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Good Vintage Computers?
The Crooked Elf asks: "I'm going to be running an event dedicated to vintage computers and game consoles in a month for the computer science department at the University of Southern Maine. My current arsenal includes a TRS-80 Color Computer 3 and an old NES (with Zelda, Mario, etc), but I feel I need a few more items to display. I have a budget of around $600 for this event. Slashdot, what do you feel are other decent vintage systems that would be the most valuable and educational to present?"
Basically anything with a tape reader, or even better if you can find them, anything with puch cards.
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Try a Coleco, Atari 5200, Odyssey^2, something like that.
Kids, a NES isn't 'vintage'.
Vintage computers? Get some old portables, or some of the oddball computers with integrated printers, etc.
Especially those lunchbox-sized Sparcstation IPX/IPC/LX/ZX computers. So cute, even your girlfriend will love'em.
I hear these are still in use in jungle research because they can withstand tempature and other issues that come in the jungle. I have a 100 and a 102 model, both with 8k of ram. I also have the tape recorder to go with that and some software (tape and rom based). It was a great system to get me though school in those days; even though it was a bit heavy. Quella
I have a TI-99/4A and original IBM XT. I got rid of the TRS-80 Model III when I last moved. :-( I still kept all the software and run the old programs using an emulator on on current PC.
You might try asking on the Classic Computers mailing list: classiccmp.org. You might get people to loan you systems of interest.
For my money, you'd probably be in good if you got a Commodore 64 (for obvious reasons) and a machine like a IMSAI 8080. Perhaps an Apple 2.
In the grand scheme of things, the Tandy Color Computer 3 was largely irrelevant by the time it came to market...
I'd look for an old minicomputer, such as a PDP-8 or PDP-11, with a real front panel that has a full set of lights and switches.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
A nice example of the rarely-seen-these-days vector monitor. Available for about $50 on ebay.
Those things were staples of every computer room as a file server, plus they had great games and that classic mac shape. They are remarkably stable, etc. I still have a Mac Classic, its awesome as well, but not quite as boxy.
stuff |
If you want to show the systems that really drove the home PC adoption market you have to get a TI99/4a and a Commodore 64, and I'd say an Apple 2e.
just to show what japan and brazil got in 80's too?
a tube pass and a crowbar (Game-On exhibition)
An IBM PC/XT, a Commodore 64, and one of the original runs of the Macintosh, or the Apple II?
It's not that I'm asking the big questions, it's that I'm asking lots of small ones.
One thing popular during that time were timeshare computers. You might be able to find an old Teletype or Silent 700 terminal with an acoustically coupled modem, and have those dial into a machine hosting a few games such as Hunt the Wumpus, tic-tac-toe, or global thermonuclear war. Dumb terminals of that era can be had for pretty cheap -- a buddy of mine just picked up a Teletype 43 for $40 off of eBay (beware of shipping costs, though.)
John
TRS-80 Model 100. One of the first real laptops.
& satitle=trs-80+model+100
40 character, 8 line LCD goodness. Ran for days on 4 AA batteries. And featuring the last professional code that Bill Gates worked on personally.
You can get one pretty cheap:
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40
This would be particularly interesting, since you can point out to the Mac users in your audience (and there's bound to be more than a few) that most of the basic concepts behind OS X were laid down in 1989. The downside is that a NeXT machine is likely to eat up your entire $600 budget and more.
You need an Altair.
That was my first in the 70's. Great fun and very open. Build your own cards. Wire wrap. Learn to solder. Great fun, great fun.
Also, the Sincliar ZX80, Sinclair ZX81/Timex 1000, Kaypro II, Osbourne.
When I strapped a 32K, banked switched ram pack to my ZX81, a buddy told me that I was crazy to have wasted my money, that I'd never use the 16k in one bank. The Sinclair had a the nasty habit of recording the entire memory used or not, when you saved to tape. So, the more memory you installed the longer the load.
I also owned a few pirated computers:
Anyone remember the Orange? It was an Apple, made in Taiwan from the specs Apple provided a factory when they wanted to go into mass production.
I had a Genie, which was a knock off of the TRS-80 Model I, but you could get it in kit form. RS didn't much care until Genie started selling assembled units, if I remember correctly.
And, my first "IBM PC Compatible was a Heath-kit.
That was all when hacking meant building your own stuff, or getting into the hardware and making your own changes. Of course the lead solder didn't affect my mind...too much.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
You will never be able to afford a real Apple I. However if you want to let people play with a vintage computer (and a very important one at that) without risking a real classic you can by the Replica I for about $200. It is a replica of the Apple I (since Woz still owns the rights to the apple I and not Apple he has the rights to let others make replica's and clones) but it uses more modern parts. Here is the website: http://www.brielcomputers.com/
A cheapo Amiga would be a great addition. It might be interesting to show a computer that still has unique abilities - folks love the multiple resolution "screens" that you can slide up and down.
Back in the day, before the "IBM PC", almost every company was coming out with their own computer.
Sharp had the MZ80K that had its own monitor and build in tape deck, and contrary to what others were doing at the time, instead of loading BASIC, it ran Pascal.
Now, anyone have any info on the Acorn, and the BBC computer?
I was stationed in the UK in the early 80's, at RAF Upper Heyford when the BBC ran a test. They broadcast, on TV, a short 1 minute blast of binary. I recorded it onto cassette (it had been pre-announced for the week that they would do it) and then I loaded it into my Sinclair, and viola, it ran.
I think the BBC was the first to run a regular computer show. If a tape of that specific episode could obtained, no museum exhibit would be complete without it running on loop.
Does anyone remember the plethora of magazines that had tons of code listings? How many people learned to code from those?
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
If you can find an Osbourne, it's a big deal for the history of the computers. It was the first real "portable" consumer computer.
That 5" diagonal screen and 5.25 floppy drives were all the rage.
If you can finagle some minicomputer-era hardware, like parts of a DEC PDP system (no one expects you to transport and functionally install this), that'd be cool for the "look how far we have come" tip.
Some early kit-build micros would be nifty. An IMSAI or a SWTPC 6800 system perhaps.
Early (pre 1980) "consumer" PCs, like an Apple ][ or a TRS-80 Model I. Or an original "calculator keyboard" PET. (Hell, I'd pay money to see one of those again.)
Stuff from the 80s, too. The early 16-bitters.
Now, a question for you. If you manage to pull together a significant and interesting cross-section of early PC history, how are you handling security? Consider that some of these systems were actually small enought to carry out in a coat, and many of the systems may be valuable enough to consider smash-n-grab.
Yes, I'm paranoid. Aren't you?
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
While maybe not the most popular home computer, the 1979 Atari 800 was the most capable, and the most likely to still work. They were built like tanks (well, like game consoles anyway). I have serial number 0127 and it still works. The other advantage for your display is that they use cartridges for software that you can demonstrate, and also have high-resolution separate chrominance and luminance video output (S-Video before anybody called it S-video).
Suggestions:
But seriously, if you post the location, date, and time here - I expect a few people would be willing to show up with their oldie-but-goodie systems. Mine got junked for my last move, otherwise I'd certainly bring mine in! Good Luck!
If you can't get the original equipment, do a Google search on "VICE" for Commodore-related emulators that run on Windows PC's. These would at least give people a chance to see what the user interfaces looked like, and they will also let you run actual vintage programs. You should be able to find emulators for many "vintage" computers and game consoles.
This would be an inexpensive solution that would provide real interactivity.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Sure, you'd be surprised at the tricks they can do, but then you feel ashamed at your lack of standards.
My father had a VIC-20 when I was very young. It had cartridges like a game console as well as cassette tapes for input. It looks like there was a modem for it as well.
I don't remember doing much with it but a bit of BASIC and playing some really weird games like Tooth Invaders (floss or die), Blue Meanies from Outer Space, and a bunch of text-adventure games.
The old SGI, such as a personal Iris, an original Indigo (when they were indigo), or an Indy (with its jazz-riff startup sound) would all be good choices. Even the screensavers such as Electropaint are a sight, when you realize that they were running when PC's shipped with 4 unreadable colors or glowing green.
I recently saved the memory from a DataGeneral NOVA-II; 16K of genuine Cores. You should look for some older core memory from an old IBM mainframe, or a Nicolet 1080, as those cores are big enough to see without a magnifier.
I'm still fond of the VAX, but that's a conniseur's architecture. Nobody is going to casually understand the significance of a washing machine with blue trim.
Just to be odd, you could try to get a full-sized picture of a Cray-1 or Cray-2, some add from the era touting their work in high-end computational science, and then put a Palm-pilot or some such down with its speed in Crays next to it. I had this discussion with my students the other day that I did most of the calcs for my thesis (not so long ago, either) on a machine that had less memory than a standard graphics card. It was a lot bigger too. It's good to show. Maybe just a big sketch showing size of machine at constant performance, starting with a Cray or IBM-360, and going to the modern equivalent.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
There are bunches of olden computers out there that still work and have some neat proprietary hardware that were forerunners of the current high-speed interfaces or some of the oddballs that everyone asks why they ever were made. Get a 486 with a VESA local bus on, IBM PS/2 with MCA or a PS/2 with nothing else but an 8-bit ISA slot. If you're looking for older stuff, there's the classic TRS-80. I used to have a 50-pound 'portable' computer (286 with a fold-up keyboard and a crt screen complete with carrying handle) and a 10-pound portable computer (a 386 with a 6" B&W LCD). I recently discarded 2MB of RAM for a 286. Basically a 16-bit ISA card (larger than the latest GeForce or ATI) filled with 8-pin chips. Even older: CELLATRON 8205, a desktop computer that included the desktop.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Don't forget the midrange COBOL stuff. Tandem and AS/400! (Disclaimer - you can still buy new versions of both with fancy new names and fancy pricing schemes). While not as exciting as an older PC these things were in the data centers for many a company in the pre-internet days and many are still around.
If you haven't already, you may try contacting The UNIX Heritage Society. They're a group of individuals that love old hardware, and may have a member locally that would loan or otherwise provide you with older equipment.
Don Head
UNIX/Linux Administrator
I didn't see anyone else mentioning it yet. This was my first computer and I have fond memories of it.
And a link for a nice photo of this oddly shaped beast. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET
Those were extensively programable and used reverse polish notation, many engineers still use them today.
They are normally not up for sale anymore but you can check this site for instance that still has some of them: http://www.rpncalcs.com/
For more information you can also check this site:http://www.hpmuseum.org/
Heathkit H-89, Zenith z100 both are CPM machines.
They might have some really old stuff you can borrow for the occasion.
The $600 might cover transportation and insurance.
Closer to home, try any computer or engineering school that's been around a few decades and see what they have in their museums or basements.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I regularly take parts of my computer collection to the West Coast Vintage Copmputer Festival and I can assure you there are computer collectors in every state (finding them may be another matter)
It will save you time on getting things ready (except planning where to put various exhibits, power cords, etc.). The collectors know how to show off thier stuff, and probably result in a better presentation also as these collectors come with knowledge, history and lore about thier machines and using them in the day.
This posting is a good start for finding people, you might also go to http://groups.google.com/ and post on groups like comp.sys.cbm, comp.sys.apple2, comp.sys.atari.8bit, rec.games.video.classic, etc. to find classic collectors in your state to present.
make sure to include the location date, time , etc of your event (well in advance) and of course contact info.
Contact Sellam Ismail at the Vintage Computer Festival site (link above) as he could give you some pointers and leads.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
you can rent my Wang for $100.
Displaying an old Altair is pointless if you don't know how to demonstrate its capabilities.
If you're hanging out here, there is some good chance you know UNIX or Linux. That said, getting an old Sun E4000 server would make for a great display. Shipping usually costs more than the street value of the machine, but within your budget. Hosting shell accounts on a 12+ processor old school UNIX box would be great fun and no doubt offer opportunity for nostalgia from those who enjoyed the golden age of UNIX.
you can rent my Wang for $100
And then he could locate an IBM Selectric and teach them how to forge old National Guard Documents.
If you want european classics; Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum are must. "bit later than classic" Amiga 500 is also ok.
If purchasing them is too hard, the net should be full of pictures of them and the emulators are pretty good. Spectrum and C64 emus are cycle-accurate albeit SID-chip is not absolutely 100%, and Amiga is sort-of emulated but good enough for almost anything.
I think you definitely need to include a Speak'n'Spell in there. Great little computer with a VOICE SYNTHESIZER with a price low enough to make it a reasonable gift for your kids. I remember being amazed by it. I also remember getting a smack from my mother for making it say certain things...
Atari 520 STs. With original monitors, software and accessories. If there is a way to contact you, maybe we can work out a deal.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I'd love to see an operating IBM 602A again. That was the last and best of the commercial electromechanical punched card calculators. Plug board-wired, mechanical add, subtract, multiply, and divide, punched card input and output. First shipped in 1948, and in commercial use well into the 1970s. 0.000003 MIPS.
A full tab shop was an IBM 82 sorter, a IBM 407 tabulator, a IBM 514 reproducer/summary punch, a IBM 77 collator, and a IBM 602A calculator. Plus some IBM 024 or IBM 026 keypunches, of course. With that set of gear, and a really big supply of blank punch cards and fanfold paper, you could do invoicing, general ledger, and payroll. The machinery was slow, but highly reliable.
"I'd look for an old minicomputer, such as a PDP-8 or PDP-11, with a real front panel that has a full set of lights and switches."
Have you checked a movie set?
Xenix!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
P.S. - You ever try booting from the embedded Mac OS include with your Macintosh Classic?
From the DEC (Digital Equipment Corp) inventory...
A MicroVAX II. First system with the CPU on one chip.
A "Jensen" AlphaStation 150. Representing early 64 bit processing.
A DECtalk or DECvoice unit. Featured voice in "War Games" and Steven Hawkings "voice."
An 11/780. Would take up a lot of space, but there's a guy that converted the cabinet of one into a bar...
Any of the long list of failed DEC PC products... better, but incompatible: VT180 "Robin", Rainbow, VAXmate, Pro 350... I believe that the "Rainbow" was author Peirs Anthony's first computer and featured in his author's notes of several novels, and quite likely the inspiration of the "ComPewter" of Xanth.
Many people may not remember the mini or mainframe computers they used, as they may not have ever been in the same room. They might however remember the terminals they used. Can I suggest:
- VT100, the early face of online terminals in the 1980s.
- LA100, this hardcopy terminal was the console of many a systems and the face of online computing for those without a CRT terminal. This hardcopy terminal could double as a printer too. They came with many different labels and brands, but they are all essentially the same beast.
- 2780 terminal, for those IBMers out there.
Some sample cables: an RS-232 cable, a parallel printer, a thick wire Ethernet cable, transceiver and transciever cable, a thinwire Ethernet cable and T connecter, etc.
Some sample media with storage capacity: computer card, paper tape, 9-track tape, misc. floppies, TU-52, TK50 (20 year-old predecessor to the current DLT family.)
Go big or go home.
So, you have a month to gather and present ancient computer junk that no one cares about. Oh, joy.
Can I make a suggestion?
Offer to recycle any vintage hardware that comes through the door, and spend the $600 to haul it to the recycling center.
And, as that crap comes in the front door, dust some of it off and put it on display. Have some old-timers handy to identify the items (or just a browser and wireless link--we don't need old-timers any more. Sorry.) Put the best on display. In no time you'll have collected more worthless items than you could imagine.
MITS Altair 8800 - the original personal computer. Came as a kit, was not pretty to look at or much fun to use, but it was a landmark computer design that deserves to be displayed and revered at any retro-computing event.
... but didn't. Microsoft Japan had a winner on their hands but it never got so much as a foothold in the USA. Remarkable for having some early games that would eventually become major franchises.
TI-59 - programmable calculator with reconfigurable ROM modules, magnetic strip reader/writer, and an optional printer. With its tiny, revolutionary 10-digit LED display it plays the hell out of Guess Number and Statistical Analysis. It was actually extremely sophisticated for a pocket calculator.
Apple ][ - the prototypical personal computer. This is a machine that gets it right on so many levels. A mind boggling work of computer engineering by Steve Wozniac, with clever packaging and marketing by Steve Jobs, makes this machine the epitome of awesomeness and accessibility. If only more computers were built with this much love and respect for the user.
Apple Lisa - retroactively aborted, it predates the Macintosh by several years and includes a mouse and the archetypal GUI interface. Too much, too soon, the Lisa was doomed to failure. Another faltering step for Apple as it tried to replicate the success of the Apple ][.
Apple Mac - upgraded to 512KB, the "Fat Mac" was what the cool kids wanted, 1-bit graphics be damned. A remarkable achievement in a funky little package that peaked with the Mac SE/30. Coupled with a laser printer, Apple's Mac began the desktop publishing revolution.
Tandy TRS-80 - How can you say no to a Radio Shack computer? Almost gave Apple a run for their money, but a public image nightmare from the start, the TRS-80 series never made it out of hobbyist status.
Osborne 1 - the first popular luggable computer. Integrated dual(!) floppies and 5 inch screen, built around the Z80 processor and CP/M. While a landmark achievement, it stretched the concept of "portable" to the point of incredulity.
Sinclair ZX81 - remarkably small and powerful kit computer. The follow on ZX Spectrum with very popular in the UK although it never caught on in the USA.
MSX - the computer standard that was going to take the world by storm
Atari 2600 - with BASIC cartridge and keyboard. The very concept is at once absurd and an engineering masterpiece. Designed by Jay Miner, the Atari 2600 is a very clever machine built for the true masochist programmer.
Atari 800 - extremely powerful and another engineering masterpiece from Jay Miner, et al. Throw in a tape drive for true retro goodness. Its little brother, the Atari 400, has a membrane keyboard that is an unusual and thankfully uncommon feature.
Atari 520ST - the Mac-killer that never made it. The "Jackintosh" had all the potential, but none of the marketing to unseat Apple. Atari felt unfairly saddled with the "game computer" image that seemed to lack credibility in the serious computing world. Now "game computers" are rightly perceived as among the most powerful computers available. A great little machine designed in a very short period of time, crippled by a buggy OS and a cheap bastard CEO. I can still see those breathless Joe Sugarman ads that convinced me to buy one over an Amiga.
Atari Transputer Workstation - Atari really pushing the envelope with a multiprocessor computer based on the T800 Transputer and a hybrid dual-OS configuration simultaneously running HeliOS and TOS. Poorly marketed, desperate for a niche, and radically ahead of its time.
Commodore PET - who could forget the Chiklet keyboard? Accessible, clever character graphics, and not a bad first step into personal computing. Granddaddy of the ubiquitous Commodore 64.
Commodore 64 - Strikes a good balance between price, flash, and performance. This turned the anemic VIC 20 into a legitimate contender and eventual champion. An incredible popular machine that refuses to be ignored.
+0 Meh
I have one of these Top-of-the-Line beauties "in the box" and i'll let you have it for, oh i don't know... two bars of Gold-Pressed Latinum.
I had an old Kaypro that ran on the CP/M operating system (precursor to DOS). Had like a 6-inch green screen, two 5 1/4" floppy drives, something like 16k of RAM, weighed about 30 lbs, and was "portable". Had a word processor, spreadsheet, and some games and such. A great computer, for it's day. If you could find one that is operational, it would make a great addition to your presentation.
The older, the better, but I'd think that finding an SE shouldn't be too hard. Even better if you can find a foreign System stack (the experience I had in high school playing with a Japanese machine was interesting for both it's GUIness and its ease-of-transition to another language).
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
i have an NEC Ready 7022 that, wait...nevermind, i'm still using it as a router/firewall/NAT box. you are welcome to my copy of Microsoft Bob that came bundled with the software however.
Serenity now, insanity later.
It might be a good gift for all your attendees if you spend that six hundred bucks on refreshments and instead put together a presentation of all the vintage computer emulators and resources (games, software, discussion groups, fan sites, etc.) that are freely available online, summarized with links on a web page for the event. That way they could all go home and play with this technology themselves on their own equipment instead of having to invest in hardware. And you could post a link to the info here, for interested Slashdot readers.
...the original Religious War of personal-computerdom. It has set the pace for later religous wars between PC vs. Mac and Linux/open vs. Windows/proprietary.
The Commodore 64 had the same component video outputs. It used 1 RCA cable for each, whereas the S-Video uses a single cable with 4 wires.
The C64 also wasn't introduced until three years after the Atari 800--the PET and Vic-20 were Commodore's initial offering against the Atari 800 and they were decidedly less capable with video and did not have component video output as the Atari did.
The Commodore actually didn't use one cable for each component--it was like the Atari in that it had a single DIN connector (looks like a giant version of S-video). The cable just split into three RCA-style plugs on the end. The other little 8-bit computer I had with a component video output was the Coleco ADAM, released a year or so after the C64.
Infuriatingly, they all similar connectors but the pinout was different amongst all of them. The 1702 monitor from Commodore had component inputs that worked with the Atari and Coleco...but you needed different cables! To make matters worse, whatever plans Atari and Coleco had to introduce cables (and maybe monitors) where shelved and they never offered such cables, so you had to solder up your own. I went through the trouble and managed to make the Commodore 1702 work with an Atari 800 and a Coleco ADAM just fine.
Oddly enough, the Commodore 64's display on a Commodore 1702 was noticeably less crisp than the Atari's display. Besides being sharper the Atari's colour was much better. Commodore had a selection of 16 hues of a fixed brightness, all over-saturated. Atari 800 had 16 hues with 8 levels of brightness and a much better saturation level. My theory about the crispness was that the whole Atari 800 ran off the colourburst crystal--the processor merely used the colourburst divided by two (just under 1.8 MHz). Commodore's system frequency was just over 1 MHz and didn't divide evenly into the colourburst frequency used by the video circuitry, which maybe made it more prone to interference (NTSC, and even the 1702 monitor, used colourburst as the fundamental frequency of operation).
And thus the rivalry between the systems--they had many similarities (CPU, overall power, size of software library, entertainment-oriented sound and graphics capabilities) and their differences seemed to cancel each other out (C64 had superior sound and better sprites, Atari had better overall graphics and crisper display, Atari had much faster disk drive and peripherals, C64 had much slower disk drive but could store a lot more on each disk, etc).
Thus, no "vintage" collection would be complete without a C64 and an Atari 800 (or derivative like 800XL or maybe even 65XE). The big early personal computer players in North America were Commodore, Tandy/Radioshack, Apple, Atari and Texas Instruments so thatwouldbe quite a complete collection. To cover Europe/UK you cannot ignore Sinclair (Spectrum and ZX81), BBC/Acorn or Amstrad/CPC.
Also, you must include CP/M and S100-bus computers as they are the progenitors of today's open-architecture PC platform. The MITS Altair was the first S100 (it was the inspiration for the platform). Individual S100 vendors were never big players but the CP/M-on-S100 market as a whole was comparable or larger in size than the total market size of the above players. If you want an "interesting" machine within your budget then you might opt for an S100 machine over something as common as a C64 or Atari 800 or Apple IIe. Altairs are much too rare but other specimens from the likes of IMSAI or Cromemco or Processor Technologies might be available very cheaply if you can find them (you might be lucky and find someone who has such equipment and doesn't even know what it is).
As for consoles, I consider vintage anything introduced over 20 years ago (more recent than that id "retro" but I'd say that it is not yet "vintage") so despite some posters here disag
Vintage doesn't simply mean "old." It doesn't mean "classic" either.
All it means is that it's exemplar of its time period, so for example if you're looking at "80s vintage" systems, then NES qualifies. If you're looking at 70s or 90s, it obviously doesn't.
NES has a distinctive and recognizable "80s flavor." It's over 20 years old which is a lifetime or two in computing.
If you are going to have a CoCo up, maybe you can find Robot Odyssey for it... There hasn't been any better electronics educational games for kids since then.
http://www.google.com/profiles/malachid
The parent definitely deserves a modding up--it's rather complete, informative, and well-written.
Some of the stuff mentioned may be difficult to find and borrow. I'd like to suggest a list based off of his so that you can focus more on the "gotta-gotta-haves" if resources and time put you in a bind. I'm presuming that you are focusing on microcomputers, so minicomputers, VAXen, Crays and such are "nice, but not necessary" for your purposes.
MITS Altair 8800 or other early model kit computer. Where it all began.
Apple II -- First staple of the personal computer revolution. Any of 'em other than the IIgs will make the point. If you can get a copy of VisiCalc for the Apple II (the first "killer app"), so much the better.
Apple Mac. Don't worry about the specific model; any of those early little B&W boxes will serve to show the beginnings of graphical computing.
Tandy TRS-80 -- A Model I/III/4 would be elemental. If you can get your hands on a II/16/12/6000, you'll have the advantage of showing off the old 8" floppies. If you can't get a II/16/12/6000, get SOME computer that used 8" floppies.
Commodore PET/VIC 20/64/128 -- The 64 would probably be the easiest to get and the most familiar to the folks who actually used Commodores.
Atari -- I never messed with one so I can't speak to them, but from the discussions here, it seems like they were popular enough to warrant a representation; which one I'll leave to the Atari fans.
Sinclair ZX81 or Timex/Sinclair 1000 -- For cuteness, if nothing else.
SOME CP/M computer, be it Osborne 1, Kaypro II, a TRS-80 Model 4/II/16/12/6000 running CP/M or something else that ran it. That's important for the OS history, IMHO.
IBM PC or XT - I agree that it's a "must", and you shouldn't have a lot of trouble finding one, either. And if you couldn't find a copy of Visicalc for the Apple II, you can download a free copy of the IBM version from Dan Bricklin's site and demo it on an IBM PC.
And just as a side idea, if you find a Tandy 2000, TI Professional, DEC Rainbow or any of the other "near-compatible" clones of the early PC era, that would be good, too.
I also approve of your inclusion of a Coco in the collection. It had its prominent place as well.
That's my 2c, FWIW.
Arghh. Modded you incorrectly under the new discussion system and there's no undo. I'd rather lose all my moderation on this page than modding you as 'flamebait'. Great reply!
-- Look to the Rose that blows about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow..."
Thanks for your comment on the reply. For me, that's as good as being modded up.
/., I'll probably be doing good. No problem. Thanks for the apology, anyway.
As for incorrectly modding me, if that's the worst that ever happens to me on