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SWTPC / Midwest Scientific/ Smoke Signal Broadcasting

lyngaaskhan

New Member
Joined
Oct 25, 2008
Messages
4
Hi,

I have a complete system made by MSI 6800 (Midwest Scientific Instruments). The case and bus was made by MSI, but the cpu board is SWTPC.
I am interested in selling it, but I do not know what the value is. Would i be better off autioning this on E-bay?

Here is the list of boards in the system:
SWTPC MP-A2 CPU board
SWTPC MP-M board (2 of them)
MSI 8k ram board (2 of them)
Smoke Signal Broadcasting - SSB P-38 PROM board (50-pin connector with cable, bread boarded I/O connector with parallel port)
Serial and parallel I/O

SWTPC PR-40 Alphanumeric printer

A bag of 2102 ram chips - around 40 of them.

Manuals for everything, including a yellow SWTPC 3-ring binder.

Shoot me an e-mail at lyngaaskhan@NOSPAMhotmail.com with interest/recommendation.
(remove NOSPAM, of course)

Thanks!
 
SWTP-like system, ie Gimix, etc... usually go for quite a few hundred bucks on eBay.
I'd list it there, lotsa pictures, heavy on the description.

T
 
Hi,

I have a complete system made by MSI 6800 (Midwest Scientific Instruments). The case and bus was made by MSI, but the cpu board is SWTPC.
I am interested in selling it, but I do not know what the value is. Would i be better off autioning this on E-bay?

Here is the list of boards in the system:
SWTPC MP-A2 CPU board
SWTPC MP-M board (2 of them)
MSI 8k ram board (2 of them)
Smoke Signal Broadcasting - SSB P-38 PROM board (50-pin connector with cable, bread boarded I/O connector with parallel port)
Serial and parallel I/O

SWTPC PR-40 Alphanumeric printer

A bag of 2102 ram chips - around 40 of them.

Manuals for everything, including a yellow SWTPC 3-ring binder.

Shoot me an e-mail at lyngaaskhan@NOSPAMhotmail.com with interest/recommendation.
(remove NOSPAM, of course)

Thanks!

I'm cleaning and cataloging the components, so here's a little additional info:

The MP-2A board has the SWTBUG 6800 Rom monitor Version 1.0 installed.

Both MP-M boards have the MP-MX kit installed and are fully loaded with 32 2102 memory chips.
The MSI memory boards (Model RAM-68) each have 72 2102 chips. This means that there are over 248 2102 memory chips (40 of them in a bag - not installed)

The SSB P-38 has 6 2708 EPROMS installed.

The rear interface board is an MSI 6800 Interface Adapter Board IA-1 with 8 ports.
Port 1 holds an MSI 6800 Serial Interface SI-1
Port 5 holds an SWTPC MP-LA Parallel Interface

Power supply is an MSI model PS-1
Chassis is MSI model CH-1
Motherboard MSI model MB-1

Documentation:
M6800 Microcomputer System Design Data - Motorola 1976
M6800 Programming Reference Manual - Motorola Nov. 1976
M5800 Co-Resident Assembler Reference Manual - Motorola Nov. 1976
MC14411 bit rate generator data sheet - Motorola 1975
SWTPC 6800 System Documentation Notebook in original binder
SWTPC SWTBUG 6800 Rom monitor Version 1.0 - 1977

I have all of the documentation, including drawings, for all of the components. There is also documentation for a few components I don't have, such as a Smoke Signal Broadcasting POP-1 and a MicroWorks PSB-08 2708 eprom system board.

Might find more....
 
MSIs

MSIs

MSI machines are pretty rare on ebay. And they are not that popular either. I've had it in my ebay search for over a year and never got a ping. So that means to get the most $ for it you would have to ferret out the die-hard 6800 fans. From what I've seen, 6800 stuff usually goes for half what 8080 stuff goes for. Unless, of course, you happen to find that collector that just has to have it right now.


There is also the piecemeal approach - selling it part by part. But I hate that as a buyer, seller, and collector. Selling the original docs isn't so bad - as long as you have scanned copies to use. I actually find this more user-friendly. Nothing like tracing a circuit and seeing the schematic on your PC screen as you're doing the work. It always reminds me of that scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey when they did just that and I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. (back in '68 that is)

-John
 
I don't know how true that is - the last GIMIX machines to show up not too far back, fetched a ton. SWTPC machines also fetch some decent money.

The fans know where to look, and they find them. The Flex User Group mailing list shows that. When something pops up on eBay, a few folks send up FYI's to the list so all are made aware.

T
 
lyngaaskhan:

I had one of those old timers, and I have been looking to replace it. When I was 16, I broke my leg, and my dad bought me the system as a kit. I soldered the entire thing and I played with it for years. It was the turning point that got me to enter the computer field. (Some days I curse that, but mostly I am glad for it.)

When I moved from San Diego to Washington, I had to get rid of a lot of stuff, and that was one of the things I had to let go. I was sorry the moment I did. I would like to see it on ebay, but, alas, I don't have a lot of loose change to spend on nostalgia. Rather, I have a wife and house that is soaking up all my free change. (The house more then the lovely wife.)

On the other hand, Christmas is coming up, and my wife loves me and I may be able to convince her to let me off the hook for the re carpeting downstairs for another month so I can play with some old toys.
 
I think you need to correct the shipping...


There is NO WAY on earth you are fitting all THAT into a Priority Mail Flat-Rate box!

They are either 12x12x5.5 inches, 11x8.5x5.5, or 12x13.5x3.5.

USPS Priority Mail Flat-Rate means you use THEIR free box, and MUST BE a flat-rate USPS box, and you can stuff up to 70lbs for like just under $10 in the continental US, except the 12x12x5.5 is $12.95 I believe. It is called the "large flat-rate box."

But, as I said, it MUST BE their official flat-rate box, frb1, or frb2 for the $9.70, and the large flat-rate box for $12.95

Info here and here.

T
 
I think you need to correct the shipping...


There is NO WAY on earth you are fitting all THAT into a Priority Mail Flat-Rate box!

They are either 12x12x5.5 inches, 11x8.5x5.5, or 12x13.5x3.5.

USPS Priority Mail Flat-Rate means you use THEIR free box, and MUST BE a flat-rate USPS box, and you can stuff up to 70lbs for like just under $10 in the continental US, except the 12x12x5.5 is $12.95 I believe. It is called the "large flat-rate box."

But, as I said, it MUST BE their official flat-rate box, frb1, or frb2 for the $9.70, and the large flat-rate box for $12.95

Info here and here.

T

Oddly, that was created using the wizard on E-bay. I put in the actual weight and dimensions, and that is what I got. I thought it odd as well. That's going to jack up the shipping cost a bit, depending on where it's going.
I'm happy to work with any buyer on the shipping. Maybe I should pull the shipping and simply state that shipping is up to the buyer adn that I will package it for them.
 
6800 systems

6800 systems

As for the MSI system... it's one of those "untested as is" systems, so I guess he could technically fit it into a small box, if he had a large enough sledge hammer! Seriously, though, it looks to be a cool system, and I hope it does well.

I remember the last GIMIX systems on ebay, they were two systems, fully decked out, and used by a known software house for development purposes. Of course they would fetch a lot! And as I said before, I'm sure 2 fully decked out Altairs used by software houses of the era would easily fetch twice what the GIMIX boxes did.
 
Midwest Scientific Instruments Tech

Midwest Scientific Instruments Tech

Hello, believe it or not, I worked for MSI for a couple of years in the late 70's.
My job was QC on outgoing systems, and I wrote some diags for testing the CPUs, Ram and Floppy Drives (usually Siemens 8" DSDD). A few systems contained CDC Hawk (Model 9473 I think) 10mb capacity, (5 fixed/5 removeable). These systems were built like tanks, as opposed to SWTP systems that were basically made of tin by comparison. When I left (due to financial problems caused by an unscrupulous manager) they were working on
a 6809 version, and a 68000 version was envisioned - Motorola was laying the groundwork for some of the best processors of the decade. The manufacturing facility was located along some railroad tracks at 220 W. Cedar in Olathe Kansas, not too far from downtown Olathe. I applied for the job when I saw a writeup in Kilobaud magazine and there was even a picture of one of their 'systems' on the front cover - the case/cabinet was also a DESK. Pretty cool at the time.
 
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