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Getting a Classic PC Working After 25 Years?

Posted by kdawson on from the lotus-123-baby dept.

tunersedge writes "Yesterday I dug out of my parents' basement a PC they had bought brand new in 1984: Epson Equity I personal computer; 512K RAM; 82-key keyboard; 2 (count 'em!, 2) 5.25" floppy disk drives; 13' RGB monitor (with contrast/brightness knobs); handy on/off switch; healthy 25-year-old yellowed plastic; absolutely no software. (My mom ran a pre-school, and they used it to keep records and payroll. I cut my programming teeth on this thing. GW-Basic was my friend. Kings Quest screens took 2 minutes to load when you walked into a new one.) When I resurrected this machine I pulled the case off, dusted out a little, and plugged it in. It actually fired up! I'm stoked, except the disks we had are missing. What I'm looking to do is either buy some old working disks with whatever I can find (MS-DOS 3.22, GW-Basic, whatever), or try and recreate some using a USB-based floppy drive and some modern software. Has anyone tried to resurrect a PC this old before?"

7 of 533 comments (clear)

  1. Re:512k! by noidentity · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Well it's not *that* old, it's not like anyone has or ever will need more than 512K of ram...

    Well, some people need about 128K more, which should be enough for anybody.

  2. Impressive... by onemorechip · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I want to see this 13-foot monitor!

    --
    But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
  3. Re:FreeDOS by jank1887 · · Score: 1, Redundant

    you had shoes?

  4. 13' monitor?!? by Emmef · · Score: 0, Redundant

    13' RGB monitor (with contrast/brightness knobs)

    13 feet? Wow. I know computers were big in the stoneage...errrr....eighties, but monitors too?

  5. Contact Drew University by __aanhjr1420 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    The Epson QX-10, QX-16 and Equity computers were standard issue for Drew University (drew.edu) undergrads starting in 1984. They've got to have a box of old disks in a dark corner of the computer center.

  6. I'll trade you. by jonadab · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Give me the 13' monitor, and I'll hook you up with whatever 360K floppy disks you want. I've got PC-DOS 3.3 (two disks), GWBASIC, WordWriter, Lotus 123, UED, PC Tools, XTetris, and Caddiehack Golf CGA Tour. Oh, and I've got a 5.25" floppy drive that'll work with your modern PC, so you can create your own disks from downloaded images using dd or rawrite or whatever. You can have it all in exchange for the thirteen-foot monitor.

    --
    Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
  7. wow that is big.. by glitch23 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    13' RGB monitor (with contrast/brightness knobs);

    Holy shit! My big screen LCD isn't even that big. How expensive was THAT?

    --
    this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address