6 Jul
2007
6 Jul
'07
9:48 a.m.
"Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: At 8:53 AM -0700 7/5/07,
Scott Austin wrote:
Zane,
A few months ago, I came across Flying Buffalo (
http://www.flyingbuffalo.com ), an old PBM company founded in 1970
that is still running. I contacted the owner who still had records
of my account from 30 years ago! He says I have 95 cents left in my
account, though I didn't ask if that was in 1976 dollars.
Kinda pulling this back on-topic, when I played back in the late
1970's, every 2-weeks or so I would receive the new game status on
yellow teletype paper!
He says, ( http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/history.htm ) they first
rented time on a CDC 3300, then later bought a Raytheon 704
minicomputer- over $30,000 total. "Sigh. And it only had 4K of
memory!". From there they bought a Poly 88 computer kit, a North
Star Horizon and then IBM clones.
Tends to give a new understanding to the cost per turn. I hadn't
realized that Flying Buffalo started the PBM industry (I have some of
their books in my archives), and I had no idea that either they or
PBM games were still around. I never played as I couldn't get over
the cost per turn.
Interesting details on an obscure use of rented computer time! :^)
Zane
I ended up with the Raytheon 704 that Flying Buffalo used many years ago. It's not in
great shape, having been sitting outside for
many years. One chassis I had to dig out of the ground.
It should be possible to restore, but I'm still looking for schematics for it.
Bob