commodorejohn
Veteran Member
So there's an old couple at my church, and the husband is an old IT guy and computer hobbyist. They're going to be moving out-of-state in the not-too-distant future, and we got to talking and they offered to let me have his collection, which would save them the trouble of moving or getting rid of it. They came by yesterday afternoon with a pickup bed full of things:
Three Osborne-1s,
Two C64s,
Two VIC-20s,
One B128,
One Plus-4,
One XT,
One G3,
One 128D,
One Kaypro 2X,
One Vector 4,
♫ And a partridge in a pear tree... ♪
(okay, not really.)
I also got an assortment of peripherals, displays, manuals, and software for all of the above, including a nifty-looking Kaypro-branded daisy-wheel printer. I haven't had nearly as much time to play with all of it as I'd like, on account of a hectic short-notice project at work, but the Kaypro at least is working fine, and everything seems to be in pretty great shape. The one issue I've encountered so far is that the Vector 4 doesn't want to boot off its internal hard disk - when I select "[W]inchester boot" from the boot menu, it accesses the disk and then drops right back to the boot menu. I'm not sure what the deal is here, or what I can do about it; I can't seem to find any system disks for it. I understand that some Vector 4s used a hard-sectored disk format and some used soft-sectored; is there a good way to tell which this is without having to pull the drive out and check?
Three Osborne-1s,
Two C64s,
Two VIC-20s,
One B128,
One Plus-4,
One XT,
One G3,
One 128D,
One Kaypro 2X,
One Vector 4,
♫ And a partridge in a pear tree... ♪
(okay, not really.)
I also got an assortment of peripherals, displays, manuals, and software for all of the above, including a nifty-looking Kaypro-branded daisy-wheel printer. I haven't had nearly as much time to play with all of it as I'd like, on account of a hectic short-notice project at work, but the Kaypro at least is working fine, and everything seems to be in pretty great shape. The one issue I've encountered so far is that the Vector 4 doesn't want to boot off its internal hard disk - when I select "[W]inchester boot" from the boot menu, it accesses the disk and then drops right back to the boot menu. I'm not sure what the deal is here, or what I can do about it; I can't seem to find any system disks for it. I understand that some Vector 4s used a hard-sectored disk format and some used soft-sectored; is there a good way to tell which this is without having to pull the drive out and check?