I never thought much of the apple design save for it was there and
successful by the only standard that counts...they sold like hotcakes.
It's not a technical judgement as that really didn't count! there were some
machines I considered poor, TRS-80-M1, at a time when z80 was minimally 2mhz
and many pushing 2.5 it plodded at 1.7, but it was a complete machine for
much less than many of it's kind and available through a nationally known
store.
Price vs performance _and_ popularity drove a market not real technology.
If it was useable and met the current market expectations it sold well.
If there was one significant impact apple made it was in the idea of low
cost software. Apples were not the home of $350 basic interpreters or
$500 compilers. But at one time I counted not less that 5 distictly
different OSs. Some were pretty poor but the drive to improve the beast
was there.
Allison
Thought I would toss out some of my experiences with shipping out of the
country. I've sold a few items to various people in other countries (not
all computer stuff though). Only problem I've had was waiting for
payment. Sometimes it's not sent, sometimes it get's lost. The buyer
covers shipping and any taxes/duty when they get delivery.
Japan: I sold a couple old Apples as I think they're pretty popular for
collectibles there. Hard to find. Some people I sold to were US citizens
living there. Shipping is cheapest via USPS slow boat and the customs
paperwork is one small form.
Australia: Sold some small stuff. Payment arrived faster than most US
mail. Shipping is cheap for under 4 lbs "small packets" via USPS and
again Customs is a piece of cake.
Europe: Austria, Italy. They seem to have a problem with the mail. I
sold some cheaper stuff so the buyer sent a money order - lost. Then he
sent cash - lost. Ended up wiring the money. According to him he sent
out 12 payments at one time and 5 never arrived at the destination. I'd
say wiring money is better. Again customs is easy. USPS tells you what
to fill out.
Canada: Piece of cake. Just be honest on the contents/value.
Guam: Shipping is really cheap because its serviced by USPS. Like
mailing within the continental US!
There was some controversy a while back about exporting collectibles.
Supposedly you could buy a concours collector's car for $20k, ship it to
europe or Japan and sell it for $50k. Some collectors thought this was
treason or something. I really don't know. What I usually sell doesn't
fall into any "rare" category and most of it was sold all over the world
anyway, just in lesser quantities or slightly different versions.
One guy I sold to was in the US. I asked him why he was buying a pile of
old Apples, he was putting together complete systems and shipping them
to Japan. Funny, Apple had/has a ton of manufacturing in Japan. I wonder
if they limit sales there.
It was sold out.
I am sorry.
Yujin
----------
> ???o?l : PG Manney <manney(a)nwohio.nwohio.com>
> ???? : Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> ???? : Re: BOOK The History of Computers
> ???M???? : 1997?N6??20?? 20:22
>
> I'd like to buy. Can I reserve it? Please e-mail me with your address and
> I'll send you a check. (woukd you prefer money order? some sort of trade?
I
> have scads of old computer stuff.)
> Manney
>
> ----------
> > From: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
> > To: Manney
> > Subject: FS: BOOK The History of Computers
> > Date: Friday, June 20, 1997 1:52 PM
> >
> > For Sale:
> >
> > The History of Computers -A Family Alubum of Computer Genealogy-
> > by Les Freed
> > ZD press
> > ISBN 1-56276-275-3
> > all color and lots of pictures and illustrations
> >
> > $12 (shipping included within the United States, original price is
> $24.95)
> >
About a month or two back we were discussing starting a newsgroup for
classic computer collectors. I just wanted to mention there is a
somewhat related newsgroup on the net that could use some activity:
alt.technology.obsolete
I am for it, I have it on my news sites to check and in the last few
months I have maybe seen three messages in it (two being multi-newsgroup
spams)
Whaddya guys (and gals) think?
Larry Anderson
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> In particular, none of the Altairs I saw people building in the
> mid-70's worked as designed; there were typos in the assembly instructions
> and to get reliable front panel operation most people had to tweak
> the one-shots that controlled the timing. Some of these
> modifications are well documented by John Zarella, in his Byte
> (1975:4 p78) article "Assembling an Altair 8800".
RE:8800 (A version)
BIG TIME! As someone that built one of the first it was a dog to get going
and I had scopes and all the goodies. I'd also worked with the 8008 before
and was Intelized as it were. A friend build one about 6 months later and
it was still flakey as hell. First of many mods was to get the damm oneshots
off the cpu card and put in a 8224 clock generator. I got mine to a stable
state but when the S4K memories came out I upgraded asap. Better but far
>from great. To many oneshots. In late '78 I transfered my IO, NS* MDS to a
new HORIZON box with a 4mhz z80. used the altair for a few years to support
testing (front pannel). I put it in mothballs about 84 and will likely
never use it again. To highly modified to even consider museum piece and in
'79 it suffered a lightining hit and was never right since.
Allison
I realize this is a little off-topic (last build was about 1987 or 88)
but I have my self in a corner 8-) There are a couple of windows I could
crawl thru if I HAD to.
I have a pristene TI Xenix 386DX16 system.
I have access to one account and - you guessed it - it ain't root!
Nobody seems to remember the root password 8-(
I can't believe that I can't break into this thing! I don't have the
original disks (I haven't dug that far into ALL my docs) but it has
a SCSI Tape drive and two 8 port serial adaptors and some *special* TI
card. It has 2 140 MB MFM drives and I want to keep both the drivers
for the multiport boards and the SCSI board. I think I can get it to
run Linux but I *really* don't want to blow away the Xenix.
So - does any body know where I can find a way into Xenix?
Are there any archives of CERT Advisories on glaring holes I can
worm my way into editing the passwd file or something? I realize
I could run CRACK but since that isn't what I normally do for FUN
I was hoping the mass intellegence and huge experience in this list
might be able to help 8-)
All suggestions are welcome - except blowing it away.
BC
What's wrong with this (virtual) "group" ???
Of all the collecting groups I belong to, this is the only one where my
(and I suppose other's) public (and private) requests for help have been
ignored and (worse) I suspect even opposed.
Is there something I don't know? If this the case I would like to know.
Thank you.
Also your caper to insist on having ALL the items in the collection in
working condition is, in my opinion, unique to this group. I can
understand (and share) the motivation but surely we (I?) collect for the
design point of view and for the historical importance. Don't we? Or am
I in the wrong group anyway?
Sorry for the frankness but I thought I'd get this one out of my chest
before it gets even worse (I am still owed at least 5 replies to my
messages) in that I will be banned from this mailing list. Hope not.
What is your problem?
Hoping to have a straight answer
I am
Yours sincerely
enrico
--
================================================================
Enrico Tedeschi, 54, Easthill Drive, BRIGHTON BN41 2FD, U.K.
tel/fax +(0)1273 701650 (24 hours) or 0850 104725 mobile
website <http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~e.tedeschi>
================================================================
visit Brighton: <http://www.brighton.co.uk/tourist/welcome.htm>
Anyone want some DEC Rainbow software? I have Symphony, plus some
accounting stuff and misc manuals. Pay shipping (from Ohio, USA) and it's
yours.
I know where there are some Rainbow macines which could be had for next to
nothing, if anyone wants.
Due to massive amounts of caffeine & sleep deprivation, Doug Spence said:
>Does the PS/2 not have any 5.25" drive bays? Weird. :) I'm not an IBMer
>so I don't know these things, though I *think* one of the machines I used
>to do CAD work on was a PS/2 of some flavour.
Every PS/2 that I've ever seen (note: this does not mean All PS/2's... just
the ones I've seen) didn't have a 5.25" port at all... not even their tower
"servers". I suspect it was IBM (trying to) setting a new standard... again.
>OK, that makes it useful. Would you happen to know what the pinout is of
>the 37-pin connector, so that I can try to make use of the drive without
>modification? Is it even possible to buy a matching female 37-pin
>connector?
IIRC, it's just straight thru with the last/first 3 pins unused... but I'd
have to look at the cable or ring some pins to be sure (and yes, I'm a
packrat...).
I also believe that you can still get 37-pin D-sub connectors thru the
Mouser Electronics catalog. Good people to work with... I had 3 distinct
problems with my first order (totalling $40USD) and they took care of all
of them at their expense (shipped some closeout SMD resistors *overnight*
because they forgot them in the package... their expense... that's their
policy, despite my not being in a rush for them!) Try http://www.mouser.com .
>Interesting. How are the drives interfaced to the CoCos? I've got a
>CoCo1, CoCo2, and CoCo3, but I've never found a disk drive for these
>machines.
All CoCo controllers take Shugart standard drives (now called IBM standard
drives... IBM's taking over again!) altho RSDOS limits you to 35 tracks,
SSDD, 156K disks (the original Shugart drives) without patches... which (of
course) I have. RSDOS can handle a max of 2 DSDD 80 track drives with
patches (more accurately... they look like 4 SSDD 80 track drives, with :2
the backside of :0 and :3 the backside of :1) but 1.44Meg storage thru
RSDOS is really good! OS-9 can handle 3 DSDD 80trk drives!
>> If you (or anyone) needs more info on this drive, lemme know. But I can
>> tell you, that just taking it apart is *fun*, if you have 3-4 hours to get
>> it apart and back together. I've had mine disassembled 3-4 times now, to
>> figure where to cut holes & stuff for my cable mods.
>
>Heh. I couldn't even get mine apart, because of the two six-pointed
>screws on the bottom. The screws have a lump in the middle so I can't use
>a flat-blade screwdriver as I did when I had a similar problem opening my
>Mac 512K.
There are three ways to get into the case, only one of which I recommend.
The first method involves a chainsaw and a 12lb (5.5kg) sledgehammer... If
you have to ask, you don't want to know. ;^>
The second method would require an appropriately sized Torx screwdriver and
a Dremel tool with drill press attachment. You would need to drill a small
hole in the end of the Torx driver to accommodate the post in the screw.
While this method is the safest to the drive, it's also the most work.
Method 3 (which is the one I used) requires a pointed instrument (like a
leather awl) and a regular (flat-head or slotted) screwdriver that just
fit's into 2 of the points of the Torx screw (the screwdriver tip of my
tiny Swiss Army knife worked perfectly). Use the awl to bend the post over
as much as you can, and this *should* (no guarantees, YMMV, yadda, yadda,
yadda...) get you enough room to get enough of the slotted screwdriver into
2 of the star points and extract the screw.
As the case is built like a Sherman Tank, once the screws are removed, deep
six them. I've been running mine for 3 years without the special screws
with no ill effects.
Anyway, I hope this helps, and enjoy the drive!
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed,
Programmer, NorthernWay | nuclear warhead disarmament should
zmerch(a)northernway.net | *not* be your first career choice.
