29 May
2001
29 May
'01
3:03 p.m.
Hi,
My name is Bob Shannon, and I've been collecting and restoring old computers
for
quite a while now, and I have a rather varied accumulation of interesting
machines.
Some of my favorites are HP minicomputers from the 1960's, I've got the full
set, a 2114A,
2115A, and a 2116C. I've also accumulated spare parts and many peripherals.
Ever seen a 7.5 inch hard-sectored dual floppy disk drive for HP minis?
In addition to the HP collection I've got some PDP's (11/35, 11/34A, VT-11
display, etc).
Of course there is an assortement of peripherals for the DEC systems,
including an original
unibus Link-tape drive, RL-01's, a Megatek vector graphics system, etc.
Any DEC vector graphics fans out there itching to get their hands on a VT-11,
display and light pen? Maybe I should install that into the 11/35, and make
a space war machine?
For the more exotic stuff, I have an original MIT CADR lisp machine complete
with the
Trident T-300 drive. Saddly my disk pack is no longer bootable...not likley
I'll ever get
a bootable disk for that baby. If anyone ever wants to restore a MIT CADR,
I've got the
only remaining supply of tested spare parts (LMI CADR spare parts
technically).
There are a few micro's in my accumulation as well, an old IMSAI, an ELF-II,
etc.
I tend to get a parts machine or two for most of my collection, and I'm
willing to trade and
swap parts, etc. (I once had a nice collection of Nova's, but traded them
all away...)
Lastly I have a collection of old software for some of the machines (HP's
mainly). I have also
designed a photo-tape reader emulator that loads paper tape binary images
from ROM, so the old machines can be seen in action.
By the way, if anyone has a DOS or Windows cross assembler for the HP
machines, I'd love
to get a copy! I still use a custom control system based on a HP2117E,
binary compatible with the classic systems. I have seen the C source code
for a cross assembler on the HP2100 archive site, but not being a C
programmer I've not gotten it to compile so far.
I've just read about VCF East, I'm not sure I can get things ready to exhibit
this year, but I will
attend for sure. Perhaps I can at least show up with some of the
micros...maybe the HP2114, as that can fit in my jeep.