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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."
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!
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 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"
Anybody want an Apple IIgs? Its got Oregon Trail, Number Munchers and Carmen Sandiago.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
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 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!
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
I still have the first computer I ever owned.. an Atari 400 with 16K of RAM and a 1.79MHz 6502 CPU. Also I may still have the first modem I ever owned, which was 300 baud, but one o' them new-fangled direct-connect ones (without the acoustic couplers).
I never set out to be an antique computer collector, but I do have an awful lot of old machines from the 1980's (most Atari, Commodore, TI, and Apple, but some weirdball ones too... remember the Mattell Aquarius?)
It's not much fun to just collect them & leave them sitting in a closet, to me you don't really own a machine unless you can write code for it. Unfortunately, a lot of those old boxes, I have no storage for.. No, they didn't come with hard drives, and the floppy drive was usually an expensive add-on, and made from lowest-bidder parts (therefore unlikely to still be working today, even if you have one).
My favorite weird old architecture to code for has got to be the Atari 2600. 1.2MHz 6502, 128 bytes of RAM total, to be split between variables and stack (most games use litle or no stack though), no OS or BIOS, no video memory, no I/O except the front panel switches, the joysticks, the paddles, and the cartridge slot.. no R/W line was routed to the cart slot, so you couldn't (easily) use it to add RAM, only ROM (usually 4K, but as much as you want via bankswitching).
Just lately (in the past couple of years), I've actively started collecting UNIX boxes (Sparc, Alpha, SGI, etc.)... these are still useful (a throw-away SparcStation 10 with a 40MHz CPU, 64M of RAM, 2G SCSI drive, and Solaris 2.6 makes a dandy DNS & dhcp server for your LAN, and will be a lot more reliable than a 486 PC from the same time period).
Anyone have or know where I can get an old version of DEC UNIX to run on my Alpha?
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);}"
Schools seem to be a good place to find old macs. I got 2 Classics, 4 SEs, a Plus, three Apple IIs and a Macintosh IIsi when my school district threw them out. There were probably 2 or 3 dozen 386s and 486s that would have made good Linux boxes, but some one got to them beforme and took all the RAM, but the 286s were intact.
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
That was marketesse, yet they did put that in the manual when the second series came out. However Chuck Pedle stated that they named it the Pet after the Pet Rock craze swept the US, they thought it would be cute to have a pet computer.
Incidentally, great choice of story slashcrew a site that is completely devoid of any information whatsoever is posted. Either this thing is being done by a friend of theirs or it is a REALY slow news day and they don't have a girlfriend or anything to spend sunday night with.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
...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.
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
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.
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?
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?
ebay
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
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
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.
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...
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
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.
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?
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.....
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
I must respectfully call you a fucking retard. Your argument doesn't work. Take baseball cards, for instance... that 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card really doesn't serve much of a purpose, and over the past 50 years the cardboard has probably gotten a bit weak, so it's not really useful in that game all the kids played where you throw the baseball cards at the wall... so I guess you'll let me have it for free, right?
peek and poke were my window into a bigger world. Thanks Radio Shack.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
I have an acoustic coupler modem, if anyone wants one. Your first computer compares so well to my first that I still think of 233MHz as 'really, really fast'. Funny thing is, I still play Nethack regularly.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
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
There's a UK site called Binary Dinosaurs that does this properly...
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
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.
Perhaps not a generic clone, but I suspect that some of the early name brands will become collectors' items. Things like an intact original IBM PC from 1981 will increase in value, for sure.
I've seen people go apeshit collecting some really stupid stuff. Sometime in the early 90s, I remember Hostess Chips including mini trading cards with STTNG characters on them in each bag of chips. People got right crazy over them, and towards the end, with some of the cards being rarer than others, people were selling complete sets for in excess of $200, and I know one clown who forked out something like that.
Old computers? That's a no-brainer!
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...
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
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
"Portable C64" -> SX64, aka "Executive 64"
Apple IIp -> You mean Apple IIc, I think -- floppy on the right, big white brick powersupply.
2.88 meg hard drive in a PS/2? Do you mean 3.5" floppy?
Have you found the drives on your TRS-80s seizing the disk rotation motor? If so, spray the brush area down (don't need to open the motor) with car ignition anti-seize, and turn them by hand a few times. Then squirt in some liquid wrench.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
I have a couple of those, but I don't want to give them up.
You can use the DIN on the back of the machine for a TV output on channel 3 or 4.
If you are using a commodore monitor, you should be able to find the pinouts easily if not [post back otherwise, I may still have them at home].
Otherwise, you might want to make a DIN->SVideo cable. I've never tried it (SVideo didn't exist in those days) but I don't see why it wouldn't work. The chroma and luma are separate on that port; audio is there as well.
Oh, you can use the C=64 DIN->composite monitor as well. I did this back in the 80s. Take a small germanium diode (resistance ~500 ohm) and wire it so the chroma goes through the diode and into the luma. There's probably a better (proper!) way, but that's how I did it; I needed to use an Apple ][/VIC-20 monitor on my C=64.
Finally, those 5-pin DIN connectors used to be standard stock at Radio Shack; I think they are the same as some european stereo standard from the 70s.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
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.
I do not have my original TI-99/4A, but I grabbed another one from Salvation Army (the gay-haters that they are) after I was reunited with the TI when my girlfriend at the time whipped one of the more recent white models out of her attic. I played with it but wanted a black and silver unit, so I searched and found.
I remember back, '87 or so, in the day I desperately wanted to grab another TI (I had let my orig. go to get an Apple
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
Does Game Stop or Funcoland still sell Sega Genesis stuff?
If so, the A/V cable that was made for them will work on a C64. It has the DIN connector on one end and 3 or 4 (depending on manufacturer) RCA connectors on the other side. Just plug them one at a time into the video port to find the composite video connector and run a program with sound to figure out which remaining connector is audio. You might find one gives you B&W video only, that's the Luma connection (like S-Video). One of the other RCA plugs should have full color composite video.
Odds are, the 2600 should work. You might need to clean the contacts of the cartridge slot and/or catridges to get a good connection.
I have over 220 Atari cartridges (people like to call them 'tapes' for some reason) and when I pull the kit out to play it with my kids, I'm always cleaning (de-oxidizing) the contacts on the carts.
You refering to the CC-40?
I got one of those mint in box on eBay several years back (for $30). Nice machine. I also own it's successor, a TI-74 Basicalc.
Now, I got to remember where I put them. I'm getting nostalgic again...
So what's Commodore, anyway? What do they make?
The Commodores were a funk band.
Will I retire or break 10K?
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.)
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"