>> >$12100 for the world's flakiest S-100 box:
>> > http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=24409570
>> >
>> >(and the reserve was still not met, but I bet the guy sells, what do
you
>> >think?)
>>
>> I think this whole auction reeks of bull-shit! Everything from
the
>> opening bid of $2500 to reserve of OVER $12,000 and the seller's
>> insistance of 1 day UPS delivery smells of being a FAKE!
>
>Interesting point. This auction could have been staged simply to raise
>the perceived value of the Altair 8800 just before someone dumps 25 of
>them on the market.
>
>Or someone may just be that stupid.
>
>Two theories. Take your pick.
Before this wild speculation goes any further let me
try to sets your minds somewhat at ease.
As you would expect it was my natural reflex
to offer a computer to the 2nd bidder. I have now had
several back and forth emails with him. He is, like
yourselves, an avid classic computer collector with
500 pieces including An Apple 1. He has Altairs but
not the original 8800. Hi explanation for the wide
difference in his bids on the two auctions is that
he put great value on the additional boards (the S-100
Hayes modem, a rare CPU, the video cards, etc. etc. etc.)
He is willing to pay no more for the straight computer than
his bid on Willing's auction. Now I know that most will
not agree with his assessment but that is not the point.
The point is that he is indeed a legitimate participant
I cannot, however, get into the mind of the woman who
entered the high bid. After having listed several hundred
Ebay items I can guess though. In a word - impulsiveness.
I have seen it time and again with my own auctions. In
my experience about 15% of my high bidders renig. When
I then offer the items to my 2nd bidders they will choose
not to accept about 95% of the time. This is nothing new
to online auctions (excepting that it is harder to renig
in a live auction). Auction bidding is done impulsively
and when given an opportunity to change their minds
most bidders will choose to do so.
So for whatever appeal the Altair has to her she probably
got caught up in the last minute frenzy and may have plenty
of money to be able to do so with no pain whatsoever. Or,
who knows, maybe she was buying it for someone else. There is
no way to know unless she chooses to tell us. Maybe someone has
been in contact with her and will tell us.
Of course there is always the possibility that she was a
shill. However, it is highly unlikely, given how the auction
ended.
Keep in mind that there was no offical transaction here. With
the reserve not met no one was committed to buy anything.
Much more interesting to me, than the bidders in this auction,
was the seller. What must he have been thinking to come up with such
a laughably unrealsitic reserve (and we don't know how laughable
because we don't know how high it was). I thought I had seen
just about every abberation Ebay could offer but I cannot
get into his head at all.
The bottom line is that this auction in no way contributes
to our trying to get a handle on how others now value an Altair.
Willing's outcome, however, is a more valid indicator of that.
But any auction price is only a contributing factor and should
be taken only that way.
To answer your other question, Sam, sure I would be glad to
reveal how I bought the MITS stuff. But all it would serve
to do is piss off others because it is something that every single
reader of this list could just as easily have done. Frankly,
I remained amazed for the year and a half I had it to myself,
that no one figured it out. But if I lay it out I will again
be chastised. I will be told that it is materialistic and irrelevant
because all that
matters is tinkering with the computers. Are you sure you want
to hear all that again?
Bob
>
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
It is likely that I am the only person on this
list who is a total "outsider". I am a collectibles
dealer. I never touched a computer keyboard until
two years ago. I will now probably be asked to leave
but before that happens I would like to share my
Altair "experiences" with you. This will be long
winded so if you are only interested in "sound-bite"
length messages hit your back button now. This little story
cannot be told in a couple of sentences.
I no longer remember how I learned of the existence
of the Altair 8800 but it was about a year and a half
ago. I learned about the history of it and it's
association with the beginning of Gates' and Allen's
business careers. I decided that the Altair's potentially could
be a big deal so I started looking for them.
Almost immediately I discovered a source. I bought eight
of them for from $100 to $300 apiece in about two months time.
At that time the price edged up to $3-500 so I said to
hell with it and stopped buying. I then put it all on the back
burner for six months.
Then, earlier this year, someone
offered to buy one from me for $800. I thought this was a sucker
price so gladly let it go. Two weeks later, that last
batch of Altairs and drives went on Ebay. The computers
sold for roughly $2K apiece. As a lark, I immediately listed a
MITS serial board and modem board on Ebay. At the time
I was so ignorant about what I had that I listed them
separately. I did not even know that together they are
a cassette interface. One brought $250 and the other $200.
I could not believe it. $450!
Like everyone on this list, I was somewhat shocked that
the computers had actually sold for $2K. When I first discovered
this list (six months ago) I posted asking for your opinions
of the value
of an Altair 8800. As always, you all were very responsive.
I vividly remember Jim Willing stating that, in his opinion,
the 8800 was worth $250.
So I concluded that the $2000 Ebay bids
must be the "real" sucker price. I offered the
buyer of my boards one of my 8800's
for $2K. Sold it.
Then a week later sold him two more for $1500 each.
I now had payed for every Altair item I had ever
bought and had a tidy profit as well. I was ecstatic.
Then, needless to say, I started to actively buy them again.
Went back to my one (and only) source and bought four more
8800's, one 8800a, two 8800b's, one turnkey b, one Attache, seven
Altair floppy drives, two MITS hard drives, controllers,
four Imsai's, three Sol 20's, every iminaginable software,
and enough docs and literature to fill a four
drawer filing cabinet. And I stumbled onto what
may be the only surviving example of a still unassembled
Altair 8800 kit. Up until last week I had been able
to have it all shipped to me but the last load was too much
to ship so I drove almost 2000 miles round trip to retrieve
it.
When I returned Friday a friend informed me that two
Altairs had been listed the day before on Ebay.
(I still do not understand the amazing coincidence
of two separate sellers listing Altair's within 35 minutes
of each other since it had been four months since the last
ones were listed).
It occurred to me that since the Altair's were about to be
hyped again that I should participate. Since I had just
come home with five Altair floppy drives, I decided that
was the logical thing to sell. The auction ends today (Friday).
My source for buying ended abruptly last week (that is
another whole story). So it is unlikely that I will be able
to buy any
more. I now think of the six months I passed on them because
I would have had to pay $400. If I had kept buying during that
time I would have a great many more of them now.
But I feel very fortunate to have the ones I do.
Why am I telling you all of this? It is because I have
been engaged in buying and selling collectibles for
25 years. I was in on the beginnings of many other
of these kinds of phenomena (jukeboxes, antique radio,
Coca-Cola, the list is long). But I have never had so
much fun as I have had with this. There is no doubt that
my involvement with it is totally different from that
of everyone else on this list. And I am certain that
(based on much of what I have read here) that many
will find it deplorable that someone like me is a
subscriber.
But the personal computer is now as important as the electric
lamp was 100 years ago. And, over time, the first examples
will be regarded with the same reverance as Edison's first
light bulbs. I feel lucky to be one of the people witnessing
the birth of that.
Bob Wood
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Well I still have alot to sort out but here is a short list of finds for
this week:
1) Beckman model 999 IC tester have not powered it up yet
2) Two Radius MacII Page Display cards
3) About 30+ different books, spec sheets, and manual
4) 28 game cartridges for the Vic20
5) 4 2600 game cartridges
6) 2 C64 cartridges
7) Various Apple II cards
8) A clone Numeric keypad for the Apple II
9) 2 Vic20 power supplies not tested
10) 1 Plus/4 power supply not tested
11) HES Mon mini assember for use with Vic20 in box with manual
12) Cardram 16k memory expansion cartridge for thr Vic20
13) Radio Shack and other brand computer cassette tapes - new
That's all I can list for now as I still have a van loaded with boxes and
about 6 boxes of items to sort in the garage. I will update later with
anything of importance. Keep Computing!! John
On Fri, 14 Aug 1998 16:56:27 +0200 (CEST), colan said:
cl>Someone posted saying that there in fact was a 2.11 which I've not
cl>been able to find reference to. By any chance was that what came
cl>with a PCjr?
PCDOS 2.1 was released specifically for the PCjr. 2.1's floppy drive
access was slowed down considerably because the drive in the PCjr was
so flimsy that it would break if it was used faster. MSDOS 2.11 was
the generic version available from Microsoft, and there also were
versions 2.2 and 2.25 with specific international support added.
"In march 1984, a year after the PC-XT introduction, IBM released DOS
version 2.1 to excise these software errors [that were in verson 2.0]
and to handle a hardware error it produced, called the PCjr."
Try to find "DOS Power Tools" by Paul Somerson, ISBN 0-553-34526-5,
Bantam computer books, from which is the above quote. It has very
detailed explanations of the workings of DOS, a great many tips and
tricks, a disk with 200 PC Magazine machine code utilities, and a
long chapter on the development of DOS, from 1.0 to 3.3, which was
the latest version when the book was printed.
Kees
--
Kees Stravers - Geldrop, The Netherlands - pb0aia at amsat dot org
Sysadmin and DEC PDP/VAX preservationist - http://vaxarchive.ml.org
Net-Tamer V 1.08.1 - Registered
>Interesting point. This auction could have been staged simply to raise
>the perceived value of the Altair 8800 just before someone dumps 25 of
>them on the market.
>
>Or someone may just be that stupid.
>
>Two theories. Take your pick.
What's the old saying?
"Never attribute to malice what should be attributed to stupidity?"
(Or something like that)
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry zk3.dec.com |
| Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg world.std.com |
| Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of ' ' |
| 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ |
| Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
At 10:53 AM 8/14/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Someone posted saying that there in fact was a 2.11 which I've not been
>able to find reference to. By any chance was that what came with a PCjr?
>
>
>colan
My NEC APC uses MSDOS 2.11, on an 8" floppy.
Regards
Charlie Fox
>
>
>
>
Why don't we do everyone a real favor and just drop this whole thing. I'm
getting a 7.1GB drive next week, anyway.
--
-Jason
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#-1730318
----------
> From: R. Stricklin (kjaeros) <red(a)bears.org>
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Re: FW: Dos v2.11 apology
> Date: Thursday, August 13, 1998 11:10 PM
>
> On Fri, 14 Aug 1998, Jason Willgruber wrote:
>
> > It's NOT that Windows won't work, I can't FIT anything on the HD. It's
> > ONLY 100MB, and Windows takes up 90-some, and the rest by MS-Mail, and
IE
> > 3.02. Leaving a total of about 5 MEG.
>
> Ah, you just want to complain. Imagine running Windows 95 on such a small
> disk and expecting to have room for anything larger than three gnats and
a
> toenail clipping...
>
> > PS>> just forget about your hat.
>
> PS>> try Windows 3.11
>
> "here's a nickel, kid, buy yourself a real OS"
> r.
>
>
This has been roughly my experience. I have one poor thing that takes about
5 minutes, hey, it is after all, 20 years old. :) My light never goes out
that I remember though, but it does blink in faster increments up to the
point it stays steady. I have two apple ///'s with profiles that are
currently operational, allthough one comes up much faster than the other. I
think it waits for the drive to "come up to speed"
Bill
-----Original Message-----
From: R. Stricklin (kjaeros) <red(a)bears.org>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, August 15, 1998 6:49 AM
Subject: RE: Apple III & Profile
>On Sat, 15 Aug 1998, Doug Spence wrote:
>
>> IIRC, it was more like 140 seconds. :/ That's for cold start, when it
>> goes into blinking mode after a command is issued to it, I think the
>> blinking time is shorter.
>
>On powering up the ProFile disk:
>
>"The red ready light on the ProFile's front panel will come on for about 2
>seconds, go off for about 20 seconds, and then start to flash for about 40
>seconds while the drive runs internal tests. When the tests are
>successfully completed, the light will remain on continuously without
>flashing. Under some conditions the ProFile may take up to 3 minutes to
>complete the startup sequence."
>
>ok
>r.
>>> Hmm, well I don't know about Prodos or the 'catalyst' proggy that people
>>>are
>>> mentioning, I know I managed to get directory listings from my drives
>>>without
>>> either, although it *may* have been using a diagnostics disk that came
>>>with
>>> the drive.
>>
>>That's what I thought. I don't have Prodos or catalyst, but the SOS
>>utilities disk with the drivers and setup programs seems to indicate that
>>I should be able to access the drive without anything fancy.
hmm, I should hopefully be going up to my folk's place in two or three
weeks time - if I do and this is still a problem then I'll try to get
access to my /// and see what's what (I can't remember how far back in
the pile it is though :)
>> The READY light doesn't go out, it just stops blinking. It stays *on*. I
>> hope I didn't imply otherwise in my original post, else that could be a
>> source for confusion.
>> It makes sense to me that the READY light would stay on when the drive is
>> ready.
that sounds right to me, too :) But at least it's changing state - I
guess I'd expect it to carry on blinking if there was a fault. (Out of
interest, how long was it blinking for? Seem to remember it used to be
somewhere around 30-40 seconds on my drives)
>
>> I played with it again, and I CAN get it to run from slot 3. But I have
>> to use the Profile controller board that was originally in slot 4, into
>> slot 3. Only one of the controller cards gets a response from the drive,
>> so I guess one is dead.
Interesting. My problem was probably that more than one card couldn't be
configured at once then (maybe I should get hold of a copy of prodos
>from somewhere and that'll sort things out? I can't imagine the firm
that originally used this machine swapping drives around all the time!)
>
>> Unless the cabling is wrong. :) I'm using a straight-through 25-pin
>> cable, and it's 6 feet long. Maybe the Profile doesn't like cables longer
>> than a foot in length or something? Or maybe it's supposed to have
>> different wiring?
well, I remember the cable didn't have any twists in it - ie. it was
either a full crossover or straight-through. One of my cables is
original, and it's no more than a foot long. Chances are these things
would suffer from interference - try a shorter cable and see if it
helps.
>
>> Thanks Jules, you're the only one not to try to involve Prodos so far. ;)
ooh, give me time... :)
really must get back into using the /// and finding out what there is
available for it - everyone seems to hate the machine, but it seems an
interesting beast to say the least!! (Last time I used it though it made
me realise how used I was to MS-DOS, SOS being the nightmare that it
is...)
cheers
Jules
>
Over 90% of the external modems I have dealt with were 9vdc, 500ma, but
there is always an exception, and in this case, that is probably the case.
At 04:38 PM 8/14/98 -0700, Kevin McQuiggin wrote:
>You need an AC adapter. Anyone know the correct voltage for this model of
>modem??
>
>Kevin
>
>>
>> I just got a 2400 external modem without a power cord the modem is a
>> packard bell PB2400PLUS anyone know what kind of power cord it takes(dose't
>> say anything in the manual about specs on the power cord) the jack that the
>> power cord goes into looks like a hole with a stem in the middle of it
>> looks like the size of a mini stereo jack
>>
>>
>
>
>--
>Kevin McQuiggin VE7ZD
>mcquiggi(a)sfu.ca
>
-
- john higginbotham ____________________________
- webmaster www.pntprinting.com -
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