Videotrax
I saw this system at AppleFest '89. It was pretty interesting. I think
the problem with this system and why it never caught on is because: a)
let's face it, hooking your computer to a VCR is lame and b) it was slow.
On the line of interesting storage devices - does anyone remember the
"scanner" that read strips of encoded data. I don't remember what it
was called, but for a little while they printed some of these strips in
Nibble. I think it was an Apple II only thing. I guess you could read
and print these strips and they generated programs when you scanned
them.
Also, some personal bad news - my van was broken into on Friday night
and a large load of classic equipment was stolen (I'm preparing to move
and the it was the easiest place to store it). So, if you live in the
greater Seattle area and you see a good amount of the following show
up when you're poking around, please let me know (I'm not as much
concerned about the equipment as I am about my addressbook, insurance
folder, and vehicle registration.).
Stolen: IBM 6360 disk drive, Macintosh, Mac 512, Box of CompuPro s-100
boards, Box of misc. manuals, Commodore DPS-1101 printer, TI99/4a
expansion box, Turbo C64 disk drive, CBM 8050 dual disk drive, Atari
520ST, 2 commodore vic-1541 disk drives, 1 blue chip disk drive.
I'm sure the thieves thought they really scored but I'm guessing it
will soon turn up at a thrift store or pawn shop when they can't
move it. Some of the equipment may be blood-stained. I have mounted
razor blades across the bottom of my car stereo and they found them
when trying to rip it out ;). The dash was very bloody - quite
gratifying.
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Bill Whitson - Classic Computers ListOp
bill(a)booster.u.washinton.edu or bcw(a)u.washington.edu
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~bcw
