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Collecting Classic Computers
chriton writes "There's an interesting article at Reuters about collecting classic computers. There's mention in the story of an even more interesting website www.classiccmp.org Unfortunately, most of the website is still under construction. The mailing list has been around since Jan 1997, and they clearly have plans for more accessible resources, but that just hasn't happened yet. If you are like me and have a an old Osbourne 1 in the closet and Commodore 128D stored at your mother's house she's telling you to take home lest she chuck it, you might find the list archives none the less."
Collecting Classic Computers!!! more like celda
I guess my bedroom full of 486 cases and broken monitors isn't what they had in mind...
All I got is some old 286 thats completely de-assembled.... Any takers? Willing to trade for a Amiga 500||2000... Also willing to give my own mother away for said Amiga
Hate me!
Anything infect with decimal (binary to decimal conversion routines in hardware) is worthless. Decimal is a cancer, and it's all the better that old slow machines are tossed out to rid ourselves of it.
Do you think that it is under construction as they are still looking for the extra memory for the BBC Master that they are running the webserver on? Maybe those 5 1/4" discs are a bit hard to get hold of these days. I Have a box of 10 with windows software on that you can overwrite. :D
I'd like to collect Stonehenge, but where would I keep it?
-kgj
There's mention in the story of an even more interesting website www.classiccmp.org Unfortunately, most of the website is still under construction.
So...tell me again...why is this site even more interesting?
I had a original IBM XT, Commodore 64, Mac Plus, and other peripherals that went with those machines, keyboards, mice, joysticks, modems, etc...
Figured one day I was going to make a lobby museum or something in my office building while on my road to global domination.
But sadly last month I found out my mom said that it had been sitting in her garage for the last 10 years so she figured it was safe to toss and she did so to make room for her Xmas decoration boxes which consist of Jingle Bell Rock dancing Santa, Fish on the wall with SAnta hat, X-Mas decorations, outside lights, and other festive crap...
I've got Sharp MZ-821 (1984). Can anybody say the same? Didn't think so.. ;)
most retarded story ever
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
I have 3 old Model 100 laptops, but not because they're collectible (I'm the anti-collector, I like nothing better than to throw out old useless crap (hope my kids don't think the same way in 50 years!), but because they're useful and tough as nails. I use them to gather data in the field, they have 32K RAM and a text editor, plus a serial port and a terminal program, and no moving parts. They also make great terminals for hooking to router serial ports, etc. Plus they run for 18 hours on 4 AA batteries and have a full size, real keyboard.
Perhaps you could use those old computers for something more useful than just collecting them.
In a way the january 2003 archives are kinda scary
>>>>
other wise it would be rather disappointing.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Time to dig up my Tandy TRS-80 Color computer. /me likes BASIC
Anybody want an Apple IIgs? Its got Oregon Trail, Number Munchers and Carmen Sandiago.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
But I want to know if they named the Commodore PET because it was the size of a large dog (and just as heavy)..
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
An old 36k modem if anyone wants one. And I still have the first computer I ever used, a Pentium II that is at 233 MhZ. It is currently being used as our router. I remember playing Pacman and Prince of Persia on it. Ooh, the memories of a classic computer...
it's hard to imagine anything made within the last 10 years or so really being collectible, with the possible exceptions of some Macs and maybe the neXt boxes.
While standard interchangeable parts are great for driving down costs, making repairs easier, making software, hardware and driver development easier, ect, it does reduce the collectibility of hardware. Then again, I guess old computers are considered collectible just because of the fact that they are rare.
I have blog like everyone else
I've probably still got 2 or maybe 3 old Sinclair Spectrums (I think they were sold as Timex TMS1000 or something in the US, I don't know- I mean the colour ones, not the mono ones that were known as ZX81s here), with the rubber keyboards that wore out after a while, and the edge connectors that would kill the machine dead if you tried to plug in or unplug peripherals into them whilst the machines were switched on (that'd be why I had more than 1- some got broken). They're prolly too common to be classic tho. I also still have somewhere the "Sam Coupe", which was a fairly large machine by MGT, that was supposed to be a souped up Spectrum that was a bit more like an Amiga or something. I quite liked that machine, but put it away when I got my first PC.
We used to have a real archaic machine, I think it was called an "ADAM II", that was sort of like a minicomputer or something, y'know, a big floor-standing thing the size of a small fridge or something. We kept it on the landing outside my room. Took big disks that were at least a foot across, with plastic shells with big handles on top. Seriously, not making this up. In fact, one of the James Bond films from the 80s was on TV the other day, they showed them using disks like that. My Dad got it from work when they upgraded... I'm still not quite sure why. Apparently he liked the language it used (might have been Forth, I'm really not sure). I forget when we got rid of that, but I expect that'd be the sort of thing that collectors and computer museums could be interested in (apart from the size and the weight!).
Not sure what other sort of things we have about, not counting the PCs there must be a fair few oddities in our house.
Be careful! New moon tonight.
A friend of mine had two Apple ]I[ (read 3) systems but was forced to bring the count down to a single one after he got married.
If only he had known about this, an Apple ]I[ may have been saved from the trash heap in the sky.
I got 2 old macs don't know what kind. I might steal some old macs from my school that have not been used for 5 years.
A lot of classics end up at the Digibarn ( http://www.digibarn.com ) including the "shielded" Black Mac from the 80's. Seriously, any geek worth their propeller hat has a cache of old chassis, memory and motherboards. One of the classics from my collection is the mid 90's IBM Think Pad 701C, orignal design for the size and folding keyboard.....Is it worth anything? Most likely not, but it's history and history is worth something, to someone, for some reason......
~corporate tool, but employed~
I finially rescued my ataris, minus the 1050 that was hit by lightening. (Likely repairable, the modem got hit and took out the SIO bus of everything on the chain, but it looks like the rest of the parts functioned) I've got Ms PacMan set up beside me. I'd play other games too, but those old disks seem to only old up to one reading, so I'm not touching them until I get a way to copy them. SIO2PC perhaps.
Please folks, if you know of a clasic computer not being used, grab it. If you don't want it someone will. Even broken ones, if there are any parts are worth it. Remember they don't make most of those chips anymore so repairs require a parts computer.
Sold my Amiga 500 with monitor for a song a few years back. It was fun to play around with, kind of wish I still had it.
Also used to have a Commodore PET with a CBM 4040 years ago. But I got it from someone who stored it in a basement, and it smelled like mouse poop, which my family didn't appreciate.
On a side note, found this gem when searching eBay for "Amiga 500":
Commodore AMIGA 500 computer system in original box with Keyboard, Power Adapter, Video Cable, and Mouse. Very clean and box in great shape with some wear but has all inserts and packing material. Untested due to unfamiliarity, could not find ON button.
Commodore 128D stored at your mother's house she's telling you to take home lest she chuck it
That's a very true comment...
Since I've been married, my wife CONSTANTLY tried to throw out my old atari stuff. I had an awesome 800xl setup with happy810 drives, toggle switch to switch between O/S's, the works.
I would try to explain to her, this is what I started out on when I was like 10. Didn't matter, week later I would find it all packed up. I tried explaining that it was a collectors item, didn't matter, if I had it out on display she would haphazzardly pack it all up, sans a few cable that went into the trash. I tried explaining to her you just cannot get that vintage POKEY sound with an emulator. She'd point at my SBLive wavetable card.
We must have gone through the whole my unpacking / her packing things about 10 times before I gave up. Finally I just said fuck it, i'm going to make sure it went to a good home. I packed it all up, and went to the nullsoft offices in San Francisco, since I had read that those cats were once atarians.
They were pretty stoked on what I gave them, I think Brennen said he was going to use the drives to dig up some old code he did back in the day just so he could see how much it had changed. Justin made a crack about how he missed the simple flow of line numbering in atari basic, and Christophe ran off with a trackball.
Geek guys like this sort of stuff and geek girls don't. So ladies, my question is, what gives?
--toq
I would rather invest in actual investments if I plan on collecting and making money off of intelligent purchases!
The value of something is only related to supply and demand. More supply causes less demand often times since the item is easier to get. More demand means less supply and in turn yields a higher price per item.
So, try collecting classic automobiles, baseball cards, or even Garbage Pail cards, but don't waste your time and energy on stockpiles of old Commodore 64s.
My basement is continually collecting classic computers. And classic clothes, books, toys, baby furniture..... Any bids?
I went to a Smithsonian exhibit a dozen years ago with a very impressive array of vintage (aka "classic" or "old" or "junk") computers. They do collect almost anything after all, and can display only about 5% at any one time. The computers weren't on; I'd be interested in how many years we'll be able to save working Commodore and the like. After all, computers were never meant to be just looked at.
A computer part I'd really like to see old-fashioned magnetic core memory -- that still works! It just sounds so improbable.
I saw a lecture years ago by an MIT professor who worked on the Apollo mission designing an on-board guidance computer (AGC) described here (they planned to used ground-based telemetry but worried the Soviets might jam their signals out of pique or something -- nothing happened). He commented that when they delivered the unbelievably expensive core memory with its delicate wound wiring, they handled it with the utmost caution -- it was 2K (RAM) after all!
My brother has a good database with first-hand accounts of many older machines at www.machine-room.org. He owns a good chunk of the machines represented therein himself.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ok, so it's not that flexible, and the non-volatile storage can only manage to keep 3 high-scores, but my Centipede arcade machine is still working with the original boards and monitor! Well, I have recapped it and replaced some of the 2116 4bit RAM, but still - not bad for a machine that was running over 12 hours a day for 13 years without a crash, before I bought it...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
I picked up a mint osbourne 1 last year. It works great and has all the original materials, including shipping boxes, software etc. I paid $200. Is there any place besides eBay to get a good idea of what the thing is worth? Ebay prices seem to fluctuate too much to be an accurate assessment of the true value of a classic computer.
I collect old computers. :) I have about 90 of the things - my favourites are the Apple Lisa, the Apple ///+, the OSI Challenger 4P and the Microbee. But what disappointed me about the article is that it focused on money - collecting anything is, in my experience, rarely about money, at least for the majority of those who collect. My collection is about the recording history of something I love - like many geeks, I grew up with these computers, and either had one (occasionally) or desperatly wanted one (often). So when I see a Commodore 64sx for $5 I buy it (or rather, I bought it) - not because it may one day be worth anything, but that it means something to me and I want to preserve the history.
:) The problem is storage. I keep hoping that one day someone in Australia will finally start a computer museum, and then my collection will finally have a decent home.
Well, that and I like to play Paradroid still.
One of the thrills of colecting classic computers was demonstrated to me the other day when I tried to turn on a 23 year old multiprocessor machine in my garage; a power supply board exploded and caught fire.
The main things to fail in old machines are electrolytic capacitors.
Check out the Obsolete Computer Museum. It has tons of info and pictures of older machines.
I decided to mothball my BeBox until it's worth at least as much as what I paid for it originally, taking into account inflation, etc.. :)
-adnans
"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." --Linus Torvalds
Geez!!... I thought this site had more open minded people. But all you do is slam anything that isn't Linux. Linux is great and all.. But there was life before Linux!
Open your mind! Was it really necessary to slam the classiccmp site?!
When I want to search for an old or odd computer I always start searching in old-computers.com.
-- char*p="char*p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}"
Got a few,
Mac II
Mac IIsi
Centris 660AV
Powerbook 170
Powerbook 140
Powerbook 165
IBM PS/2 Model 70/386
NeXT Monostation
And a Max 4004 kicking around, but that ain't classic hardware.
Do need to pick up an Amiga or two.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
For historical accuracy, I'm pretty sure it was written Apple ///. The Apple 3 IIRC was a spectacular failure, redeemed eventually by Macintosh.
I have my Apple ][+ downstairs, and it may even still work.... Note the strange characters there, too. There was only so much creativity possible in the days of ASCII.
Let's see:
:^)
A Timex Sinclair 1000
An Atari 1200
An Atari 520ST
An atari 400
A Star Trek Stratigic Operations Simulator (opps... I just can't help but mention that one sometimes...
IBM XT
A Mac SE
I have a working Jupiter Ace with a big honking 16K RamPack expansion. The world's only ever released FORTH-based micro. This machine rules! It's the machine that the designers of the Spectrum (Timex-Sinclair 2000) went on to designfor an encore, and was hardware compatible. You can think of it in terms of Jay Miner's Atari->Amiga progression. Of course, if you really want to see what it's all about why bother with emulators? You can build your own Jupiter Ace.
Da Blog
old Osbourne 1 in the closet and Commodore 128D stored at your mother's house she's telling you to take home lest she chuck it, you might find the list archives none the less."
Well.. that'd be as long as we were subscribed to those list's back in the day
On a serious note - I've got a Dec Workstation 2000 sitting alongside my old commodore (still with in the box!) on a shelf in my storage room.
And speaking of "classics" - have to play the fix the parents old p100 tonight
...is more important sometimes than preserving the actual machine itself.
Manuals get lost. Tapes and Floppy Disks wear out. And then capacitors and other components go bad and without technical info, you're often left with an interesting doorstop.
With that imformation, emulators can get developed, software can be archived into modern formats, and new floppy disks containing software for these systems can be custom created so we don't have to worry (too much) about the originals wearing out.
I like to collect early 8-bit/Pre-PC computers. At the moment I have the following machines (among many others):
* Exidy Sorcerer (1979-1983-ish)
* APF Imagination Machine (1980-ish)
* Compucolor II (1978-1979 ish)
Of those three, I have the technical service manuals and schematics for the first two. I can fire them up and amuse myself by making them do things. I also have some software for them. I've made it a point to freely provide copies of all my technical documentation to other people interested in these old machines, in order to spread the knowledge and lower the chances of it getting lost.
For the Compucolor II though, I acquired a unit that had been converted to 240 volts (Australia). I have it because it was one of the very first computers I ever used, and a cool machine (8080, 48K RAM, 8 Color Display: 80x25 text, 160x100 graphics). I had no idea how rare it was even back then (1978), so decided I wanted to acquire one to add to my collection.
So far, I have no schematics or technical information, and no software (it had a single floppy drive built into the monitor), and have been unable to use it given my limited hardware reverse-engineering skills. The company that made it disappeared over 20 years ago. Thus, with out information and software, it's likely that in time no one will even remember it existed.
-Mp
In the old days, we had three 8 bit registers, and we felt lucky to have them!
-Teckla
I remember seeing that machine at the home of an acquaintance back when I was lusting after an Apple ][ or a Commodore PET.
(email addresses for bot harvesting only)
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
I've got an older PowerMac sitting around that has nothing in it. Literally, just a case with a motherboard in it. No processor, no cards, no RAM, nothing.
I'm gonna put a PC in that thing one day.
Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
Time to call googleplex bullshit on Slashdot. There isn't jack squat diddley on this website.
Try http://www.old-computers.com/ instead.
PENIS
Ah, classic computing...
The second year of our marriage, my bride looked at our one bedroom 'compartment' and strongly suggested I buy one system rather than have four or five boxes cluttered around my desk. As I dug through the cool scraps in the lockheed martin surplus store, I found my one box - a Sun 180 - complete with an eight foot tall 19" chassis for $25. The SCSI hard drives were stripped, but I paid cash and conned a coworker to help me lug the thing home. (oh, did I ever get into trouble for that one) I've racked all my gear since...
Today, it does actually house something with a sparc processor.... my sunblade's 500mhz UltraSPARC-IIe is a wee bit more useful than a 68020@16,67 Mhz is hidden in the bowels of the beast. Even my AMD workstations don't need a 1000 watt power supply. (grin) The look on peoples face is priceless when they walk into my office!
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Even if the museum doesn't want them, it's a well known fact that the old Commodore64 Monitors, make great televisions. All you need is some RCA cable, and you can input just about anything.
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
I've been working on restoration of my old Sol-20 for several years. The big stumbling block is locating keyboard refurbishment parts. They say that the Keytronics KB-101 keyboard can be cannibalized for parts. I used to sell by KB-101s by the hundreds but now I can't find ANY. If anyone knows where I can get some cheap, even broken KB-101 units, let me know.
Oh man, I am so close to getting my old Sol-20 running 100%. Then I have to see if I can get my 20+ year old data cassettes to read. I'm going to dump the audio straight into my Mac, since the tapes will probably shred on the first pass. One preservation capture, then burn to CD. I could probably just use my Mac as a big dumb cassette player like the Sol was originally built for.
Somebody please take my old crap. I don't want to carry it up and down the stairs when I move again. Do you know how heavy they used to make that crap! I'd rather haul oak dressers than that damn HP LaserJet II one more time.
He could at least have given the courtesy of a reply.
-Mp
I have a Southwest Technical Products (SWTP) case with a 6809 board and Gimix floppy controller, vintage 1982. I also have two other 6809-based computers, one I built in 1981/82 the other in 1983. With both 5.25-inch and 8-inch floppy drives. My first 5.25-inch drives were Qumes - at $300 each (1981/82 dollars at that). I also have several IBM PC's (no hard disk) that I bought in 1985, some still in daily service, still doing the job they were originally bought to do.
I convinced my parents to give me an Apple IIgs for Christmas (it was $50). It was in working condition. (ie. very dirty, but didn't melt when plugged in. (Kiss-off works great on permanent marker.)). I've found most of the parts that didn't come with it for fairly cheap (total about as much as the computer when including shipping). It came with a monitor, the Rom 01 in it's case, a mac keyboard II (no cord, though. my uncle's school has plenty, however), and a 5.25" disk drive. I ordered a 1MB memory card, 2 3.5" drives, a 1MB SCSI HD, a CD-ROM drive, and a trackball. I got a new battery from a local store. So far it's shaping up pretty well. I just have to make do with 4 short wires from an electronics kit to use the keyboard, haha. I just need a SCSI card, which will be tough to find. Anyone have one they're willing to give up?
I also have a Kaypro II with a floppy drive upgrade (and someone moved the reset button to the front) that I picked up at a boy scout garage sale for $15 with a lot of floppy disks. Somehow, while trying to copy one of the more unique system utility floppy disks, I deleted all of the files. It just happened to be the only floppy with the unerase program. Oh well. My dad made me get rid of the first compouter we owned. It was a Pentium-90 with a horrible motherboard. I still have the sound card (a Mitsumi Mozart - extremely hard to use with linux) because I like the sound of the OPL3 chip. My grandparents recently brought me an IBM 486-66MHz that I want to turn into a router/firewall for the network I hope to someday have.
Because it's about grace. It really is about grace.
Yeah these things are great for a hobby hardware geek. Practical value, assuming emulator exists, is very limited though - maybe to extract data from some legacy storage media. But even people who want to just play around with an old computer are usually better off sticking with an emulator.
Try this site. It has at least some information.
http://www.old-computers.com/
My Apple Centris 660AV is one of the rarest Macs ever made (a couple months after it came out, it was replaced with the near-identical Quadra 660AV).
Lessee... it has a non-functioning 40 MB hard drive, and something like 16 MB of RAM. It's been sitting in a box of computer junk for four years.
How much are y'all willing to pay for it? Howabout something near the $1,700 it cost originally?
ClassicCmp was a mailing list first, and I guess that's about what it is today, but much more is planned. I really mean that! CC was started in 1997 by people other than me. There was a very simple web site up for a while, but the guy in charge of it never updated it, and nobody else cared to do it. It stagnated. I joined the list about two years ago, and I became the list administrator just a few months ago when Jay West decided to take a break. I would have liked to start working on a new, improved CC site right then, but I was also working very hard to finish college. When you factor out the time I spend (usually) every day moderating posts for the cctech list (OT posts are filtered there), I had zero time for any other CC-related work. I needed to get something up there quick to fix the very incorrect 1997 pages, so what you see there now is my 3AM coffee-induced hack.
Some really nice things are planned for classiccmp.org:
- Better post archiving with spamproofing. My spamproofing method is somewhat unique.
- An archive of data files (software, docs, images, etc.).
- A link farm, which we hope will become a start-here-first resource for vintage-computing-related surfing.
- A FAQ. There is an old FAQ which you can probably still find with Google somewhere out there, but it has some very incorrect things in it. I'm working on a new FAQ.
- More moderators for cctech. Right now it's just me, so there is a serious lag time for cctech subscribers. We just implemented the second, moderated list a few months ago, and it seems to be working fine. It just needs more moderators.
I graduated from college a week or two ago and have settled into a new job. I now have ample time to spend making something nice for ClassicCmp. You can expect to see something actually worthwile there in the next few days.If you even the slightest bit interested in classic computers, please goto the list information page and subscribe to the list. At last count (a few days ago), we had 720 members. Average load is 50-100 messages per day. We'd love to add more people to the discussion.
Washington, DC: It's like Hollywood for ugly people.
Pictured at the top of this page. It was an 8 bit computer with a 2MHZ processor and 8k or RAM (upgraded to 16). The tape drive still works but you have to adjust the head with a screwdriver to get the damn thing to read anymore.
It was a fun little machine with games like Goofy Golf and Mazes and Monsters. I kind of miss the musical quality of the games data as they loaded up through the tape deck, the sound of the raw data stream pouring through the speakers. Hell, you could even tell if a game was loading correctly by the pattern of the sound or if the tape deck needed an adjustement, or a good whack on the side.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
I was going to throw out my old microwave oven, but after reading this, I think I'll keep it. It has an Intel 80186 controller. Maybe when the X-Box guys are done, they could put Linux on my microwave?
It didn't even talk about the true beginning hobbiest computers: Kim-1 and Sym-1, much less the OSI C1P!
came across this today, the old computer museum. http://www.old-computers.com/museum ah it brings back happy memories of a bygone age.
days when the Mattel Aquarius, Oric Atmos Spectrums and MSXs were the pinnacle of home computing.
Here's a link to a site where a guy describes his plans to restore one of these classic machines.
It's a short read, but it's nice to see someone trying to restore one of thse boxes.
Ken Thompson used to have a link on his page to someone who was restoring one of these. But since he's retired, it's not there now.
Huh?
I've also got an Apple Newton 120 that I didn't use past about 6 months -- way too slow once you get a non-trivial amount of information in it. About the same price.
It's hard keeping hold of them. But at least my SO understands. For now.
Is this thing on? Hello?
I have a dual Pentium II 266, a dual Alpha 264DP, and an Alpha 164LX -- all in service. The 264DP is my main server, the 164LX does firewall / NAT duty so I can disobey the cable company, and the Intel box is my main terminal.
I got the 264DP cheap on eBay. I used to use one of these in my previous job at MIT Lincoln Lab. We used this box running Linux 2.2.18 to set a world record for TCP/IP bandwidth-distance product (All-optical link of 1 Gb/s sustained between two workstations, one in Boston and the other in Washington DC). Our competitors, all running FreeBSD came in a few months later.
ebay
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
old-computer.com. Extremely well done.
My
Limekiller
This Canadia place sounds pretty bad, where is it anyway? I'd hate to stumble upon it by accident.
I've got 3 Apple IIs in my basement and a rare (I believe) Osborne Professional.
As for me, the best I have in old stuff is a working Ohio Scientific Superboard II. Wow
CPU speed seems not to be growing so fast lately... I can't really imagine when a dual Athlon MP 1400 will stop being useful. I use a P133 for a firewall, and as a machine for checking mail it'd work just fine.
I just wonder what bloated OS you'd have to have to have problems running something other than games on a dual Athlon.
Probably too big to ship the whole thing... :) But I've got almost everything but the ethernet board. i286, clikclock, Win 3.0, a zillion disks, and a bunch of LA50 carts. And other goodies.
If you're willing to drive to the Rochester NY area, you can have everything intact.
Send email.
Kineska: Cinema, soapbox, music & musings
- Timex Sinclair 1000 :) - Laser Squad sweeteness
- 2* Timex Computer 2048 (Spectrum clone) with 6 inch LCD TV and microcassette voice recorder
- SGI Indy R5000 180SC, 256MB, 9GB, 24bit gfx running Debian
- my video card museum http://www.dominikbehr.com/museum
Next thing will be Atari 800XL with 1050 drive with Happy Warp.
I suggest everyone visit their local colleges. I happen to know of one professor who had 2 Tandy COCO 80s (NEW, In Box) with monitors, and even the box was in near mint condition. Another one had been opened once, to make sure it was working, which it did, then repackaged.
In addition to the Tandys, he had 2 QUME 109 terminals that were unopened, and two more that were not boxed. I took the liberty of hooking one up to my serial port to check it out, and it worked like a charm. Adjustable baud rate (240-9600, and 14,400 IIRC), with a serial port for printer, and plenty of features like offline mode, line-oriented mode, 15 minute screen shut-off, etc. I must say, amber is much easier on the eyes.
Coincidentally, I told him that those items must be collectibles. If anyone has any ideas, I'd be curious to know how much those items would really be worth.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Got a never been used/opened/touched TI-99/4A, complete the the brown vinyl cover, sitting in the original box. Can I use it as a down payment???
sitting around me right now:
... oh, and a recently acquired 750/33 /125's, one /200)
... I'm sure I could go on... there's got to be some I'm missing. Oh, yeah, a pile of old 68K macs and DecStations in the garage... still, I'm sure there's more.
Mac Q650 (NetBSD)
Apollo DN4500 (Domain/OS)
HP 735's (2) (one HPUX, the other hopefully NetBSD soon)
DecStation 5000's (2 x
VaxStation 3100
Sun Ultra 1's (3)
Sun E250
Sun SparcStation 10 (quad hypersparc's)
Alpha's (two Jensen axp150's, one AS400/266)
Data General Aviions (a 550 and a 410)
Compaq 1600 (Dual 600Mhz P3's)
Concurrent/Perkin-Elmer 3203
Elsewhere in the house:
Data General Aviions (two 8500's), another 410.
SGI's (2 Indy's, 2 Indigo's, 1 Indigo2, 1 Crimson)
HP G30 (PA-Risc)
Compaq 7000 (Quad PPro 200's)
Sun L1000 tape library
Apollo DN3000, 3010, 3500, 4000, 4500, 5500, 2500
Perkin-Elmer (Concurrent) 8/32
Perkin-Elmer (Concurrent) 3210's (two I think)
MicroVax II's (two)
HP425t's (2) and a 333t.
My original TRS-80 Model-I (my first computer)
TRS-80 Model's 3 & 4
Apple II's (3, including a Bell&Howell "black" one)
TI99/4's (2 or 3, I've never powered them up).
Osborne-II
And no S.O. -- I don't really wonder why.
funny
Let's see. Got an Apple ]I[ (That's 3, yes the one with the heat-unseats-chips problem fixable by "whacking it on a desk") with the original hard drive, screen, a few disks that I haven't tried. Got a few TRS-80's, a Commodore 64 portable or something like that, with the printer and a few carts, Apple IIp or whatever the little white portable one was, IIgs Woz edition that works great (got all the manuals, bunch of drives, etc.) and Mac Plus (I think) with no hd/floppy, Mac Classic that (basically) works, Compaq Portable II (needs a little work, missing part of shell), Portable I with little shell, and similar fun stuff. On a less "classic" note, i've got a super-spiffy PS/2 tower thing (It's huge, tall, and heavy) with a gig or two scsi hd, a squirrelcage fan, and a bad 48x6-dx50 that will fixed with parts from another smaller ps/2 with a 2.88 meg hard drive. fun stuff! (XGA-2 card in there too, w00t!) If anyone needs anything like this, just reply.
Oh, and I won't give up my compaq deskpro 286e (with onboard VGA). It's so stable.....
I recognize people by their sigs. Is that a bad thing?
Hey, anyone want a Commodore PET 8096?
The cabinet is in excellent condition, even the PET label just under the monitor. Haven't fired it up to see if it works, but there's an aftermarket accelerator/RAM expansion board resting on top of the motherboard right now - it looks complete but the expansion board is just *resting* on the motherboard, like someone tried to fix or upgrade it once. I have a suspicion that the machine is fine but the attempt was along the lines of "what do you mean I can't put a PCI video card into that?". FOB Ottawa, Canada.
Schematics would be cool so that I can sell it (or give it away if there are no good offers) as a working unit.
My own collection of old TI-99/4A, Amiga 1000, Vectrex and Coleco Telstar Alpha machines already occupies quite enough room, thank you very much. And I must confess that I haven't fired up even one of my prized TI-99/4A machines in over a decade.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Like many others I have an MITS 8800b (with pretty much all the manuals). The more important late 70s computer in my collection is an Imsai PCS-80/30 - integrated 4" monitor. Apparently only 300 of these were made.
I'd love to hang on to these machines for years to come, but periodically when finances are very low I'm tempted by Ebay. It would be nice to have a feel for how much the value of these machines will appreciate. Despite the love one must be pragmatic.
Man, that was a great chip! Quite possibly the very best 8bit CPU ever made. Still have the big grey Motorola databook just for the memories.
6502 and Z80 junkies have no idea what they are missing...
Blogging because I can...
Hey, I met an intelligent American! He was from Canada!
So true. . without the software and documentation, hardware can often be useless.
I have a NextStation slab and monitor, but no cable. With documentation, I got a step closer to getting it turned on by building my own monitor cable, but still can't boot it because nobody seems to have copies of the OS anymore.
Does an Apple ][e in a *black* case count as a collectible computer classic?
They're from an educational series made back in the 80's.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
I have an old Sharp 8086 laptop from '87. It's got no hard drives, two low-density 3.5" floppy drives, and a whopping 640k of RAM. Oh, and a 1200 baud modem. Still, it probably doesn't count as a 'classic'... yet. (BWHAHAHAHA... ahem.)
This has already been done. I'm surprised that more Slashdotters don't know about www.old-computers.com. Those folks have a big and impressive database full of photos and stats.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
As a bachelor, I kept it as it served as a really cool analog display alarm-clock. I had the voice synth module and programmed it to say "You should wake up now, Trent" for the first alarm, and then for each time I hit snooze (anykey) it would say ruder things. It also served as a dart score keeping gadget.
But alas, after 11 years of marriage, my wife got fed up and asked me to clear out its space so she coule use it for her computer. So I set about saying goodbye. I got really high first so that when my wife asked if I was crying, I could say, "Don't be silly -- I'm just really high". It was a sad moment. I will miss the green glow and the absolute silence of my old HP86A.
My favorite computer in my collection is my Pen-Based Tablet Compaq Concerto. These were sold with a version of Win 3.1 called Pen for Windows in 94. It has a i386-33Mhz with 20mb RAM and a 200 Mb HD. The keyboard was removable and a lot cooler styled than any of the current NEW tablet PCs. The hand-writing recognition worked good. I upgraded it to Win95 and a 802.11a PCMCIA card. Not bad for a 8 year old PC.
My other oldies are:
80' Vic-20 w/tape drive
Tandy pocket PC-4
Tandy Color Computer
Commodore Plus/4
Commodore 128D
HP Jornada 820 (Mini Laptop w/ WinCE)
2- Compaq Lunchbox Luggables w/HD
Mac Classic
Zenith 8086 Laptop w/ 2Mb HD
Science is the Real TRUTH!
You mean at some point in the future I will have to give up my 1.2 GHz Pentium 3 FPGA-2 processor computer? Where will I ever find anything else that fast?
eh - does my Apple II+ with 68000 add in processor count? :-)
Ahh, reminds me of my days around the E-Club at dear old RPI... (ok, this was just the past few years)
the club website
It all started when the school threw out a VAX 8530... Thankfully, we have 3-phase power available to run the thing, and it's now happily running VMS 5.5-2 in all it's massive glory. Over the years we've also accumulated a VAX 11/780 (dead unfortunately), a PDP-11/45 (which one club member had to rebuild the power supply for), a pair of Sun 3/280s (complete with 12" platter hard drives), along with various other "smaller" machines that might be to new to be considered classic. (some MicroVAX-class machines, a bunch of old model IBM RS/6000s, some HP9000 stuff, etc, etc.)
- Atari 800XL
- Two Atari XEGSes
- A C64
- A non-working Commodore 128D
- Amiga 500
- Amstrad PPC640 (getting PSU details)
- Another Amstrad PC compatible in a keyboard profile (like the Amiga 500)
- Does and Intellivision with a keyboard add-on count?
To compliment these computers I've been purchasing stuff like the SIO2PC cable adapter (connect a PC to an Atari 8-bit) and I've just ordered the Catweasel MK3 (read/write pretty much any floppy format ever). I salvaged a nice supply of DD disks (including a lot of interesting-looking original software) a week or so ago.....to post an incomplete, long forgotten URL to a site that hasn't gone ahead and added much in the way of content, when there are some truly excellent sites out there with really great and inspiring content, worked on by people who care.
Yeah, let me throw some URL where my mouth is.
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/
http://www.computer-museum.org/
http://www.homecomputer.de/
http://www.thelegacy.de/
http://www.mobygames.com/
And the list goes on, and on, and on.....
This P3 that I'm running right now has been well on it's way to being a piece of lost history since the day it came out.
I don't believe PCs will become a collector's item. There aren't many things that are such a big part of our lives that can become collector's items. If you're thinking of automobiles as collector's items you're right but remember that even an old 1929 Plymouth can be driven and used like a normal vehicle not counting the babying you give it because it's old. What are you going to do with a 286? Nothing. See, unlike old cars, old computers can't serve a purpose and aren't interesting. There are a few of you out there that may disagree and think old computers are interesting. But back to the idea of what makes it a collector's item, people want it.
I have started trying to collect CPU's from past computers, mostly from x86 computers. Although I can't turn them on and play with them like a C64, they're fun to look at, small, and easy to display.
I expect computers will soon become very collectable since they fit the profile of other collectables:
1) Used in youth, aka "glory days"
2) Often disposed of because they were "useless"
3) Now that their userbase is collecting extra income they'll go looking for those little reminders of their younger years.
Worked for GI Joe's, comics, etc.
PS: If you want to make a donation to the CPU collection I'd be more than happy to take them. I'm really interested in anything and don't mind paying postage. Beastofexmoor@mailftpNOSPAM.com
Click here to read too much about my personal life
Here's something really cool--a 3D webcam!
Best Buy can have you arrested
how many do ya want and howto get ahold of you.
I really like it when you say "hard" handsome. Cum talk to me some more sexy.
OH CRAP!! TROLL FAILED!!!
Forgot to hit that damn Post Anonymously. Please do not mod down, I meant to troll anonymously dammit.
Hi everyone,
I got a C-64 for Christmas a year ago, and I need a video cable to get it working. (A DIN to RCA I believe)
If anyone has one laying around, and would like to help my room at Walla Walla College become a hub of nostalgic computer geeks playing Richtofen's Revenge, please let me know (slashdot @@@@ ArthurK.com)
Thanks, Art K.
Patent: from Latin patere, to be open
I really miss the Coco Basic Book. Quite funny, I learned programming with it when I was 10 years old. CoCo basic is very similar to Basica/GWBasic, except that editing code was insanely tough, and the interpreter was sloooooow.
The Coco's Motorola 6809 was great. Could MULtiply, user stack register, store and autoincrement, three 16 bit registers, etc. Unfortunately the Coco2 didn't had sprites, built-in multichannel audio, etc. etc.
Those who bought OS/9 had preemtive multitasking OS, which was something anyone would tought impossible in 8 bit computers. GEOS is a graphical environment on C64's, IIGS are 16 bit.
I'm almost sure the 2Mhz 6809B CoCo3 was actually faster than the original IBM PC. -- The 8088 is a 16 bit design, in a generic 8 bit bus, multiplexed, etc. Even CGA was a hacked text display chip. Slow as hell.
I still have the first machine I ever owned (C-64), as well as *some* of my early machines. I finally moved into an apartment big enough that it wasn't a strain on my marriage to keep them. I now have my own room for them. :-)
Unfortunately some of my favorite old machines didn't survive the 'Please get rid of this shit' requests. This post is dedicated to their memory (bad pun not intended).
RIP Amiga 2000, Apple IIfx, Q840AV, PPC6100
I used to run my NES and Genesis on a C= 64 monitor. It always looked so much more pertty than the TV.
Damn, I miss that thing.
I got a wang from my uncle some time ago (5 years) turns out it was used in 1979 (jeez , I wasn't even born yet back then!).
Now I'm trying to sell it for 100rand (10 dollar$) - hope I won't regret this someday.
There is a store (http://www.electronicdiscountsales.com/) in the Dallas, TX area that has plenty of parts for old machines.
--- Surfing the web on my ZX-81.
Hey thanks for the offer. I just need the pads, I figure two keyboards worth should cover it, since any single old kbd probably has a few bad pads. And then I'd have a few leftover pads for future repairs. Actually, I was thinking of taking one whole extra set of pads and sealing them in a bottle filled with inert gas, pickling them for the next restoration, in another 25 years when the pads rot again. These KB101 pads are probably already about 10 years old, I figure they've got about 15 years left in em max.
I hate to post my real address here, I set up a temp account at this address, mail me:
SolSeventyFive@netscape.net
The first computer I started using was obsolete at the time I started using it. Still have it as well, an old TI 99/4A. Also have TI's first laptop attempt, with the one line character display. Got that as a free gift from one of those travel resort trips...
There's a UK site called Binary Dinosaurs that does this properly...
After playing with it for about 10 minutes and realising how incredibly useless it is nowadays, it got me thinking... being just text-based, it would make a pretty cool terminal for my Linux boxes, and it would be nice to be able to use it rather than just look at it.
Now the XT is not connected to my network, and I certainly don't have an ethernet card that would work with it. Let alone any drivers or SSH software (:-) man, would that be slow or what).
Anyone got any suggestions on how this could be done? Serial port directly onto the Linux machine maybe?
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.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I really wanted to tell you about my ol' amigas and that laser2000 i still have in my closet, but this post is still under construction
.sigh
My father still has his hand built NASCOM in the garage someplace, with a joystick made from a broom handle and a keyboard where each key is wirewrapped together.
Used to re-boot each time the central heating switched on... but it was the first computer I saw as a kid for many years.
Got boxed up and replaced with an A500+
How about that KIM-1 I have sitting on my desk here that I still use.
or that Altair I had up until my last year in college... (Mysteriousally dissappeared with the 3 real VT100 terminals that were with it)
Or how about the Cromemco Minicomputer?
collecting the old stuff that you STILL see at garage sales and flea markets is not collecting anything but junk... (Ok that TRS-80 color computer saw massive service and modifications when I was 14-16 Gotta love that you can slap something directly to the address/data bus while you couldn't with the Commodore line without major hacking... and the TRS-80 model 100 is still more useful to techies than any laptop manufacturered to this date.) Collecting the items that actually were the cool stuff during the dawn of cheap computing... APPLE-I for example, An un-built Sinclair kit, or the best of them all the HEathkit HERO-I Computer/ robot.
that's real collecting... the rare gems that made the computing world what it is today.... Now where do I keep a PDP-11? I see you can get one off of ebay for $15.00 plus shipping and handling.
[Joking... so stop looking on ebay]
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
What about any of the stuff related to computers being collectible? I'm thinking old software here, perhaps in its original packaging. Remember the old Wordperfect "hardcover" cases? I still have a disk based copy of OS/2 Warp, Red Spine, still in the original box, all docs etc included. Somewhere, I've also got the 5.25 floppies for Microsoft OS/2 V1.1! Anybody see a pattern here? Bur seriously, folks...
I still have my original copy of Ninnle Linux, still in the original box. This was one of the great ones, along with RedHat, Debian and FreeBSD!
You may need your wang someday, for purposes you clearly haven't quite grasped yet...
It's a serious question.
About 5 years ago I was on a "collecting classic computers" kick. Had a bunch of cool ones, including some big ass TRS-80 model 4's, two editions of the ti/99 model 4 (first 16bit "PC"), big pile of vic-20s, and an extremely rare IBM XT/286.
Had MSDOS 1.01 in shrinkwrap, and sold it for $125 bucks on ebay. Go figure.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
... Debian will probably build for that architecture!
(That's what I did with a Sun that my company no longer wanted... now it's my firewall!)
dochood
A player piano could be converted to a true computer by selectively punching/blocking holes in the storage medium. Perhaps one could combine the piano with a sewing machine?
-kgj
an old Epson QX10.
Also have the printer Epson FX 100 , A monitor (green) Q702A , and keyboard.
Everything is in the original boxes with packing. Kept everything. Does anyone know who might want something like this?
I actually collect old Intel CPUs', my catalog is here SuperRobots.net (I'm on broadband, but I utilize just about 90% of my line all the time, so be patient it will load.)
TI-99/4A
AT&T PC 6300
Apple IIgs ( inside shot )
NeXTStation Turbo Color ( inside shot )
Amiga 2000
Amiga 1200 tower '060
Apple Macintosh Plus
Apple PowerCD
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
> You can use the DIN on the back of the machine for a TV output on channel 3 or 4.
Make that, the RCA plug next to the two DIN plugs.
Also, IIRC, the 2nd, 3rd pins on the left of that DIN (as the user faces the computer) are chroma and luma; the second last one is audio, the sheild is ground.
If you just hook up luma, you'll get a B&W monitor picture.
Be careful probing looking for the audio, you can blow the audio output of the SID-II chip if you're not careful. The rest of the machine will still work, though.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
It would be wonderful for a small, understandable home computer to hit the market again. Windows and Linux PCs are more like having a VAX in your bedroom, not something that gives you the warm, "I can understand all of this!" feeling you got with almost all 8-bit home computers. I'd drop evertything for something with:
* fixed and unchanging hardware
* relatively modern technology
* some nifty graphics and sound features that are more than just the OpenGL or DirectX API.
"Fixed and unchanging hardware" sounds harsh, but I'd much rather be able to understand a system for a decade, rather than having to throw out everything for a new version of DirectX or Windows or KDE or whatever.
My buddy at the Mathworks has an online computer museum:
http://users.rcn.com/crfriend/museum
and a physical museum with a website at
http://www.osfn.org/rcs
Have fun!
-Adam
Computer Science is all about trying to find the right wrench to bang in the right screw. -T.Cumbo?
The reason I mention this is because any antique is only as valuable as the insurance you have on it. If you have one of the original Apple prototypes in its wooden case, it's only as valauble as the insurance policy you have on it. Make sure you policy covers the item in full with "replacement costs". The last part is important. FYI.
The first one supported the Nazi...sorry...Alliance Party
The second turned out to be a Yank!
The whole machine would have been a bit much to carry around with me through a half-dozen moves.
At one point we replaced the original front panels on the 11/70s with a micro-processor controlled version that saved you doing the old "177660, load address, start" thing. Of course I probably don't remember the right address. I stashed the old front panel away and some years later took it home. I have it wrapped in bubble pack and some day I will make a frame for it. Maybe I could even find a way to make the LEDs light up. Any ideas on thie front ?
The first PC I got I still have. It was a Packard Bell 486sx-25. Of course now it's a DX2-50 with 24MB and a scsi controller and three DEC RZ26 1GB drives. Still worked last time I turned it on. It's running Turbo-Linux I think.
Remembering the days of trumpet winsock and mosaic and a 9600 bps coffee-cup-warmer modem.
It was Western Digital's Pascal Microengine chipset on a DEC Q-bus card and ran UCSD Pascal Ver.3. It was cool.
So what's Commodore, anyway? What do they make?
The Commodores were a funk band.
Will I retire or break 10K?
A good web site for Amiga history can be found here. Brownie points for computer collecting are awarded to anyone who possesses one of the various Amiga prototypes that have appeared over the years.
Around 1981, I built a computer of my own design. It uses a 6502 processor, and wire-wrapped STD cards on a backplane with a card cage for peripheral boards. I still have it, and last time I checked, it still worked. (The manual EPROM programmer, rack case and some other minor items are long gone, but the computer and power supply are still usable).
Is this worth anything to any of you collectors? I would be willing to sell it if I could find it a good home.
This way, I can keep my collection under relative control, AND have a perfectly valid reason for keeping them around the house. "But honey, I learned how to use the graphics chip in that one by making it display our wedding photos!"
What other machine from 1980 can display 4096 colors? ;^)
(Ok, ok... it's a software trick, but it works, and is quite cool! Too bad that software didn't get thought of until the early 90s, after the 8-bit was pretty much orphaned and Atari was going down the tubes.)
On eBay, I witnessed 4 3Dfx Voodoo6 6000 AGP graphics acclerators sold and each one of them included *working* MS Windows 2000 drivers and sold on average for $1200.00 !!
I haven't checked on eBay for over two months, but every once in a while someone sells one of these limousine 6000's! I have installed two Voodoo5 5500 PCI graphics accelerators on my Linux computer and as much as people giggle about the size of the Voodoo5, I always remind them the 57 chevy is of a heavy construction yet your ferrari doesn't turn heads compared to the wonderful and healthy *sound* and power of my 57 chevy's engine of my engine.
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
Anyone interested in a Dragon 32?
Everyone knows an A3000 is not worth a dime to a collector unlesas it has an OpalVision card with Roaster chip in it.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
... is the machine designed to find the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything... THE EARTH!
And the cool part is, it's still running (for now)! (Of course, there are a few 'bugs' in the programming, like... us).
-Fourty Two.
Yeah, like the United States Supremes before Diana Ross murdered them. :P
Classic computers collect YOU!
The one on the right....
http://www.gaby.de/eterm.htm
...with emulation of course :) MESS Website This emulator is based on MAME:
MESS is an emulator; the acronym stands for Multiple Emulator Super System. An emulator in this sense is a computer program that imitates exactly the behavior of another computer or game system, so that its software can be run on systems other than itself. With emulators you can do things like run C64 programs on your PC, Atari 2600 games on your Mac, whatever. MESS' mission is to preserve historical computer programs (mostly games), most of which are no longer sold, so that future generations can enjoy them long after the machines themselves have stopped working. Being able to use them now is just a nice side effect.
I think i still have what we call a "dinosaur".
:) anyone interested 32yrs computer tech, Montreal area....
A 1969 Wang 700, Calculator 4 bit cpu, and is using 1k of magnetic core memory, an old ASR33 teletype as a terminal and the old disk drive who weight about 50 pounds. It's fun to format a floppy with "turn the key and press the format button" No fat, you have to take note of the sector number where de program is saved. Also have an old Digital pro/350 with a lot of peripheral. And the MOST important i kept all the documentation about them
And i don't talk about the games consoles, old apple stuff, antique TV and Radio floating around in my shack.
And YES i'm single...
On the top shelf of my book and software case are:
Commodore 128 Reference Guide for Programmers
Amiga Basic (from *icrosoft)
The Official Book for the Commodore 128 Personal Computer
COMPUTE'S 128 Programmer's Guide
Commodore 128 System Guide
and there are numerous C64 books around, incl a C64 Programmer's Manual somewhere.
.
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
I guess I have a different idea of what a 'classic computer' is. I first learned to program on a PDP-11 and a PDP-8, so when one came up on the secondhand-market back in about 1990, I bought it. A PDP-11/40 with some piddling amount of core memory (which was originally worth a fortune).
I quickly found a number of PDP enthusiasts around town who helped me getting it all running (got RSX-11M+ installed - remember that?), and was surprised to find out just how much old equipment was still around - being stored by these guys, and being thrown out by institutions.
I "upgraded" to an 11/35 and then an 11/34, passing on my old gear. Man I wish I'd held onto it! Finding new peripherals and building them in was a lot of fun - the variety in disk and tapes units back then was astounding. And there was nothing like hearing those disk drives spin up.
One guy, who had an 11/70 in his back room, helped me with hardware problems. He'd sit down with the faulty drive/board/whatever and the hardware manuals and go across the boards with a logic probe until he found the fault, and replaced the chip. Don't see that happening much any more.
At the high-point of my collection, I had a VAX 11/780 in my bedroom, complete with Unibus and tape expansion cabinet (I put my bed on top of it), and had managed to rescue a junked PDP-8 and pass it onto a collector.
Then I moved continents and had to give it all away. A lot got scrapped <sniff>.
DECUS (does it still exist?) used to have a 'NOP' sub-section - Nostalgic Old Products. Still got my membership badge somewhere...
Just like to point out a site i found a few months back that has been on my "daily" visiting list. Mess is similar to mame in that it tries to emulate old classic computers,and there is a few obscure ones there. Try it out,revel in the old school basics.
I will be known as Ian Black, Ean can be Ian Red, Netgod Ian Blue,
Che gets Ian Yellow, CQ is Ian Purple and Joey is Ian Indigo
-- Some #Debian channel
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