18 Jun
2009
18 Jun
'09
12:08 a.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Good points. Anything I'd say would be sheer speculation, so I'll keep
quiet on the subject...
Oh, I'd like to. And, in point of fact, I did collect quite a few. I
was most interested in personal computers, and had an extensive
collection of CP/M machines (10 or 12), maybe 8 Macs of various
vintage, two or three C64 systems, 4 C-128s, half a dozen Apple IIs, of
differing vintage, 2 or three Atari systems, depending on how you
divided up the peripherals, a dozen or so Tandy 100s, 5 or 6 XT clones,
a pretty complete set of Casio handhelds, a Juno, an IBM AT, an HP 9830,
an HP-125, an HP-150, and, for a while, an HP-2100 series minicomputer.
Okay, hardly an epic collection, but it kept MY interest, hardware
verification and repair included. I also had a shop with the standard
array of 'scopes, signal generators, EPROM burners, DVMs, etc. I also
wanted an HP-64000 logic analyzer, but never found one.
Now, sadly, I have my IMSAI 8080, a couple Kaypro IIs, my workhorse
Kaypro 10, an Osborne 1, a Timex Sinclair, maybe 2 Tandy 100s, and a
couple of Tandy Color Computers. (And my Windows XP & Linux laptop, and
my Linux box, Darth.) My entire shop is gone. So, I feel naked.
<Grin> If I were to get into it again, it would be a major expense to
get back to where I started, unless my timing is exquisite and I can
provide a home for an ongoing collection being dispersed by the current
collector.
Ture. And I douvt there are enough valve radios or antique clocks around
for _everybody_ to owen one. But there are probably enough for those who
want one to own one if they can afford it.
Okay, Tony, be fair. 'Scopes and other equipment are no more free than
PCs are. More people are likely to have the PC, however, making taking
up emulator jockeying a significantly cheaper proposition for most people.
Agreed. I was starting work on the microcode myself (HP-2100 series)
when something clogged the ventilator..
Probably true. PCs have a nasty tendency to be frightfully expensive
when new, and lose value immediately, and rapidly, after purchase. My
old Tekronix scopes all seemed to get more valuable each year.
That's no way to treat vintage gear!
HA! Well, consider an older PC as an investment, like a test
instrument.
Again, each to his own.
Yes. Been there, done that. Like you, my favorite machines are the
older HP gear. I love fine engineering, and it was easier to find in HP
than in any other manufacturer I've known.
Warren
Tony Duell
wrote:
Ture, but I wonder what the relative rates of survival are for valve
radios and classic computers. Certainly computers are a lot newer (which
counts in their favour), and they were more expensive to start with which
means they may have been kept.
I am also interested in old clocks and old
(valve) radios, and none of
the magazies devoted to collecting/restoring those seem to think there's
much a problem. The 'pool' of both of those items is surely finite too.
It's just a matter of degree. I suspect there were very many more
valve
radios produced than classic computers, probably a couple orders of
magnitude. However, even those will be, for all practical purposes,
gone in time.
While it won't have any effect on you or me, run the
clock ahead a hundred years... and very little of either will remain.
While that is almost certainly true, it's hardly a reason for not
obtaining such machines now while you can, and enjoying them -- if you
wnt to run such a machine. If you don't, well fine...
No it's not free. Even if the emulator software is
free, the machine to
run it on is not. Period. You have, alas, touched a nerve here, I object
to this attitude that 'everybody' has a PC/cellphone/MP3 player/digital
camera. I don't, nor do many people I know.
You've got to look at the numbers... When the IBM PC was first
released, fewer than 5% of homes in the U.S. had computers. The number
went over 50% in 2000, and has not looked back. Do the math. 10 times
as many people have computers now, as did then. If everybody wanted a
classic computer, even a personal classic, there aren't enough to go around.
More than half of current households have a PC.
What percentage have
o'scopes? Quite small, I'm sure. The chances of a person being able to
So? 'socpes are not hard to find, if you wsnt one. Ditto for all the
other tools and equipment you might need.
run an emulator are significantly better than
their chances of being
able to work on old hardware and fix it. And, for those who do not have
I've always had the attidude that if I can't do something but need to do
it, it's time for me to learn how to do it. Not give up. That's why I
learnt (and am still learning) how to fix SMPSUs, how to understand
microcode, how to use machine tools, and so on.
Put it this way, I'd rather learn how to do
something like that than run
an emulator on an undocumented (to the sort of level I call 'documented')
machine under an OS that I don't have the source for. If I have problems
with that I can't solve them logically. If I am using tools/equipment
that I am capable of understnading and things go wrong, I can use a
logical procedure to sort it out. And I much prerfe that.
Understood. Sounds like you'd be a candidate for an older PC running
Linux....
the
requisites, what is the cost? What's the cost of an old PC
machine? I see them all the time for less than $100. What's the cost
of an electronics shop? I spent thousands, and was still lacking many
items.
So have I. But I expect all my tools and mcuh of my test gear to outlive
me. I wouldn't expect a PC to do that. I suspect the total cost of
owenership over my lifetime is cheaper for the electroncis stuff than PCs.
It's
clearly true that not EVERYBODY has any of the items you list.
However, most people have access to most of them, and the percentages
keep rising.
It doesn't stop me getting annoyed when it's assumed I have them. The
next time somebody tells me to 'upload my photos', I am liable to use my
monorail camwera as a substitue clue-by-four :-)
In fact for me
to be able to run any of the emulators at a sensible speed
it would cost me more than I've spent on any one of my classic computers.
OK, I was lucky and got many of them before they became collectable, but
I've bought interesting machines (to me) in the last year or so for a lot
less than I'd spend on a machine to run an emulator.
I think you're assuming you need a new machine to run an emulator....
It would be new for me.
Not true! A
five-year-old PC is quite cheap. Not useful in the "speed
demon" sense, and not yet "classic," they sit at the nadir of their
value. Fish THERE for cost effectiveness.
That's not the total cost of ownership as well you know. Do I have to
poitn out that to keep such a machine running I would have to
significantly upgrade some of my test gear _and_ spend a lot of time
working out how it should work so I can fix it when it doesn't.
Personally I'd rather keep classics working.
Oh, no, that
doesn't sound crazy. I share your interest. I just don't
always want to HAVE TO solve problems before I can accomplish
something. My current set-up is much more reliable than the IMSAI
Nor do I. I expect my tools to work properly, if they don't, I fix them.
But I don't class my clasisc computers as tools.
For example, one machine I've been working on recently is an HP120 -- a
Z80A-based CP/M box. I assume it could run something like Wordstar. But I
am not going to use it as a word processor, I'll stick to LaTeX on this
machine for that. The HP120 is an interesting machine to investigate and
get running, it's not a machine I am going to do real work on.