I have Nicolet 1080. It is a 20 bit computer and has 12Kx20 core memory. To my knowledge, there are only 5 of these remaining in existence. Only 375 were said to have been made. Mine is mostly working but the last time I ran it, it had disk problems. I need to debug it. Dwight ________________________________ From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Andy Cloud <r3trohub at gmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2017 2:09:52 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own? Hi Everyone! I thought this would be an interesting question to ask around - What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own? For me, personally, I have a Altair 8800! Looking forward to hearing your answers

On 01/10/2017 04:09 PM, Andy Cloud wrote: I don't know if it qualifies as computer-related or not, but I do have a Burroughs adding machine from January of 1905 - it's a little unusual because although it's a non-motorized machine, it has a very early variant of the stand/side-table (where the majority of the manual machines were intended for desktop use) I was mainly into micros (due to lack of space back in the day), so there's nothing really exciting in the electronic side of things, although: Likely < 20 survivors: Acorn System 1 (2-board 6502 machine ~1979) Acorn System 5 (backplane-based variant of above with various extra boards) Acorn Cambridge Workstation (6502/32016 dual CPU machine) Acorn/BBC Domesday system Torch Quad-X (VME-based m68k Unix machine) Research Machines 480Z (one of the first few made, with the metal case) And slightly more common items: Amiga 1000 (a few about, but far more likely to see an A500, 1200 etc.) Vectrex Osborne 1a Commodore +4 (a working one, I'm sure there are more dead ones around!) SGI Indigo2 (fully-loaded) SGI Origin 2200 Compaq Portable (a II and a '286) Research Machines 380Z I've possibly got the only surviving Cumana 68008 co-processor for a BBC micro, and also the only surviving Acorn 80286 co-processor for the same, but that probably only means something to folks who collect Acorn hardware :-) Oh, and for slightly unusual I do have an Apple II+ which was built in week 51 of 1982, which is a couple of weeks after the line was discontinued by Apple. It's a shame that nobody goes nuts for high serial numbers. cheers Jules

Although not yet physically in my possession (I still have to ?pick it up? for large values of ?pick up?) my rarest/most unusual system is an IBM 4331 with all of it?s related peripherals. Specifically it includes: * IBM 4331 CPU with 1MB of RAM * 4 IBM 3340 drives (w 12 70MB winchester packs) * IBM 2821 control unit * IBM 1403N1 printer * IBM 2540 card reader/punch * IBM 3803 control unit * 2 IBM 3420 tape drives TTFN - Guy

Somewhere I have (misplaced) a BCROS card from a 360/50. Beautiful, intriguing thing... haven't seen it in years unfortunately. Also a pair of earrings made from two IBM 1403 chain printer type slugs my dad made for my mother many decades ago, long before 'retro tech jewellery' became a thing. An australian S-100 prototype board for the SC/MP CPU, rescued from the rubbish bin at Applied Technology (who later made the MicroBee) as it was a failed PCB etching. Steve.

On 01/10/2017 05:09 PM, Andy Cloud wrote: I have two Altair and early 8800 I built, the second is a 8800BT with drives. Another is a IMSAI 8035 control computer. For really rare, DEC Advice 78032 in circuit development tool (aka MicroVax!). Technico Superstarter system Ti9900 cpu. The rest are or were fairly common by some standard. Allison

On 01/10/2017 04:09 PM, Andy Cloud wrote: I have a Honeywell Alert. It is a 24-bit aircraft computer that was originally designed for the X-15 project. It was the 2nd "mass-produced" computer in the US to use ICs. The first was the Apollo Guidance Computer. Although the AGC started their project a year or so earlier, the Honeywell Alert was deployed first, as it was a much smaller project. The X-15 application was to compute energy available (velocity plus altitude) so the pilot would arrive back at the Edwards runway at the right height and velocity to make a landing. The CPU still works, as far as I have been able to test it (without working memory). I do have a wrecked memory unit which still has 3 unassaulted memory modules, but absolutely no docs on that. I have jammed constant instructions into the memory IN bus and observed the instruction counter. It draws 25 A at 5 V DC. It has no connectors inside, all 6 boards are connected to the backplane by flexible printed cables. They thought the connectors would be subject to flaky contact, but then the thing has a whole BUNCH of D-25 and D-50 connectors on the front, to connect to I/O devices, memory and power. ----------- I have an A/D converter that was from an air pollution study done in 1974-1975, and was connected to a PDP-8. That ADC now acquires environmental data in my house. Not sure how long it will keep on running. ----------- I had a large disc drive from a non-computer accounting machine, called a Mohawk Data Sciences Mem-O-Ree. The disc is about 4 feet diameter, and ran at 1200 RPM. The unit I had had 64 fixed head tracks on it, I think it could go up to 256 tracks. The disc was attached to a thing that looked like a desk calculator. Maybe there was a bigger logic box somewhere that supported it. I saw the desktop part in a surplus store, but never saw the whole system. I think those are the more unusual bits in my collection. I built a 32-bit bit slice CPU in about 1982, but eventually put it aside, as the amount of work to bring it to a full computer system was going to be enormous. I/O devices, microcode, OS, compilers, and on and on. If I'd known at the time that Unix 360 existed, that might have changed my plans. Then, I cloned a system that used the National Semi 32016 chip, and used that for a while. Yes, I was in the world of 32/16 bit computing, but it was GLACIALLY slow. But, it did get me to learn my way around Unix. Then, I managed to get a MicroVAX-II system, and ran that for 21 years, from 1986 to 2007. I did eventually move away monitoring. In 2007 I moved that last app to a PC running Linux. Jon

Cray J932SE Original paper copies of Dvorak newsletters and software catalogs that came with my IMSAI 8080. Prices for Microsoft BASIC and all that. I'd imagine the paperwork is more rare than the system. There are color brochures for some other systems like vectorgraph as well. I should check to make sure they exist in scanned format in the wild. Apple IIGS that Wozniak autographed for me when he visited Virginia Beach. Yamaha C1 286-12 midi laptop. It doesn't work and most others I find are same situation. But more rare than the computer is I found a print copy of the service manual that even Yamaha doesn't have. It came with documentation that wasn't in the wild, so I set it free and it should answer questions for others. Would like to get hold of working unit eprom dumps. -- Ethan O'Toole

My most obscure (though far from rare, as no one has ever heard of them) is a Gnat System 10: (a picture at) https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_gnatComputhure1979_7760927 Z-80 (4MHz if I recall on mine) with SCSI (Perhaps SASI at the time) interface, lots of parallel and serial connectors on back. An early all-in-one sold by a computer making pretty decent process control z-80 machines. We connected to a load of them back in the late 70s on some automation projects. Their "rack mount" computers were pretty damn solid and my System 10 still runs. It's a CP/M machine and I used it as my main 'terminal' to BBSs and such for quite a while. Also have an IMSAI, a Sol-20 (rescued from dumpster.) Oldest tech is probably a "Typotron Display" crt from Sage computer system (a 4 inch storage tube about 3.5 feet long with for displaying textual context.) Removed by me from a Sage console in about 1972 or so. Wish I had kept the whole console :-( but it weighed about 800 pounds (guestimation from difficulty in loading and unloading -Gary On 01/10/2017 02:09 PM, Andy Cloud wrote:

On Tuesday, January 10, 2017 4:11 PM, Andy Cloud <r3trohub at gmail.com> wrote: I thought this would be an interesting question to ask around - What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own? An HP9845C, loaded, except missing the PSU.? I got it from an HP repair shop that had used it to repair other 9845C systems.? Apparently the power supply was pulled to test or repair another system, and never made it's way back.? The system is in excellent shape, but I have sadly never been able to power it up. I at one time had a deal with Jon Johnston of the HP Museum to trade three working option 100 (standard) PSU's for a working Option 200 PSU, but I was unable to repair my one faulty unit in time for his USA trip, and then my two working Option 100 supplies both crumped out.? And then, Jon's tragic and untimely passing. (Moment of silence.) Dave.

A lot of interesting answers in this thread, here are a couple of my rarest ones. The machine I appreciate the most is the NORD-1 that I rescued last summer. I'm working on getting it up and running. Originally built in 1972. http://www.ndwiki.org/wiki/NORD-1_Serial_47 I've done some research and although only around 150 were produced it seems like at least 10 have survived and recides in museums or in collections at universities. Mine is the only one privately own I know of. Other rare systems I have in my collection includes : - DataPoint 2200 type A with serial dynamic memory, sadly incomplete and in bad condition. http://www.home.neab.net/gandalf/ClassicComputing/Pictures/DP-2200/Datapoin… - DataPoint 2200 type B with random access DRAM, complete but blew a fuse last time I tried to power it up. http://www.home.neab.net/gandalf/ClassicComputing/Pictures/DP-2200/Datapoin… Both systems have severe screen rot. I also have an Alpha/LSI 16 bit OEM computer with 32kx16 core memory and a custom terminal. It is part of an EDS instrument that came with an electron microscope. When I powered up the system ten years ago it showed the last measurement, but when I pressed the reset button it crashed and just showed a line of @ at the top of the screen. It's an interesting system and the architecture reminds me a lot of 68000 CPU:s, including the possibility to stretch bus accesses indefinitely and running DMA so it would probably be an easy task to build a modern board to make an interface to debug it. http://www.home.neab.net/gandalf/ClassicComputing/Pictures/Alpha-LSI/IMG_20… At the software level I probably have a nuclear power station simulator. One of my computers ran a full scale simulator at one of the Swedish nuclear power plants around 1990. I haven't checked the disk yet but there is a good possibility that the software is still on the 70 Mbyte SMD disk. G?ran

I don't have any pre-80ies stuff at all, but some cool/rare/obscure 32bit machines. If I'd have to pick a single one, I'd say it's the Motorola PowerStack E100 running Solaris 2.5.1 for powerpc. Still looking for the sun compiler for that (one of these days I'll try to resurrect the gcc port, but I'd rather not debug the code generation and linker issues while also cross compiling). On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 11:09 PM, Andy Cloud <r3trohub at gmail.com> wrote:

On 01/10/2017 14:09, Andy Cloud wrote: Rare and unusual? That disqualifies a lot of things that are neat, maybe uncommon, but mainstream. Wicat S-2000 server. Wicat developed a neat blend of UNIX and VMS for their systems based on the M68k family. One of the Omron LUNA 88k workstations used for Mach development at CMU. One Omron label on back has "Prototype #" printed in the "S/N" field, with "012" hand-written next to it. But another, more complete label that identifies it as a "3W4SX-9100/DT8816N Multi Processor Work Station" has "S047" as the serial number. Three Nat Semi ICM-3216 board sets from the University of New Brunswick. Two in large custom-built enclosures were used for timesharing, and one in a PC-style case was used for systems programming projects. If any of the disks could be coaxed, I'm not sure if I'd find SysV or GENIX. One of CompuPro's 32016 S-100 cards. Have the standard CompuPro board documentation, but no software. Two Nat Semi ICEs for the 32016, and I think software for a VAX/VMS host, somewhere. --S.