Who collects vintage computers?

[Mad-Mike]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

@ Mad-Mike : I think you wanted to write that the "Tandy" haves a 3 MB, not a 3 GB hard disc.

Nope, it's a 3GB drive, I pulled it from the NEC Ready 9522 I listed (that one has an 80GB drive). It does not need a DDO because it has a XT-IDE card in it (rev 2.0, back when the VIntage Computer Forums were selling those cards). Almost all of my vintage computers have super-huge hard disks in them as I pretty much load them with everything I want to run on them so I never have to resort to Floppies. Actually, most data xfer is done via network or pulling the drives and connecting via USB. I use LianLi RH37 and RH17 "5.25" Mobile Racks" - aka, HDD caddies to make the majority of these tool-less (except the 286 which is traditionally setup, and the laptops.

Actually, right now I'm waiting on a 44pin IDE to mSATA converter because I'm slapping a mSATA 128GB HDD in my NEC Versa M/75 486 DX4 for FreeDOS (going to try some experiments in quasi-modern usage). Right now that one is using a Seagate 80GB ATA-133.

Originally Posted by KentTeffeteller

My first new laptop was a NEC Versa 6230 which was purchased for me to use in technical school, which ran Dragon Naturally Speaking 1.1. Lasted 8 years of heavy road warrior duty, a reliable PC, the worst issue was CCFL backlights dying (which today I could fix easily).

The Ultralite, V/E/M stuff don't seem to have that problem so much, I've found LED upgrade kits on e-bay for fairly cheap. Actually, an odd thing is finding new LCD panels, or at least good condition used ones, is fairly easy. Seems NEC continued selling the NL6440AC30 9.4" Active Matrix TFT Panels sometime at least into the early 00's. The M/75, a cool part with that is it came with a 3M MicroTouch Digitizer pre-attached, making it essentially an early convertible with a touch screen. the 40E/50E series was the first series to have that - the 40/50EP (pen/touch), and 40/50ECP (color, pen/touch) came with that feature from the factory in 1993-1994. It also appears the 800x600 version appeared on the AT&T Safari/Globalyst branded Pentium and 486 DX4 models.

My M/75 was actually a part of a WordsPlus AAC (Augmentative Speech) system that cost around $6000 new, and came from Louisiana University Hospital in Shreveport (still has the asset sticker on the Words + unit which is built like some kind of prototype thing made out of parts from Fry's save for the pro labeling). The touch screen is used with a program called "Talking Screen" which is aimed towards kids with speech disabilities to communicate, really cool. I heard Stephen Hawking had some involvement with WordsPlus in the early days. I'm planning to experiment with the WordsPlus through Autotune (I'm a musician as well).

Originally Posted by Chip Chester

NEC you say? Have I got a deal for you...

I have a boatload/plethora of NEC Versa Pentium I systems. Like maybe 4-5 laptops, accessories out the proverbial wazoo, and 6-8 of the VCR-style auto-eject docking stations, that let you add full-size PC cards, extra hard drives, extra floppies, etc. to the base laptop. Plus, I'm getting ready to move, so I'm somewhat motivated.

PM me if you decide life isn't complete without owning a few of these retro battlestations.

Plus, for the right deal, I'll throw in an authentic NEC Ultralite setup from the DAK buyout days. Pretty complete setup as I recall. Awful display, of course. Battery life measured in minutes. But nearly as slim as a current MacBook air.

I'll shoot you a PM

[crt89]

I have an Atari 400 I got at a thrift store long ago. The only cartridge I have for it is Atari Basic, and some of the keys on it don't work. I never saw many old ones around here. Once I saw a TI- something at a garage sale but it didn't have any parts with it. There was one at a thrift store also years ago which again had nothing else with it.

I used to want to collect vintage computers but kind of lost interest in them. That said if I found one for cheap somewhere I'd get it. Much newer but wouldn't mind having a '90s era Macintosh or an iMac though to play the old games on. I wish we still had our '94 Performa, I loved that computer. Once I saw a tangerine iMac at the flea market for $30 and wanted to get it but next day the person wasn't set up and I never went back the next weekend to see if it was still there. That was about 10 years ago.

[AdamAnt316]

A few of the old computers I've picked up since I last posted in this thread, in rough alphabetical order:















(to be continued...)

[AdamAnt316]

Yet more of the computers I've managed to acquire in the past seven years:















There's at least a few I've left out, but this is about enough for now...
-Adam

[Telecolor 3007]

Now that's a collection. I like very much some models (I will make a list of them).

@ Mad Mike : you can put a 3 G.B. Hard Disk on an '80's computer?

[MIPS]

I was going to say you must have deep pockets after I saw the KIM but I kept scrolling and oh MAN!

[AdamAnt316]

Originally Posted by MIPS

I was going to say you must have deep pockets after I saw the KIM but I kept scrolling and oh MAN!

What can I say? Thankfully, I didn't pay eBay prices for most of that stuff. I've spent the past 20+ years scouring yard sales, flea markets, swapmeets, thrift stores and the like looking for vintage electronic junk, and have lucked into some amazing stuff over the years for far less than some people are willing to pay for it. Pretty sure the most I've paid for any of those computers was $150, and it wasn't for the KIM-1 (highlight below for the answer).
-Adam

It was for the IBM 5140 "PC Convertible". The KIM-1 was actually a freebie from a friend, and probably needs a lot of work.

[lnx64]

As a hardcore PS/2 25 and 30 enthusiast, and being one of the few experts on them, the latest 8-bit guy video REALLY hurt to watch. On far too many levels for a variety of reasons.

Those PS/2's are home to me and are my entire childhood. Watching him shove a paperclip in the PSU and wreck the case, was horrifying. I unsubscribed because this isn't the first time he's done this paperclip PSU thing either. He did it to his Compaq a while back and I wasn't comfortable with that either.

[ESigma25]

Originally Posted by lnx64

As a hardcore PS/2 25 and 30 enthusiast, and being one of the few experts on them, the latest 8-bit guy video REALLY hurt to watch. On far too many levels for a variety of reasons.

Those PS/2's are home to me and are my entire childhood. Watching him shove a paperclip in the PSU and wreck the case, was horrifying. I unsubscribed because this isn't the first time he's done this paperclip PSU thing either. He did it to his Compaq a while back and I wasn't comfortable with that either.

Maybe you can tell me how to fix the bad power supply in my PS/2 Model 56!

[lnx64]

Originally Posted by ESigma25

Maybe you can tell me how to fix the bad power supply in my PS/2 Model 56!

I'm not very familiar with models other than the 25 or 30, but I can see if I can find a tech ref manual for it online tomorrow if you'd like.

[Eric H]

Not an antique , but this Intel i5 machine I'm using is ten years old, in 2010 a ten year old PC was just about useless, but the obsolescence seems to have slowed down a bit.

[Tube TV]

Still using both of these daily. Both circa 1994.

HP100LX palmtop MS-DOS 5.0

AST adavntage nb 486/33

[ESigma25]

Originally Posted by lnx64

I'm not very familiar with models other than the 25 or 30, but I can see if I can find a tech ref manual for it online tomorrow if you'd like.

That would be pretty handy, it's the 486SLC2 model if that's necessary.

[Telecolor 3007]

@ TubeTv : for what purposes do you use them?

Originally Posted by Eric H

Not an antique , but this Intel i5 machine I'm using is ten years old, in 2010 a ten year old PC was just about useless, but the obsolescence seems to have slowed down a bit.

I'm using a Core 2 Duo, so...

[Tube TV]

Pretty much anything I can.
Word processing, notes, appointments, calculations, ect.
I just find that it's far more convenient using DOS for this kind of stuff. DOS is always stable, reliable and the startup time is way faster than Windows, and it's free from online ads, data mining, backdoors in the security.
On the palmtop, dos is accessable at the touch of a button and it's always booted and ready to go. Programs can be loaded through the file menu, through a filer program that's much like Norton Commander, or on the command line.
I'm not to fond of writing anything lengthy on a touch screen, but the palmtop is easy to type on and can type at almost the same speed as a full size keyboard.
Files can be transfered back to a full size computer through the serial port and the built in filer program.
It runs on a pair of AA batteries and the last about 3 months.
The last few months I've been running rechargable batteries charged by solar and have had good results.