7 Apr
1997
7 Apr
'97
6:33 p.m.
Several weeks ago, through a contact made here, I offered my Xerox 16/8
system to a fellow Canadian who lives in Saskatoon, and to whom I had
previously shipped a set of manuals for the TRS 80 Model 16. I never heard
if they arrived. And I can't get a reply to an e-mail from him so I'm
assuming he's incommunicado or uninterested.
So - I'm going to follow the suggestion made by our worthy founder and offer
it here.
I wish to dispose of my Xerox 16/8 system which is just sitting idle packed
away in it's original cartons. I'm not interested in selling the system.
It's free to whoever wants to pay the shipping charges. Can't beat the
price. But it's take the lot or take nothing!
It comprises:-
Xerox 16/8 Professional Computer system:-
1 Display Unit.
1 Rigid Drive + 5.25" Floppy Disk Expansion Module.
1 Keyboard and Mouse.
2 Shoe boxes full of 5.25" 360k diskettes, some original, some
copies, about 200 or so disks altogether.
Manuals, All in original covers and in excellent condition.
1 Operating System Reference Guide.
1 Technical Reference Manual
1 CP/M 80 & CP/M 86 Operating Systems Programmer's Information Manual.
1 Operations Manual.
1 MS-DOS Operating System Programmer's Reference Manual.
1 Business Graphics Reference Guide.
1 MS-DOS Operating System Reference Guide including:
1 - User's Guide &
1 - Macro Assembler Manual.
1 CP/M 80 & CP/M 86 Operating Systems Handbook.
1 MS-DOS Operating System Handbook.
1 Business Graphics Handbook.
1 dBase II Manual.
When I received the system from my vendor, last summer, I assembled it and
it worked beautifully. But I needed the space in my computer room for my
heavily upgraded Coleco-Adam which was my first computer. So the Xerox had
to be stored away and I'm concerned it may be deteriorating in my unheated loft.
So, either the Xerox continues sitting up in the loft, or someone wants it.
The problem is I live on Vancouver Island which means that shipping these 4
heavy cartons, 3 for the computer and 1 for the books and disks, could be
expensive. Even by bus. That's how they came to me from Vancouver.
I weighed each of the four packages that comprise the Xerox and it worked
out like this:-
Expansion Module (hard and floppy drives) weighs just under 35 lbs. I called
it 35#
Display unit weighs just under 35 lbs. I called it 35#.
Keyboard and Mouse weigh just under 10 lbs. I called it 10#
And the books and disks weigh just under 40 lbs. I called it 40#.
I also have a Kaypro Technical Manual covering the Kaypro 2, 2/4, 10. 2/84,
2X, 4/84, and ROBIE systems that I don't need.
Anyone interested can let me know by e-mail.
Cheers.
David Cobley.
Fidonet on the ADAM, CP/M Tech
and Hewlett-Packard Echoes.
Internet-dcobley(a)island.net, or,
davidc(a)macn.bc.ca
7 Apr
7 Apr
7:11 p.m.
Maybe <snif> we <snif> should<snif>n't <snif> allow
<snif> posts like
this!!!! BAWWWWWWWWWW BAWWWWWWWW BAAWWWBAWWWWBAWWWWWW
I could NEVER afford the shipping. I could probably DRIVE there and
PICK IT UP but not until summer BAWWWBAWWWWW
(The basement is flooding from my tears alone!!!!!)
On Mon, 7 Apr 1997, David Cobley wrote:
[Snip]
I wish to dispose of my Xerox 16/8 system which is
just sitting idle packed
away in it's original cartons. I'm not interested in selling the system.
It's free to whoever wants to pay the shipping charges. Can't beat the
price. But it's take the lot or take nothing!
[Snip]
When I received the system from my vendor, last
summer, I assembled it and
it worked beautifully.
???????
[Snip]
So, either the Xerox continues sitting up in the loft,
or someone wants it.
The problem is I live on Vancouver Island which means that shipping these 4
heavy cartons, 3 for the computer and 1 for the books and disks, could be
expensive. Even by bus. That's how they came to me from Vancouver.
[Snip]
David Cobley.
THANKS DAVE YOUR TIMING STINKS!
BC
(Such is life - I think I will end mine!)
8 Apr
8 Apr
2:20 p.m.
On Mon, 7 Apr 1997, Brett wrote:
Maybe <snif> we <snif>
should<snif>n't <snif> allow <snif> posts like
this!!!! BAWWWWWWWWWW BAWWWWWWWW BAAWWWBAWWWWBAWWWWWW
I could NEVER afford the shipping. I could probably DRIVE there and
PICK IT UP but not until summer BAWWWBAWWWWW
Argh. I know the feeling. There was this post in a.f.c. some time ago
about this PDP-11 with peripherals sitting in the rain and snow, waiting to
be dumped. I felt so bad, it's unbelievable. Now, I wouldn't be able to
maintain a PDP-11. I don't even have the means to get it home -- and that's
across the Atlantic. But it still felt extremely bad.
:-(
(Such is life - I think I will end mine!)
Nah, just go on collecting. Get as many machines as you can, every
machine acquired is a machine saved from a fate worse than death (i.e. the
dump).
A.
--------------------------- ,o88,o888o,,o888o. -------------------------------
Alexios Chouchoulas '88 ,88' ,88'
alexios(a)vennea.demon.co.uk
The Unpronouncable One ,o88oooo88ooooo88oo, axc(a)dcs.ed.ac.uk
5:36 p.m.
On Wed, 9 Apr 1997, Alexios Chouchoulas wrote:
You OBVIOUSLY have NOT met my kids 8-)
BC
On Mon, 7 Apr 1997, Brett wrote:
Actually I got all involved in this *hobby* when I started working for
Western Electric testing #3 ESS and #4 ESS in - oh 78?? - and had the
PRIVILEDGE of walking by the loading dock on the day the crushing - YES -
Crushing PDP-8's. There must have been 10 of them. It was the last load
of about 50 total. Complete units with tapereaders, neat analog cards and
all. It seems the government had just reversed the write-off laws that
year and I had to be a "Charity Organization" to get any. One guy was just
sitting there with pliers breaking off the card ID's and serial #'s as
proof (or I would have gotten a couple) Talk about Dazed and Confused!
I almost couldn't talk. Of course, they had just replaced all the PDP-8's
with 11's. I managed to squawk out that I WOULD PAY THE TAX DIFFERENCE.
but to no avail. *Red Tape* B.S. (I can't believe I still get so PI$$ED
OFF ABOUT IT!)
Well after that I have managed to save a few items. I still get a kick
out of going to larger building and looking thru the trash 8-) but now
it's all PeeCee stuff and it is garbage.
Maybe <snif> we <snif>
should<snif>n't <snif> allow <snif> posts like
this!!!! BAWWWWWWWWWW BAWWWWWWWW BAAWWWBAWWWWBAWWWWWW
I could NEVER afford the shipping. I could probably DRIVE there and
PICK IT UP but not until summer BAWWWBAWWWWW
Argh. I know the feeling. There was this post in a.f.c. some time ago
about this PDP-11 with peripherals sitting in the rain and snow, waiting to
be dumped. I felt so bad, it's unbelievable. Now, I wouldn't be able to
maintain a PDP-11. I don't even have the means to get it home -- and that's
across the Atlantic. But it still felt extremely bad. (Such is life
- I think I will end mine!)
Nah, just go on collecting. Get as many machines as you can, every
machine acquired is a machine saved from a fate worse than death (i.e. the
dump). 
8:59 p.m.
New subject: How did you get started?
On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Brett wrote:
Actually I got all involved in this *hobby* when I
started working for
Western Electric testing #3 ESS and #4 ESS in - oh 78?? - and had the
PRIVILEDGE of walking by the loading dock on the day the crushing - YES -
Crushing PDP-8's. There must have been 10 of them. It was the last load
of about 50 total. Complete units with tapereaders, neat analog cards and
all. It seems the government had just reversed the write-off laws that
year and I had to be a "Charity Organization" to get any. One guy was just
sitting there with pliers breaking off the card ID's and serial #'s as
proof (or I would have gotten a couple) Talk about Dazed and Confused!
I almost couldn't talk. Of course, they had just replaced all the PDP-8's
with 11's. I managed to squawk out that I WOULD PAY THE TAX DIFFERENCE.
but to no avail. *Red Tape* B.S. (I can't believe I still get so PI$$ED
OFF ABOUT IT!)
Well after that I have managed to save a few items. I still get a kick
out of going to larger building and looking thru the trash 8-) but now
it's all PeeCee stuff and it is garbage.
This raises the question of how people got into this hobby. Was it
a single event or something which happened over time (with or without
you being aware of it?)
I really started about two years ago. I had a few machines, but they
were not a collection. I picked up an Osborne 1 at an auction for a
buck. I couldn't believe that nobody else wanted it. A little later
I started to pick up machines here and there which were extremely cheap.
Before long I had a fairly eclectic collection. I also collect computer
books (the older the better) and Infocom games.
--pec
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
9 Apr
9 Apr
7:24 a.m.
New subject: How did you get started?
On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Paul E Coad wrote:
This raises the question of how people got into this
hobby. Was it
a single event or something which happened over time (with or without
you being aware of it?)
When I was young, I got my first computer, which was the Aquarius I
mentioned before. I sold this along with my Atari 2600 with about 50
games to fund the purchase of my first Apple ][+. I wish I was
enlightened back then because I would have found some other way to make
the money. After a while I wanted to get an Apple ][e, but I couldn't get
myself to sell my ][+. I'd had too much fun with it. So in spite of the
bitching from my parents, I bought a ][e and kept my ][+. Which was
really cool because now I had two apples and I could have two different
things going on each one. It was really handy when I was hacking up code
or cracking copy protection and such. Then my high school computer
science teacher wanted to sell me his souped-up //e, which I bought, so
now I had three apples. He also threw in a Soroc dumb terminal, which I
think was what piqued my interested of old stuff. There was this big old
teletype terminal in our classroom that I asked if I could have but he had
no authority to give it to me (it was never used for anything) so he gave
me the terminal instead. Then through some maneuvering I can't remember,
I ended up trading with friends and acquired a commodore 64 and a
TI-99/4a. These weren't particularly old back then (this was around
1987). I also got a Timex-Sinclair ZX-81 from my brother that he had
traded from his friend who built it. Then in around 1989 I acquired some
California Computer Systems S-100 CP/M machines. Huge, 30-lbs a piece
units. There was a dual 8-inch disk drive unit, then the processor unit.
My mom thought I was crazy to be hauling this shit home. She'd always be
telling me to sell some of it. But I brought it into my bedroom and set
it up and programmed a small adventure game on it. I got this system from
a classmate in a community college course I was taking. He gave several
away that he rescued from a school he taught at. Later on a couple of the
people who got a system decided they didn't want theirs anymore and so
they gave them to me. Then one day I was at a swap meet looking for
carthridges for a 2600 I had picked up. I found the mother lode. There
was this crusty guy selling all sorts of old early- to mid-80s systems
like commodores, ataris, colecovisions, etc. I went spastic. After I
recovered I went to the guy and offered $5 for each unit he had, and HE
GLADLY ACCEPTED! He'd been wanting to get rid of this "junk" forever. So
I ended up with about five Vic20s, an Atari 400, an Atari 800, a Commodore
CBM (CP/M), a Colecovision, numerous Atari 2600 consoles (of different
types), a Timex Sinclair ZX-81, a TRS-80 Color Computer 2, a TRS-80
mini-color computer, some other TRS-80 junk, and miscellaneous joystick
controllers and game carts that he threw in. All told I paid him $120 for
a trunk load of ol computers and stuff. I was stoked. And the best part
is, 95 percent of the stuff worked, even though some of it had been
sitting in the rain and sun for years. The day I got them it was raining,
and some stuff was wet when I brought it home. But I opened the wet ones
up and dried them off and they worked! The only thing that was totally
dead was one of the colecovisions. The Commodore CBM and the Color
Computer 2 had blown fuses, which are easily replaced (although I have yet
to do so). Since then I acquired an Apple Lisa from an old boss, and
Apple III from a friend and maybe one or two others that I am forgetting
now. I haven't gotten anything new in quite a while but since joining
this discussion group I've gotten the bug bad. I'm going to start hitting
the flea markets in my area again.
Before long I had a fairly eclectic collection. I
also collect computer
books (the older the better) and Infocom games.
Me too. I keep old manuals and the like no matter how mundane.
Sam
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
2:51 p.m.
New subject: How did you get started?
I really started about two years ago.
Same here, almost. Actually it started three years ago when someone "sold"
me a C64 for the equivalent of 0.30 UKP (an ok price for a C64, I guess),
but I didn't pay much attention to it at the time.
Two years ago, the large BBS/sort-of-ISP I worked for bogged down by huge
Atari vs. Amiga vs. Pc vs. Mac flamewars (then again, who isn't?). The more
rational people decided to hold a contest and decide who has the best toy.
So they organised an official demo show with judges from the BBS staff and
users. I was with the owner and high guru of the system a few weeks before
that and we were playing with his TI-99/4A and trying to decide whether his
MC-10 was working or not. So we though `why not bring all our old machines
to the demo show to give the PeeCee/Amiga folks a demo of what computing was
before *they* came along?'.
Well, in the end, we managed to gather around 15 machines, including a
Kaypro 2 or II, rather rare in Europe, a (dead) Sinclair ZX-80 and other
machines. That's when I (subconsciously, probably) got the idea of
collecting as many old home micros as possible. The nostalgia trip was
immense at the time. :-)
Oh, I think that's when it occured to me to create information sheets
about the various items at the show -- something listing specs and
capabilities, so that the people who thought Computer == {PeeCee,Amiga}
found out about the ZX-80's 1k chess program, etc. That idea was implemented
as the Machine Room, my old hardware home page.
Alexios
PS: OBTW, if I remember correctly, the winner of the demo show was the
PeeCee, with `Dope'. I'm not into demos, but that thing impressed me.
PS2: I think I'm posting material againt the list's charter again. This
mail mentions PCs at least three times. *LART* Ouch! *LART* Yow!
--------------------------- ,o88,o888o,,o888o. -------------------------------
Alexios Chouchoulas '88 ,88' ,88'
alexios(a)vennea.demon.co.uk
The Unpronouncable One ,o88oooo88ooooo88oo, axc(a)dcs.ed.ac.uk
3:46 a.m.
On Tue, 8 Apr 1997, Brett wrote:
No, but I *have* met my girlfriend's brothers. Lovely OKI IF-800 with 8"
drives sitting about for 15 years in perfect shape, with all software and
manuals and things. Then they discover it's a nice toy. You know: let's
stick pencils into the drive slots and move them about. Let's take the disks
out of their jackets and play. In the end the machine had to stay *outdoors*
for *two* years *in the rain* *with* *all* *disks*. It was a nightmare when
I got it and started cleaning it. All the software is long gone, of course,
and the built-in printer's head assembly is so rusted I can't move it no
matter what. But the machine *worked* after cleaning it up. :-)
By the way, anyone in this list know about this machine? I'm looking for
8" CP/M boot disks for it, but can't find any (the closest I got was 5.25"
ones, but they won't do, unfortunately -- different FORMAT.COM etc).
Oh, the _evil_computer_destroyers_ (the grillfiend's brothers) now have a
modified Sinclair ZX-81 (with real keyboard) in their hands. Wonder how long
*that* will last. Time for another rescue operation, I think.
Now. Are you beginning to appreciate your kids? :-)
--------------------------- ,o88,o888o,,o888o. -------------------------------
Alexios Chouchoulas '88 ,88' ,88'
alexios(a)vennea.demon.co.uk
The Unpronouncable One ,o88oooo88ooooo88oo, axc(a)dcs.ed.ac.uk
Actually I got all involved in this *hobby* when I
started working for
Western Electric testing #3 ESS and #4 ESS in - oh 78?? - and had the
PRIVILEDGE of walking by the loading dock on the day the crushing - YES -
Crushing PDP-8's. There must have been 10 of them. It was the last load
of about 50 total.
(inarticulate noises as the paramedics try to revive me)
I think messages like this should be forbidden on this list. :-/ They're
just too depressing. Only joking of course, but they're still depressing.
Nah, just go
on collecting. Get as many machines as you can, every
machine acquired is a machine saved from a fate worse than death (i.e. the
dump).
You OBVIOUSLY have NOT met my kids 8-) 
8 Apr
8 Apr
4:05 a.m.
David:
I'd love to have the Xerox. Have you any idea what the freight
charge by bus would be to North Carolina USA?
If no one has spoken for it yet, let me know, and I will do some
research
from this end on what it would cost to ship it here.
Thanks,
Kirk Scott
dynasoar(a)mindspring.com
9999
days inactive
10001
days old
8 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
alexios＠vennea.demon.co.uk -
danjo＠xnet.com -
dastar＠crl.com -
dcobley＠island.net -
dynasoar＠mindspring.com -
pcoad＠crl.com