Oh yeah, it's at http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~alexios/MACHINE-ROOM
Go there now!
Sam
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
I just visited Alexios Chouchoulas' MACHINE ROOM web page and it is
downright cool. There is a lot of good information there, and the
database is pretty complete as far as micro's go. Check it out.
Sam
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
I'm going to be moving my collection a couple hundred miles from Austin,
TX to Tyler, TX. I'm wondering if anyone has any packing or moving
suggestions (packing material, special treatment of media, etc).
The stuff is going to be moved by a moving company (Atlas probably) but
I'm doing much of the packing ahead of time. I'm seriously considering
moving the oddball monitors and magnetic media myself. I don't trust them
with these easily harmed things and if they're damaged, they have little
or no reimbursement value, but are difficult to find again.
Anyone have any magical tips on packing and moving?
chris
Okay, let's see if I can include the file this time. Sheesh. :)
Ok, this isn't exactly a classic computer. It's more the rebirth of a classic
in a slick new case (looks like a laptop, but isn't) with a slick new desktop.
If you don't think it's appropriate here, I won't be upset if you hit delete. :)
I got my Tiger Learning Computer (hereafter TLC) from Pennys today. The
outside box was smashed beyond all recognition, but the inner box, which only
touched the outer one in two spots, was intact, and the computer undamaged.
Inside the inner box was the actual retail box, with the pictures on it, the
"Apple Technology" symbol on it and so on.
It's an eerie feeling opening a brand new computer in retail packaging like
that. I haven't done it since I got my Commodore 64, after weeks of waiting
for it on backorder at LaBells (aka Best, now extinct) we picked one up at
KMart. You C=64 collectors probably experience this all the time, opening
a box to find *a computer* inside, ready to plug into the TV and compute.
For me, it'd been 13 years.
So what does $179 bucks plus shipping (box smashing was, presumably, free) get
in 1997? Well, you get a solid feeling little computer that feels remarkably
like an early power-book in your hands. You get the "wall wart" power supply.
You get 6 cartridges, one of which is your battery-ram "disk", another of which
has appleworks 4.3 on it. The rest each have a switch and two applications.
They plug (upside down) into slots on either side of the machine. But I'm
ahead of myself here.
Hookup.
Pretty much plug and play, although I did get a chuckle when I noticed that
this computer has no RF modulator. Now that everyone owns a VCR with video
IN jacks, it's not necessary anymore. So, white wire to audio in, yellow wire
to video in, power, flip the VCR input to line in, hit the switch. And smile
to myself as it boots up in prodos. Just for a second before the desktop and
sound effects load.
First annoying thing: The voice that says "Please select an activity" every
time you boot. I'm finding I boot a lot. I can tell this is going to irritate
me in the long term.
I'm not enough of an Apple 2 wizard to know what video mode it came up in. It
looks like about 16 colors, and about the resolution of CGA. Not as fine as
my old '64 was capable of, but much faster.
Using the thing.
Ok, I've owned it for about 4 hours now and I have a horrible crick in my neck
>from lying on the living room floor looking up at the TV, so I haven't
even tried all the apps yet. If anyone's interested, let me know, I'll follow
up.
Loading programs is almost exactly like running them off a floppy, except that
you can never boot from the program disk. You have to go to the disk icon
on the desktop and tell the tiger to run the program. Not very intuitive, but
I'm sure kids will figure it out as fast or faster than I did. Especially if
they read the instructions. :) I just expected them to load automatically.
My bet is in the next ROM version of the tiger they will.
Appleworks 4.3 looks remarkably like it did on my friend's 2E all those years
ago, except of course that it's not as sharp on my TV as it was on his apple
monitor. I suspect a newer TV directly connected instead of through the VCR
would perform better. That failing an old Commodore 1782 monitor should be
something to see. Wish I hadn't given mine away.
My nostalgia for Apple2 is limited here, like I said, I was a commodore 64
geek. WE didn't have to have disks to boot. (In fact, for the first 3
months I had my 64, I had no storage device at all, so my first programs
were short, enjoyed to the point of boredom, and then utterly lost when the
computer was powered off.) On the other hand, the odds of the '64 making a
comeback like this are slim and none. They never had the educational following.
So all in all, it's been a weird experience for me with this little computer.
Objectively, it's not a bad little machine at all. The keyboard bites -
although it may get better as it gets used/my hands adapt back from Microsoft
wave keyboard. The sound is first class - even better than my '64s old SID
chip. Graphics are about as good as can be expected on an 8 bit apple 2,
except in color. Software is still a little weird - nothing beyond what it
came with. Of course, if I can get my hands on a copy of "Kermit, a file
transfer protocol" and type in the 83 line basic Kermit so I can communicate
with the rest of my systems, I hopefully will be able to run all kinds of a2
software on it.
The weird part isn't objective though. Part of me is rejoicing at the idea of
this little throwback to the early 80s. I got a little piece of the excitement
I had unpacking my 64 the first time unpacking the Tiger. And seeing it abuse
my TV into pretending to be a computer monitor, even though it is a little
fuzzy, made me smile. This, for me is how computing was. Part of me sits and
scoffs at the tiger - and my '64 for that matter - when in the next room I have
a lan full of reasonably modern PCs with orders of magnitude more power. Even
my quasi-classic GS is head and shoulders above the tiger as a computer. But
the tiger has something none of my other machines do. I'm not sure what, to
be honest, maybe just nostalgia, maybe not.
Anyway, I'm keeping it. Even if I do keep expecting the flip top to have a
screen in it. (at least it comes off. :)
-Jim
--
Jim Strickland
jim(a)calico.litterbox.com
--
"...It tells me that goose stepping morons like yourself should try reading
books instead of burning them."
-Dr. Henry Jones Sr.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
--
Jim Strickland
jim(a)calico.litterbox.com
--
"...It tells me that goose stepping morons like yourself should try reading
books instead of burning them."
-Dr. Henry Jones Sr.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
--
Jim Strickland
jim(a)calico.litterbox.com
--
"...It tells me that goose stepping morons like yourself should try reading
books instead of burning them."
-Dr. Henry Jones Sr.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
In a message dated 97-06-02 13:26:32 EDT, kaikal(a)MICROSOFT.com (Kai
Kaltenbach) writes:
> First off, I got two Apple ///+ machines in a thrift store! Anyone have
> a copy of SOS for these suckers?
If no one has a copy try http://www.allelec.com. They have it with II
emulation for $7.95. However their minimum order is $25.00. Lots of Apple and
mac stuff available though.
Lou
At 12:10 AM 6/3/97 -0400, Mr. Self Destruct wrote:
> OK, lately, I have been placed in a sort of dilemna... I have literally
> been deluged with e-mails/posts from people asking for MY MANUALS ...
> I will grudgingly go to my nearest copying center and make
> copies ..
perhaps it is time for this group to stand up and begin to truly capture
the history and documentation of classic computing - and to do it on line.
for starters this means capturing manuals which are all too often lost
first. next (and more challenging legally) is software. we could use some
solid legal advice on what can and can't be posted but i find it hard to
believe that anyone could object to putting scanned-in versions of most
older manuals on the internet since: 1) many of these companies are no
longer in the business, and 2) even if they were they would probably
themselves make such a service available or welcome a third party to do it.
i think all we really would have to do is make sure the original copyright
notification was preserved in the on-line version. i realize system
software is a tougher issue but perhaps we could start with the manuals.
so we would need a home location (Bill Whitson: how about the "Archives"
section of the classic computer web page you've set up?
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~bcw/ccl.html) and some folks with scanners
who can get things into HTML format (and others? .doc? .pdf?) and upload.
comments on this proposal? are there already similar archives out there? -
(i know of some Commodore ones), if so we should point to them. I'm not
aware of any one location to go to find classic computer documentation, and
judging from the traffic on this list it's sorely needed.
- glenn
+=========================================================+
| Glenn F. Roberts, Falls Church, VA
| Comments are my own and not the opinion of my employer
| groberts(a)mitre.org
Hi!
I have a small collection of Apple II bits that I'd like to get rid
of. From memory, I have 3 cases (2 with keyboards inside, and one
with a motherboard as well), one original cardboard box (with a
lovely picture of somebody's hand pointing at the machine!), and 3 or
4 (non-original :-) cardboard boxes full of hardware and software.
The hardware mainly consists of unidentified expansion cards and
cables, from what I remember.
If anybody who is vaguely local to Manchester, UK, wants any of this,
they're welcome to it - I am by no means an Apple expert, and this
stuff is just taking up space. In most cases I've not even powered it
up - it was rescued from the Robotics lab at my old school, when they
decided they would throw it all away!
I will happily go down and look through the boxes if anybody wants me
to have a go at identifying the bits contained therein.
Let me know if you are vaguely interested!
___ _ _ ___ _
_| (_)(\)(-) | (-)(-)(\)
I have begun to open up the boxes that I got this Saturday and found some
more interesting stuff. Boy, this is like Christmas and only better
(People don't send me junk as Christmas presents).
There is a mint-condition Epson HX-20 stashed in the bottom of a box. It
comes complete with the hard case, PS, serial cable, and a set of manuals.
The system works but it seems that the battery won't hold a charge. I will
probably need to swap out the internal NiCads before it can be a real
portable.
I found another handheld device named "Trans Term." It's about the size of
a HP-71 but thicker. It has a membrane QWERTY keyboard. The LCD can
probably display only a few lines at most. It has a DB25 port (probably
for a modem) and a power-in jack. There is no other identification or
marking. I have not tried to power it up since I don't have the PS. Does
anyone know something about it?
For many years, I thought Microsoft released Flight Simulator as their only
game. I was wrong. I found a game that Microsoft released for TRS-80
Level 1 BASIC named Microsoft Olympic Decathlon. The game is on tape. The
manual is copyright 1980. It has the old Microsoft logo on it.
George
-- ______________________________ ______________________________
/ /\ / /\
/ George Lin _/ /\ / Opinions expressed in this _/ /\
/ Antique Computer Collector / \/ / message do not necessarily / \/
/ http://museum.home.ml.org /\ / reflect my employer's. /\
/_____________________________/ / /_____________________________/ /
\_____________________________\/ \_____________________________\/
\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
Apple IIe, IIc, Mac 512K, Atari 800, 800XL, 1040ST, Falcon030, VCS, 5200,
ColecoVision VGS, Commodore 64, 64C, 128, plus/4, Compaq suitcase PC,
Eagle II, Epson HX-20, KayPro II, 4, Nintendo NES, Osborne Executive,
TI 99/4A, Timex Sinclair 1000, 1500, TriGem SLT-100, TRS-80 Model I, III,
100, Color Computer 2.
Agreed... I have a scanner w/OCR and I'm perfectly willing to scan
critical pages such as DIP switch/jumper settings, etc. but 500 pages of
general usage instructions is a bit much.
Kai
> ----------
> From: Mr. Self Destruct[SMTP:more@camlaw.rutgers.edu]
> Reply To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
> Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 1997 10:44 AM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: Re: capturing legacy documentation
>
>
> I would agree with this as well, but it WILL be hard to find someone
> who
> has the space/time to scan a 500+ page manual...
>
> Les
>
>
