Sam,
Thanks for your efforts in the great AIM-65 buyout! I'll take two of the
Panasonics.
Regards,
Bob
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From: Sam Ismail[SMTP:dastar@crl.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 22, 1997 4:18 AM
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: AIM65
Ok, here it is.
Mike Westerfield, the guy with the AIM65s, phoned me yesterday and we
spoke about the deal. He has been offered $125 for EACH unit from a
company called Dynatem which still uses the AIMs commercially. Mike
started a company way back with a product based on the AIM65. It was an
insurance rate calculator. In order to make the product marketable, he
designed a plastic and a metal-base enclosure. He also placed a compact
power supply inside the enclosure to make for a nice complete package.
He apparently was very successful with this venture and sold many. At
this point, unless someone comes along and offers him more than $125 per
unit and buys the whole lot, they are going to Dynatem. That's too rich
for my blood.
After explaining all this to me, and after I explained what we do here
on classiccmp, Mike mentioned that he had a bunch of other stuff that we
might be interested in. He has a whole basement full of stuff he would
like to sell off. Here's what he told me he has:
EPROM burners
Logical Devices GangPro-S and GangPro-2S. These can burn 32 chips at a time.
These also have other features which make them very nice.
Logical Devices GangPro-8 and GangPro-4 which can burn 8 and 4 respectively.
Optical Technologies EP-2A-88 and EP-2A-89.
EPROMs
A "ton" of NEC-2716 and Hitachi 2716 EPROMs
He also has the line on hundreds of Panasonic RL-H18 palmtops. This is a
palmtop which came out around 1985 and had FORTH in ROM. It also has a
20-col (or 40-col?) thermal printer and a case which bundles the two
together. His company also developed an expansion "tray" which houses
extra memory that the Panasonic can access through bank-switching. He
sold this product to (I believe) an insurance firm and now they want to
dump them all. Now again, he said they have hundreds, and were just
going to shit-can them, but he said the company would most likely opt to
get some money back for them if they could. He said probably about $10
per unit would get them, but they'd have to be purchased in one shot.
Now I don't think that there are enough people here with an interest to
buy one. I suggested that perhaps they can set aside a couple hundred
and then shitcan the rest because I don't have a couple thousand lying
around in which to buy all of them, nor would I want to. It's up to us
to come up with a proposal.
As far as dealing with Mike, I asked him contacting him. At this point,
he would perfer the current arrangement whereby I am the central point of
contact because it is easier for him. However, this tends to put me in a
bad spot for certain reasons. I'm sure there will be people interested in
working out a bulk deal with him. To those people I say feel free to
contact him since he is most interested in getting rid of everything in
one shot. He's not interested in dealing with onesies and twosies. So
he would like for everyone who has an interest in a little here and a
little there to contact me about it and then he's going to call me again
in a week. This would refer mainly to someone wanting one of the
panasonic's or a few EPROMs. As far as the Panasonics, he's finding out
more information about quantity and we will talk more about price next
week. As far as the EPROM burners, I would think that dealing directly
with him would be best.
Anyway, his e-mail address is Mikeooo1(a)aol.com. He's a very nice guy.
He offered that if there was anyone in New Jersey (I believe there is at
least one person here, I can't remember his name) to come on down to his
place and he'll show you through all the stuff he has.
Sam
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Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass