10 Jan
1998
10 Jan
'98
1:54 p.m.
I got back from the Portland sale, pretty cool. Seems like most of the
people there were Hams, with some possible camara buffs. Most people
looking at the computers were interested in stuff for modern systems.
There were at least four other people there into the classics though.
I went a bit crazy, and ended up with the following:
PDP-11/44:
Rack 1: 2 RL02's and what appears to be the connections for terminals
Rack 2: CPU, dual floppies (8" I think), those funny little tape
drives
I've heard mentioned, and a Battery Backup
I'm questioning the identity of these two, it's how they were labled, but
they don't have a DEC nameplate.
PDP-11/23: 8" disk and 20Mb HD
PDP-11/23: 5.25" disk and 20Mb HD
Kaypro II: I'm hoping the floppies are in good shape, I've really been
wanting to get one of these.
VAXstation 2000
S-100 bus cards: ~6 floppy controllers, ~1 I/O controller, a lot of RAM cards
Q-Bus cards: ESDI floppy controller (YES!!!), 2 8Mb RAM cards, a whole pile
that looked interesting and I honestly don't have any idea what they are.
I think at least a couple are for a MircoPDP-11, and I'm wondering if one
isn't a CPU for the MicroPDP-11. I'll probably have questions on what some
of these are later, thankfully a couple days ago I found a pretty good
Excel Spreadsheet on the net that will hopefully help me to identify them!
A shrinkwraped copy of CP/M for the Rainbow 100, one of the manuals and
another expansion unit for the Tek workstation I picked up a couple days
ago, and maybe one or two other minor items I can't think of now.
What can I say I'm pooped, I got my Dad to go, so I could use his Suburban,
but I didn't think about how little he can lift nowdays. If it wasn't for
Jim Willing, and the guy selling the stuff helping I don't think I'd have
gotten the Rack with the 11/40 CPU in the truck. Unfortunately we couldn't
figure out how to get the CPU out of the rack :^(
I've gotten everything except the 11/40 out of his truck, that's going to
have to wait. Unfortuntaly it's starting to snow, so it's probably going
to wait until next weekend.
No idea if anything works, I'm going to start playing tonite after I get
done taking a break.
As for the place having the sale, it was incredible, piles of old
computers, tons of S-100 bus cards and computers. O-Scopes, ham junk, old
camera equipment, etc., etc., etc. Of course to my thinking the prime
stuff was was the PDP-11/44 and the VAX 11/730, with those around it was
hard to see anything else. I'd have liked to get the VAX, but in all
honesty now that I've got the /44 I think I'll stick to MicroVaxes, they're
easier to move.
I passed up a couple of Bell & Howell Apples (the black ones), they were
trashed and didn't have the floppies, I'd have loved them for my Apple
collection, but they were to far gone. I really should have picked up a
VT220 or one of the other terminals that they had. They had a lot of
Televideo stuff, but I didn't recognize what it was.
BTW, what is a DEC Professional 350? I passed on both that and a Rainbow
or two (they had a huge stack of Rainbows, but no monitors or keyboards in
sight). I really want to go back, and would tomorrow I think, but the
weather is turning bad, and I'm supposed to be elsewhere :^(
Well, that's it for now, I want to start checking stuff out!
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| For Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
| For the collecting of Classic Computers with info on them. |
| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/museum.html |
10 Jan
10 Jan
2:13 p.m.
On Sat, 10 Jan 1998, Zane H. Healy wrote:
PDP-11/44:
Rack 1: 2 RL02's and what appears to be the connections for terminals
Rack 2: CPU, dual floppies (8" I think), those funny little tape
That was you? I stood there for a minute, watching you as you were trying
to get the CPU box out of the rack and thinking, "Damn, just a little too
late." (:
S-100 bus cards: ~6 floppy controllers, ~1 I/O
controller, a lot of RAM cards
S-100 was before my time, and so I really don 't know much, but I
squirrelled away a SCSI card, Motorola 68k processor card, am '8 i/o'
card, a winchester controller, and a couple of cards with multiple Z80s
on in case I should hear from anybody here who wants them. They're marked
$5 each and I plan on going back down again tomorrow, this time with my
father, if anybody wants to holler at me to grab any of these cards.
Q-Bus cards: ESDI floppy controller (YES!!!), 2 8Mb
RAM cards, a whole pile
I skipped some with 50 pin headers, not knowing whether they were the
mythical SCSI cards some people here are anguishing over.. if someone
wants to send me some identifying mark to check for, I'll grab them.
figure out how to get the CPU out of the rack :^(
(:
BTW, what is a DEC Professional 350? I passed on both
that and a Rainbow
or two (they had a huge stack of Rainbows, but no monitors or keyboards in
sight). I really want to go back, and would tomorrow I think, but the
weather is turning bad, and I'm supposed to be elsewhere :^(
I'd wondered about that myself. BTW, if you'd checked the stickers, you'd
have seen the Rainbows (had a Rainbow 100 Plus, too) included keyboards
and monitors for the $20 asking price.
All in all, the pricing was not outstanding one way or the other. Not low,
not exorbitant. What you might expect from someone trying to run a
more-or-less successful business.
I wish more of you all could have gotten to go. The stuff I was seeing was
great stuff, but stuff I only recognise by name. If I actually knew what I
was doing, I don't think I'd have hesitated to pick up a lot of the stuff
there, knowing someone would want it. It was that good. (:
Cromemco System 1, 2, and 3s, an Apollo DSP80, Vector 3s and 4s, one or
two Tek bits, logs of Xerox and Televideo stuff, several S100 systems, and
a 'Zorba CPM' (some sort of Kaypro clone, apparently). All was in good, if
not excellent physical condition.
When I go back tomorrow, I'm going to try to pick up the HP IPC, Kaypro
2000, and DG One I saw. (:
ok
-r
--
r e d @ b e a r s . o r g
=============================
[ urs longa | vita brevis ]
2:39 p.m.
On Sat, 10 Jan 1998, R. Stricklin (kjaeros) wrote:
On Sat, 10 Jan 1998, Zane H. Healy wrote:
I used on of these as a freshman in college 'way back' in 1985.
It was based on the PDP-11 architecture. I can't remember exactly
how it differed from, say, a PDP 11/34. I programmed both from
Fortran, and I recall messing with .OVL files or something to
get around the 64k text size. Oh man, that seems a long time ago.
BTW, I really want a PDP 11 myself. I figure all interesting things
in the history of computer were done on PDP 11's. As I understand
C, Unix, and even Bill Gates himself wrote Basic for the PDP 11.
I'm just overwhelmed by the size and what I would have to do to
keep it going. I'll stick to collecting 8 bit machines for now.
Anyone know where to get old Ohio Scientific machines?
Michael Fulbright
msf(a)redhat.com
BTW, what is a DEC Professional 350? I passed on
both that and a Rainbow
or two (they had a huge stack of Rainbows, but no monitors or keyboards in
sight). I really want to go back, and would tomorrow I think, but the
weather is turning bad, and I'm supposed to be elsewhere :^(
I'd wondered about that myself. BTW, if you'd checked the stickers, you'd
have seen the Rainbows (had a Rainbow 100 Plus, too) included keyboards
and monitors for the $20 asking price.
2:39 p.m.
That was you? I stood there for a minute, watching you
as you were trying
to get the CPU box out of the rack and thinking, "Damn, just a little too
late." (:
At about that point I'd have just about sold it to you! I'm not looking
forward to getting it out of the truck! I've got bum knees thanks to the
military, and am feeling it tonight!
I skipped some with 50 pin headers, not knowing whether
they were the
mythical SCSI cards some people here are anguishing over.. if someone
wants to send me some identifying mark to check for, I'll grab them.
I think these were all 40 pin (yes, I was standing around counting a lot of
pins). I'd hate to think there were some there and I missed them, as I
really need on.
Actually I'm hoping I've got one in the pile I did get, but I know I
didn't. Still an ESDI controller is better than what I had!
I'd wondered about that myself. BTW, if you'd
checked the stickers, you'd
have seen the Rainbows (had a Rainbow 100 Plus, too) included keyboards
and monitors for the $20 asking price.
Arghhh, where the *bleep* were the monitors and keyboards? It's a good
thing I didn't see that, we were full!
When I go back tomorrow, I'm going to try to pick
up the HP IPC, Kaypro
^^^^^^^
Oh, great, make me kick myself! I was going to pick up the HP and forgot it.
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| For Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
| For the collecting of Classic Computers with info on them. |
| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/museum.html |
4:53 p.m.
On Sat, 10 Jan 1998, R. Stricklin (kjaeros) wrote:
Cromemco System 1, 2, and 3s, an Apollo DSP80, Vector
3s and 4s, one or
two Tek bits, logs of Xerox and Televideo stuff, several S100 systems, and
a 'Zorba CPM' (some sort of Kaypro clone, apparently). All was in good, if
not excellent physical condition.
When I go back tomorrow, I'm going to try to pick up the HP IPC, Kaypro
2000, and DG One I saw. (:
Geez, pick up a Cromemco System 1, the Apollo and a Vector. Also, the
Zorba and one of the Xerox machines. That's some cool stuff.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
5:03 p.m.
On Sat, 10 Jan 1998, Sam Ismail wrote:
Geez, pick up a Cromemco System 1, the Apollo and a
Vector. Also, the
Zorba and one of the Xerox machines. That's some cool stuff.
It's all kind of out of my interest range, though. If it were all super
cheap, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I already feel guilty at the space my
still-small collection takes, and with the Zorba marked at $150 (the only
one of those machines that was marked), you'll forgive my hesitance. /:
ok
-r
--
r e d @ b e a r s . o r g
=============================
[ urs longa | vita brevis ]
5:12 p.m.
On Sun, 11 Jan 1998, R. Stricklin (kjaeros) wrote:
On Sat, 10 Jan 1998, Sam Ismail wrote:
Oh. Well in that case I'd definitely skip the Zorba.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
Geez, pick up a Cromemco System 1, the Apollo and
a Vector. Also, the
Zorba and one of the Xerox machines. That's some cool stuff.
It's all kind of out of my interest range, though. If it were all super
cheap, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I already feel guilty at the space my
still-small collection takes, and with the Zorba marked at $150 (the only
one of those machines that was marked), you'll forgive my hesitance. /:
9843
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