A momentus event happened 40 years ago around this time, July 1975,
the world's first computer store opened in West Los Angeles, called
Arrow Head Computer Store, tag-lined, 'The Computer Store'. It was
opened by Dick Heiser. How time has flown by!
Murray :)
I have the following Sun hardware which I?d like to find a good home for:
Sparc 2
Sparc Classic
An Ultra 10 tower
CRT
A couple of external hard disks, CD drives, and tape drive
A Sun motherboard of unknown type
A few mice/keyboards
A box of software
The Sparc 2, classic, and Ultra 10 towers all worked the last time I used them.
Any interested takers, please let me know. I?d prefer that someone take it all.
I live in Hillsboro, OR and would prefer not to ship anything.
Thanks,
Corey J. Anderson
As Fred Cisin writes:
"Yes, as usual, all such claims are meaningless without term definitions.
What Murray was referring to was arguably the first PERSONAL computer
store, and run as a retail storefront.
IBM did do some retail sales, although they might not have called it
"retail", out of their building.
Even "first" and "store" could use some restrictive definition:
Do sales out of a living room count?
garage?
corner of another kind of store?
(there already seems to be an exclusion of mail-order)
If a grocery store clears space in an aisle does that count?
Did Ed Roberts have a front counter, and handle walk-in?
Assembled working systems? or do kits count?
Signing lease?
Acquiring retail inventory?
Opening of doors to the public?
First retail sale?
First Order? or
First Delivery?"
****************************************
What I was attempting to say in my post was that the first computer
store was a retail outlet that sold MICROCOMPUTERS, and/or PERSONAL
computers and/or SMALL computers all we could carry around without
doing physical detriment to one?s self.[I shopped at Canada's first
computer store on 44 Eglinton West, Toronto, and to this day I'm not
sure of the name or date it started] I realize there?s many a
definition of what one could call a computer store but I would
describe it as a ?unique? place that sold computers exculsively as
I?ve described herein.
We?re talking only a limited number of machines available as of
mid-1975. (Please refer to my book: A Historical Research Guide to the
Microcomputer: Small Computers of a Bygone Era, p. 43.) Prior, one had
mail-order option only or as major computer corporations, IBM, DEC,
etc., selling ?computers? or computer parts/peripherals as a retail
operation in name only as Fred describes above. Hobbyists as far as I
know didn?t buy from IBM or DEC(well, maybe rich ones bought their
mini-computers) and when computer stores opened hobbyists had a
hand-holding-entity to further their interest in a new industry. This
changed somewhat when Tandy(Radio Shack), et al. came on the scene.
Happy computing.
Murray :)
That does sound like a MITS serial no. The K is for Kit as opposed to factory assembled.
"drlegendre ." <drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote:
>What's the significance of "3462K", as is hand-written on the 8080 CPU
>board?
>
>Is that a serial?
>
>On Sat, Jul 25, 2015 at 1:29 PM, Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> wrote:
>
>> On 2015-Jul-25, at 8:33 AM, Bill Sudbrink wrote:
>> > Dwight wrote:
>> >> Dave, you were going to tell us where you found it?
>> >> Dwight
>> >
>> > Probably in Larry Niven's Altair?
>>
>> Indeed, it's in one of his flickr photos of the LN Altair.
>>
>> https://www.flickr.com/photos/32548582 at N02/sets/72157653950476154/with/19938469936/
>>
>>
Hey Guys, Looking for an XT Compatible Keyboard for this Commodore Colt
Let me know what you have. Ive got lots of trading fotter as well. Or cash
Thanks
Steve
Just tested the C16, Its free to anyone who wants it and can fix it.
Just pay shipping, Or if you are attending VCFMW I can put it in the
pile of stuff to come.
Some progress on the PDP-12. We borrowed a TU56 tape head from the TU56 in
the warehouse and replaced the broken right head. We reran ran
MAINDEC-12-D3AE-PB PDP-12 TAPE CONTROL TEST, PART 1 OF 2. The diag runs OK,
so at least the timing track in the borrowed tape head is OK.
We reran MAINDEC-12-D3FB-D Tape Data Test. This diag searches for the block
number, but rocks the tape back and forth after finding the block. If you
put the tape a long way from the beginning of the tape the diag will move
the tape in the correct direction. We connected Warren's logic analyzer to
the data signals that from the tape heads and the register outputs that
have the current block number.
It looks like there are glitches on Data Track 1. We swapped the G882
modules in F07 and F09 for tracks D1 and D3. D1 looks much better Swaped
the G882 modules back to the original slots and both D1 and D3 look OK.
Maybe just a bad connection between the G882 module's gold fingers and the
backplane's tin connector contacts. Now it looks like the current block
number in the tape controller logic is reasonable, and it looks like it can
find blocks on the tape.
The Tape Data Testdiag still does not work, so next week we debug the write
& read logic in the LINCtape controller.
--
Michael Thompson
On 2015-Jul-25, at 8:33 AM, Bill Sudbrink wrote:
> Dwight wrote:
>> Dave, you were going to tell us where you found it?
>> Dwight
>
> Probably in Larry Niven's Altair?
Indeed, it's in one of his flickr photos of the LN Altair.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/32548582 at N02/sets/72157653950476154/with/19938469936/
A colleague was adamant that the Apple LaserWriter worked with the Apple Lisa; my counter was I thought he was likely confusing his memory with the Mac XL which via Macworks and LocalTalk could use the LaserWriter drivers to print although more slowly due to the 3MHz speed difference (Mac XL at 5MHz, Macintosh Plus at 8Mhz).
I found some evidence in InfoWorld that states that the LaserWriter would not be supported on Lisa Office System 7/7.
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=6i4EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA13&ots=iH8F7zeaO_&d…
short version: https://goo.gl/O1jokf
Anyone know different? would Lisa 7/7 been unable to support the LaserWriter due to other software limitations?
guess it was worth more than $5 Huh?
In a message dated 7/25/2015 1:51:42 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
aek at bitsavers.org writes:
Just came across his original listing
http://www.ebay.com/itm/281747887309
Disturbingly, the ICs are pulled out of their sockets
On 7/25/15 8:27 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
>
>
> On 7/25/15 8:24 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 7/24/15 1:14 PM, pdaguytom . wrote:
>>> Back on TAS for just shy of a grand with free shipping.
>>>
>>>
>> and someone bought it
>> http://www.ebay.com/itm/281757114979
>>
>>
> I've probably seen a dozen of them for sale in the 25+ years of watching
> this stuff, and what I've never seen is any software for either this or
the
> 68000 models.
>
>
>
