one I work at, where we have a bunch of Quadras hanging around...