<> 99 times out of a 100, I'd prefer to have the "hacked" computer rather
<> than the "original". At least in the minicomputer world, just about ever
<> modificiation is there for a very important purpose - it either fixes
<> a bug in the hardware or adds an actual enhancement. If the modificatio
More true in the micro would where standards were evolving faster that the
the hardware could be made.
<> was absolutely useful at the time it was made - and is something that
<> every sane original owner did - then it's part of the culture of the
<> machine!
The last line is where history resides. Hacks were part of the culture
and remain a legacy.
Allison
For me; at least; the interest is not for profit. It is for my own personal
enjoyment; and for history. If every Apple ][ is thrown away; once
very-common items become very rare.
-----Original Message-----
From: Olminkhof <jolminkh(a)c2.telstra-mm.net.au>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, December 08, 1997 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: Importance of "original" parts
>>How important is it to obtain computers in their "original" state? Is it
>>worth it to save a computer that is known to have been hacked together?
>>
>
>I think it's worth saving anything that might eventually fill in part of a
>jigsaw.
>
>>For example: I have an original Mac 128k. However, I believe that the
>>motherboard has been upgraded to the 512k "Fat" Mac. I purchased it at the
>>University of Michigan's Property Disposal warehouse, which means I was
>>lucky to find a matching keyboard and mouse and I have no hope of finding
>>the original manuals or shipping boxes for it.
>.
>.
>>Should I even bother to restore this machine to it's original state by
>>purchasing an original (but not _the_ original) motherboard, assuming I
>>can even find one, or should I just use the machine as is and forget about
>>any attempts at historical accuracy? At what point do I wind up with
>>Washington's Hatchet, or does it even matter?
>
>Mostly, you will be very lucky to pick up the bits you want. I think
>eventually a swap culture will arrive but you need to have something to
swap
>with. We are in a rescue-from-the-garbage phase at the moment, so I believe
>in hoarding everything I find ..... that I can find space for that is!
>
>Hans
>
>How important is it to obtain computers in their "original" state? Is it
>worth it to save a computer that is known to have been hacked together?
>
I think it's worth saving anything that might eventually fill in part of a
jigsaw.
>For example: I have an original Mac 128k. However, I believe that the
>motherboard has been upgraded to the 512k "Fat" Mac. I purchased it at the
>University of Michigan's Property Disposal warehouse, which means I was
>lucky to find a matching keyboard and mouse and I have no hope of finding
>the original manuals or shipping boxes for it.
.
.
>Should I even bother to restore this machine to it's original state by
>purchasing an original (but not _the_ original) motherboard, assuming I
>can even find one, or should I just use the machine as is and forget about
>any attempts at historical accuracy? At what point do I wind up with
>Washington's Hatchet, or does it even matter?
Mostly, you will be very lucky to pick up the bits you want. I think
eventually a swap culture will arrive but you need to have something to swap
with. We are in a rescue-from-the-garbage phase at the moment, so I believe
in hoarding everything I find ..... that I can find space for that is!
Hans
At 11:51 PM 12/7/97 +0000, you wrote:
>Please dig up more memory at least 4-8mb and plug in and you will be
>happy, the hd is tad tight but doable, but you could swap the hd out
>for bigger ones. I think this one uses standard IDE 3.5" or 2.5" hd.
Sure does. I just pulled the 40mb out and put this 104mb HD in (not 110mb
like I said earlier). No problems whatsoever. The SS sx doesn't have a user
defined drive type, so the largest drive in BIOS is 220mb, but the 104mb was
the only thing laying around. he SS sx will support up to 8mb, but the
memory upgrades cost $58 each from what I could find on the internet. If my
budget allowed, I'd get it, but would like to find something cheaper.
- John Higginbotham
- limbo.netpath.net
At 12:14 AM 12/6/97 -0500, you wrote:
>The military once procured a bunch of XT-like machines that were portable
>and keyboardless. Everything was done thru a touchscreen, including a
>virtual keyboard. About five years ago, there were a bunch floating around
>the hamfests in the Chicago area.
The GridPad 1910 that I have has a 'virtual' keyboard. Nice machine; I just
wish I could find some GPS/Mapping software that would run on it so I could
mount it in my Land Rover... (Or a 486/pentium version?)
>> How about a portable UNIX workstation with a ~21" gas plasma display? I've
>> actually seen such a beast.
>
>Yes, portable Unix machines do exist! The SPARCstation Voyager is somewhat
>like what you describe. It is a luggable monster, and was replaced by the
>SPARCbooks some time ago.
The problem with the Sun notebooks (which I'd *love* to have if anyone wants
to get rid of one) is that they're darned expensive and I'm poor. 8^) I
suspect a unix workstation with a 21" gas plasma display ain't gonna be
cheap either!
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
At 12:14 AM 12/6/97 -0500, William Donzelli wrote:
>Yes, portable Unix machines do exist! The SPARCstation Voyager is somewhat
>like what you describe. It is a luggable monster, and was replaced by the
>SPARCbooks some time ago.
There was a neat Sony? MIPS based Unix portable that I played with about 7
years ago. Large B&W LCD display, 500Mb disk in a box not much bigger than
a Toshiba 5200. Really neat and really expensive. I had one on evaluation
for a week or so and it was cool running X at home (of course, these days X
is just run of the mill).
Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies(a)latrobe.edu.au
Information Technology Services | Phone: +61 3 9479 1550 Fax: +61 3 9479
1999
La Trobe University | "My Alfas keep me poor in a monetary
Melbourne Australia 3083 | sense, but rich in so many other ways"
<everybody expects to figure everything out from little hieroglyphs.
<That don't work for me -- I read and use a command line. Intuitive?
<Intuition is for illiterate women (NOT ALLISON -- don't hit me!)
That is sexist.... ;-) I prefer "pets and small children" in place of
women in that sentence. As to hitting you, never. I've trained old dogs
and I don't hit them either. ;)
<Intuition is for illiterate pets and small children.
Here's a historical quote....
"Unix is snake oil"
Tee shirt seen at the mill: owner remains:
Front:
The NO circle with the word unix in lower case.
the digital logo (the "keys")
"Unix the unsystem, never had it never will".
Allison
Off-topic part of post, please ignore.
Here's the way I remember these things:
BeeGee = 70's pop music group memeber
GeeBee = 30's racing aircraft
Meantime, back to the computers;
1) I vote strongly in favor of keeping the 10-year rule. It's simple, it's
hard to start an argument over, and it has worked wonderfully so far. It is
a "moving window", but that's appropriate. Time is moving on...
2) On whether to mothball or use a system: if it's your second one,
mothball. If it's your first one of that type, follow Tony's good
suggestions regarding PS testing and then *use it*. Keep the packing
material, keep the manuals pristine, but get some time on it. Why? Nobody
is going to get passionate about a box in the closet. Five years from now
when the rest of your family needs more room in the closet, that box will
hit the streets or the dumpster if it's just a box. ("But you *never use
it!*") Worse, 5 years from now Tony may have been hit by a truck (er...
lorry. and no offense intended, Tony!) and no one will be able to help you
debug the power supply if you decide to fire it up and it fails its test.
On the other hand, if it's the system you spend your nights hacking
on to try to port Mosaic or bring up a Mandelbrot-set displayer on, it's
*safe*. Your family will hit the streets instead :-). And if it's got an
infant-mortality problem, better to flush it out while this group is around
to help you.
Just my humble opnion. I play Tetris on my Rainbow and am planning to (real
soon now (TM) ) write a Mandelbrot set program on it. I use my Mac Plus for
the family finances and all sorts of games (it's getting flaky though.
needs work.). My NeXT is at my office and web-surfs and runs Mathematica
analyses for my job, in exchange for its IP address. (urk! wasn't I just
advocating the 10-year rule? Sorry. We'll be there soon!)
- Mark
classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu, photze(a)batelco.com.bh
Subj: Re: Interest In Unix
Tim D. Hotze wrote:
>------=_NextPart_000_0006_01BD01A6.0C8FEE00
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>
>Season's greetings! I have just gotten interested in Linux, (so, it's =
>not truly classic content, but it's implementations are); and I was =
>wondering if anyone here has experience with this kind of thing.... any =
>Linux experience at all. (Sorry for the decipful headline)
> And I know that it makes me look like an idiot; but possilby if =
>someone could transmit some good newsgroups. People have said time and =
>time again that there are betternewsgroups where we can put all of our =
>"modern" questions. Possibly, that could be included in the FAQ. (Or =
>NAQ)
> Thanks,
>
> Tim D. Hotze
>
I was under the impression that Linus started with the minix code - early
versions of which are certainly approaching the 10 year classical limit.
Here is some other help:
% newsgroups | grep linux
comp.os.linux.admin
comp.os.linux.advocacy
comp.os.linux.announce
comp.os.linux.answers
comp.os.linux.development
comp.os.linux.development.apps
comp.os.linux.development.system
comp.os.linux.hardware
comp.os.linux.help
comp.os.linux.m68k
comp.os.linux.misc
comp.os.linux.networking
comp.os.linux.setup
comp.os.linux.x
have fun.
Peter Prymmer
At 01:41 PM 12/4/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Th PX-8 can wake up, do something and go to sleep automajikally.
I noticed that in the docs t'other day too.
Which brings me to the changed subject... With the receipt of a PX-8 (with
matching P-80 Portable printer!) I kinda feel like I've got a pretty decent
collection of portable computers going. What I've got so far is:
Altima 2
Amstrad PPC640
Amstrad PDA 600 "PenPad"
Apple Macintosh Portable
Atari Portfolio
Bondwell B310plus.
Casio FA-10 Docking Station
Compaq Portable 386
Data General One
Epson HX-20 Laptop
Epson PX-8 Laptop
Grid GridCase3
Grid GridPad 1910
Hewlett-Packard 75D
Hewlett-Packard Vectra LS/12
Hewlett-Packard Portable Vectra CS
Iasis Computer in a Book
IBM PC Radio
IBM PS/2 Model 70 Lunchbox
Interactive Network
NEC MultiSpeed
NEC PC8201A
NEC PC8401A "Starlet"
Osborne 01
Osborne Executive
Outbound Laptop
Panasonic HHC (HandHeld Computer)
Radio Shack Model 100.
Sharp PC-7000 with printer
Sharp PC-7100
Seequa Chameleon
Sharp PC-4
Texas Instruments Compact Computer 40,
Type-O-Graph
Zenith ZP-150
Zenith ZF-161
Zenith Z-170
Zenith Supersport 286
Not all of these are working 100% (yet), and a couple are still enroute
(Outbound & Portfolio).
So anyway, I sorta feel like I could not add another machine and still have
a collection of portables that covers the important ones, plus a bunch that
were kinda weird or personally significant.
But, I'm certainly no expert, so there may very well be some that I'm
missing that are important. I know I'd like to get a Z88 and a Poquet PC,
an Original Compaq (I've got a Compac [sic] but that's not the same thing).
Can anyone else think of some I should be looking for?
Thanks! (And sorry for the longness(? Length)!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
