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