Who collects vintage computers?

[Mad-Mike]

I used to have a ton, now I have a few, most of them are pretty tricked-out from stock.

- 1985 Tandy 1000A - Bone stock except for the Intel EtherExpress NIC and the VCF IDE Controller with a Seagate 540MB EIDE HDD attached to it, and the customer 5.25"/3.5" Drive bay adapter with a custom LED added for HDD activity. I usually run it through my old Mitsubishi TV. DOS 6.22

- 1989 GEM 286 - Full AT IBM 5170 clone chassis with 3 instead of 2 external 5.25" drive bays. It's got the same HDD as the Tandy on a 16-bit IDE controller, and was upgraded to SVGA and a SoundBlaster Vibra 16. DOS/Win31

- Home Built 486 - A 486 DX2/66 in an XT clone case running a 8GB HDD split into 2 4GB FAT-32 Partitions, dual boots Win95 and WFWG 3.11 with an option to boot into DOS as well. It's currently running and displaying the Flying Toilets AfterDark Screensaver after getting loaded with Sim City 2000 and Civ II.

- Apple Macintosh SE FDHD - I bought this for $10.00 at Goodwill many moons ago. I've got 2 mice for it, a deluxe keyboard, the standard keyboard, external 800K Floppy, the Manual, and ir runs OS 6.1.

[dtvmcdonald]

At one time I had three vintage computers: a Data General Nova 1200
($40,000 with 512kbyte hard disk), a home-made microprocessor based thing
which I seem to recall was a PDP-8 clone, and a very nice PDP-11. These
were all from my work. They were in storage ... but unknown to me,
our University sent out the old computer Nazis to collect and throw
away all old computers on the grounds that sensitive data might be on
hard drives (even ones that didn't have them!) and when I went
to get them, they were gone. They just did it, no questions asked.
(To be sure, ones in offices were asked about).

[radiotron]

I have.....
1. 4 commodore 64s
2. an IBM ps/1 consultant
3. 1 commodore c64

[Kamakiri]

Was at a thrift store the other day, and picked up a brand new sealed in the plastic speech synthesizer for a TI99, in hopes that someone here could use it.

Anyone?

[Dude111]

The first computer I had was a TI99

What does the /4a mean does anyone know?? (TI99/4A)

[Jon A.]

I have a "platinum" Apple Mouse IIe model A2M2070. Now I just need the rest of the computer. I also have Apple System Utilities on 5.25" disk with manual, sealed.

[radiotron]

Originally Posted by matt_s78mn

I'm sitting here this evening enjoying some sparkling wine and browsing Videokarma with a vintage 2001 iMac and am happy to report that the site works perfectly well with this old hardware. I know there are a handful of Videokarma members who are into vintage Macintosh computers, but is anyone into collecting/restoring/using any other vintage platforms? My collection consists mostly of Apple II and Macintosh. However, I'm interested in knowing who out there is into collecting other platforms such as Atari, Apple II, CP/M, Commodore, IBM PC/jr, TRS-80, TI 99/4a, and so forth.

I have...

4 commodore 64s
at least one of each commodore 64 hardware, exept tape recorder
An IBM ps/1
original mouse and keyboard

[Dude111]

Very very nice!!

[Jon A.]

I have this dumpster-find Tandy Enhanced Keyboard with PS/2 plug and am hoping that I can find the few keycaps it needs as well as the missing keys. Just about all I can find on the Oracle of All Knowledge is Cherry MX caps and switches, which don't come close to matching. I'm planning a retro-looking PC build with FreeBSD; I also have a HP-Compaq dc7600 that's been stripped of its outer panels, awaiting transfer of its parts into a modified AT case.

[Dave A]

Still running my 2000 Mac Pismo on OS 9.2 with Final Cut Pro 1.25 in my obsolete format dubbing center. I try to ignore how much I paid for this rig in 2000. Great for copying VHS/3/4"/8mm/HI8mm/Laserdisc analog formats to Quicktime if needed via a Sony DVMC2 converter. Otherwise direct to DVD. All my MiniDV tapes go through the Sony FW port to the Pismo. Pismo is boosted to 1gig RAM but still on the 10gig factory drive for the OS. An added 30gig drive lives in one of the expansion slots if I need to play from the Pismo. Firewire to outboard drives gives me the storage space for bigger files. Now I just copy to memory sticks for clients.

Picked up another Pismo for the internet. OS 10.44.

And I have an old Compac laptop with 98 laying around just in case I need to move floppy files or power up my Snappy frame grab. I got it at Kutztown for $1. Lots of fun to watch it do a defragment.

In the attic is a 1986 Mac Plus with the outboard HD and canvas carry bag. I need the Mac OS discs (some kind of double-sided disc and propritary I think) to boot it again.

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by Dave A

In the attic is a 1986 Mac Plus with the outboard HD and canvas carry bag. I need the Mac OS discs (some kind of double-sided disc and propritary I think) to boot it again.

Nope, just ordinary double-sided, double density 3.5" disks. I have a sealed box of those just because ya never know when they'll be needed.

[jr_tech]

Some info here about using 800K & 1.4M disks in early Macs:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA29947?viewlocale=en_US
jr

[MIPS]

I started collecting old computers as far back as 2000. Back then it was still relatively easy to get hold of some of the more obscure hardware. I practically went through every dumpster, second hand store and landfill I knew of and usually pulled something interesting out until about 2006. Then as copper went to the moon the incentive to recycle and process e-waste made them profitable and suddenly stores no longer accepted computers and the number of machines I was finding in the scrap heap fell through the floor as dumpsters started being locked and security was increased at transfer stations. A few years later the big rush for vintage computing began and the roof was blown off both the market and the hobby. Suddenly everyone wanted waaay too much for their hardware. $4000 for a PDP-8/e? $16000 for a PDP-12? You're nuts. $300 for an Apricot FP? $150 for a Mac 512? Come on now....
At this point in time I've basically been forced out of the hobby in terms of finding new machines or replacement parts. There's other people out there with way more money and time on their hands who are willing to travel great distances and pay huge sums of money for machines I can now only dream of. In several cases I also ran across some NASTY elitism. We do this as a hobby. Don't you ever tell someone "you aren't good enough for that machine". The only thing I am thankful for was those six years I spent basically hoarding whatever I could find. I now have enough spare parts to build many machines in almost any possible configuration. I still have a large inventory of machines to play with but for the most part because of previous statements of MONEY, they can't really be traded or upgraded.

To be humble about it, Silicon Graphics machines are one of my favorites. Not the little machines like the O2 or Octane. We're talking the bigger machines like the Onyx and Crimson. The machines that were six figures when new. The first time I ever experienced realtime 3D was in a Personal Iris 4D/20 at my father's old office when I was 4 or 5. Ten years later I managed to bring that same machine back to BC and it now happily sits in the room next to me.

[Tube TV]

Late checking in .
Commodore PET 2001 chicklet keyboard, built in white key tape drive, blue crt mask, black label.
Commodore PET 4016
Commodore 64
Ast 486 laptop
486 IBM Aptiva with a model M keyboard.

[Titan1a]

You gotta be joking! Large numbers of various systems. Includes Video Toaster! Starts with a TI-59 and works up. Use your imagination.

Prefers tube radios from the '30's.