What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item that you own?
Göran Axelsson
axelsson at acc.umu.se
Fri Jan 13 01:34:58 CST 2017
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/Datapoint-2200-type-A-001.jpg
- 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/Datapoint-2200-type-B-001.jpg
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_20160619_093851.jpg
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.
Göran
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