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Vintage computers in Napa?

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nesterhuffman11

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Joined
Jul 6, 2016
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Hi everyone, I am a kid who lives in Napa who would really like to get some retro computers but I have had absolutely NO luck with finding any. None of the yard sales have them, none of the thrift stores have them, nothing on craigslist, it seems like NOBODY has any vintage computers here. I was wondering if any of you folks who live around here have any, and if so would you be willing to sell/donate them to me? Thank you so much.
 
eBay seems to be the best place if you want something specific. You have to just ignore the listings with absurd prices. If your looking for stuff that's cheap-cheap on ebay, most of your money will go on shipping.

There's the town dump, or whatever euphemism they refer to it now.

Dumpster diving. Be careful though.

You could put an add in local shops "wanted old computers", although don't expect anything valuable that's free.

Don't know if they have any old cupboards at school. I helped out at school with the computers, and ended up with some junk computers.

When I was a kid I used to go to computer stores/repair places and ask if they had anything they wanted to get rid of. That was the '90s though. Plies of stuff for the picking. It probably wont be vintage, it will be worthless junk today. But the stuff i picked up back then wasn't vintage, it was worthless junk then. I would say these places had the best success rate.

It depends what you want to obtain really. I missed the time window on junk mini-computer systems. But i was firmly in the time window of junk 286's etc. Today it's probably Pentium 4's etc. It may not be exactly what your into, but if you can fix a Pentium 4, and/or sell the parts on eBay or whatever, you may be able to get some $$ to buy something you really want.

What time period are you looking for?
'60s and before probably already in a museum and priceless.
'70s huge/expensive/difficult to obtain probably already in the hands of collectors
'80s little cheaper, probably in the hands of collectors/may very rarely find one at a yard sale.
'90s probably a few given away for free, particularly later stuff. Early 90's stuff probably already in the hands of
collectors.
'00s Some rare systems probably already fetch some money on eBay, but most stuff is either free or cheap.
 
Im mainly looking for 70s-80s era computers. Any help with finding those would be really great. Also thanks a whole lot for the tips above :)
 
It sort of sounds like you don't really know what you are looking for. I would suggest reading through periodical archives to help find out what specifically interests you. Once you narrow it down, searching on places like eBay becomes easier as you can just search and focus on what you want. Of course, if something happens to fall in to your lap that is great.

There is an archive of byte magazines here: http://malus.exotica.org.uk/~buzz/byte/pdf/ and you can read older Infoworld on Google books: https://books.google.com/books/serial/ISSN:01996649?rview=1&lr=&sa=N&start=1080&hl=en (ug, it looks like google STILL has a bug in their navigation were you can't go back more than 1000 issues - to work around that you have to manually edit the start value in the URL)

Also, don't forget estate sales as a possible source.
 
One more tip, I'd recommend talking with people you've won auctions from.
I won a stack of magazines for $1 a few months back and came back with my station wagon loaded to the roof and a grumpy wife.
 
SpidersWeb said:
One more tip, I'd recommend talking with people you've won auctions from.
I won a stack of magazines for $1 a few months back and came back with my station wagon loaded to the roof and a grumpy wife.
Click to expand...

Haha! That sort of happened to me too. Incidentally ended up with a loaded down car and monitors on annoyed people's laps. Certainly have to be patient - I've lived in the Colorado Springs area for three years and always considered it a place difficult to find vintage computers in, til after three years I found a yard sale where someone was unloading their whole collection for a song and I grabbed several systems. However I did find that yard sale with craigslist, searching the "computers" section with no criteria but sorted by newest first, I looked every day or two. So I'd recommend that. Only takes a couple minutes to scan the listings of the day even if 99.5% of the time nothing is of interest there. And I second talking to the person - he gave me a Atari 520ST and TRS-80 for free just cause he didn't think they were worth anything at all!
 
They key to collecting is persistence and patience. You basically have to leave no stone unturned, and you have to be willing to be patient to find stuff.

I usually set very specific email alerts on CL, with very specific filters and key words, and same on ebay. I have also had a mild bit of luck at flea markets, but luck there is few and far in between. The amount of time you spend searching at flea markets vs what you get, almost makes it not worth it.

Again, the biggest asset you can have is patience. I've found much of what I was looking by being in the long term game. My latest find was a 286 to 486 upgrade chip, which always fascinated me as a kid, and I found after 10+ years of looking.

Not everything takes that long though, but I'm using that as an extreme example. When I first got into the collecting hobby, I had pretty good luck within a few months, I hit a motherlode of Amiga's from 2 difference sources. Multiple machines, which I kept what I wanted and sold duplicates, used that money to fund other expensive purchases of stuff I wanted.

The other virtue is doing your homework, knowing what you want specifically, and doing enough research to know what a good price is, as well is how to determine condition. On my first haul of Amiga's. I thought I hit it big, until I opened them up and found that 3 of the Amiga 2000's I had were completely dead due to battery leakage. Now, I make sure I know what i'm looking for and what the condition is before I offer to purchase.



Anyway, just my .02.
 
nesterhuffman11 said:
Hi everyone, I am a kid who lives in Napa
Click to expand...

Hello from Melbourne, Australia.. Can I assume the Napa you refer to is in Ca, USA ?

your saying you would like to get to retro computers of the period 70's to 80's but none around you.

So my comments and question in the hope they help you are.

1. Are you looking to only get into the retro for the software side of the that period machine or are you interested or willing to fiddle & work on the hardware side ?

2. can you give a brief indication of your electronics skill level ? Can you use a multimeter, can you solder ? and read circuit diagrams

3. what is your budget ?

4. there are such things as single board computers (SBC) from the period your interested in. These come up from time to time and if unboxed can be low cost is $10 to $120 and cheap $15 to $30 to ship around USA or for that matter the world. If they as most had, a serial port for connection to a terminal, then you an connect them to a modern pc with a serial port and use a Terminal program to explore the retro single board computer board. Ok you would likely need to add a power supply to this SBC, but most electronics outlets or like would have a supply to suit.


So here are a few pics of different single board computers for you to better understand this side of early computing.

1. Vintage Southern Cross Single board Z80 Computer Kit V1.21 sC1 currently on ebay out of the UK for US$129.

MKrQW24.jpg


2. Intel SDK-86 8086 Logic Trainer Single-Board Computer System
E6UrGrY.jpg


3. a book on subject of interfacing SBC for us$20
rCTP7uY.jpg


http://www.ebay.com/itm/INTERFACING...710802?hash=item2114318692:g:prMAAOSwARZXn6SV

4 KIM-1 Single Board Computer 1976 Manuals Included on ebay .. to dear for an untested system like it.
AyuXVDS.jpg


5 or you could go the route of a SBC back plane slightly later for like us$47 and mount it in a timber or metal box, and add psu, SBC card and go from there
typical backplane
AlzvDfo.jpg

typical SBC -- GES 9022-386SX PCA PCB SBC Single Board Computer
f0OBHDM.jpg


http://www.ebay.com/itm/PICMG-SBC-B...760941?hash=item463c4366ed:g:fbMAAMXQ01tRTd-j
 
Last edited:
inotarobot said:
Hello from Melbourne, Australia.. Can I assume the Napa you refer to is in Ca, USA ?

your saying you would like to get to retro computers of the period 70's to 80's but none around you.

So my comments and question in the hope they help you are.

1. Are you looking to only get into the retro for the software side of the that period machine or are you interested or willing to fiddle & work on the hardware side ?

2. can you give a brief indication of your electronics skill level ? Can you use a multimeter, can you solder ? and read circuit diagrams

3. what is your budget ?

4. there are such things as single board computers (SBC) from the period your interested in. These come up from time to time and if unboxed can be low cost is $10 to $120 and cheap $15 to $30 to ship around USA or for that matter the world. If they as most had, a serial port for connection to a terminal, then you an connect them to a modern pc with a serial port and use a Terminal program to explore the retro single board computer board. Ok you would likely need to add a power supply to this SBC, but most electronics outlets or like would have a supply to suit.


So here are a few pics of different single board computers for you to better understand this side of early computing.

1. Vintage Southern Cross Single board Z80 Computer Kit V1.21 sC1 currently on ebay out of the UK for US$129.

MKrQW24.jpg


2. Intel SDK-86 8086 Logic Trainer Single-Board Computer System
E6UrGrY.jpg


3. a book on subject of interfacing SBC for us$20
rCTP7uY.jpg


http://www.ebay.com/itm/INTERFACING...710802?hash=item2114318692:g:prMAAOSwARZXn6SV

4 KIM-1 Single Board Computer 1976 Manuals Included on ebay .. to dear for an untested system like it.
AyuXVDS.jpg


5 or you could go the route of a SBC back plane slightly later for like us$47 and mount it in a timber or metal box, and add psu, SBC card and go from there
typical backplane
AlzvDfo.jpg

typical SBC -- GES 9022-386SX PCA PCB SBC Single Board Computer
f0OBHDM.jpg


http://www.ebay.com/itm/PICMG-SBC-B...760941?hash=item463c4366ed:g:fbMAAMXQ01tRTd-j
Click to expand...

I am mainly in it for the software, but id like to also do some hardware based stuff as well.

My experience with electronics is mainly just soldering. Probably the hardest thing ive done in that department is backlighting and customizing a gameboy DMG, as well as building a gaming PC.

My budget is very low, i have an allowance of 18 bucks a week (10$ a week at my dads house, 8 a week at my moms)

Yes, im from Napa, CA

Also thanks for the info on those single board computers! Ill look into them.
 
Napa is listed as having a users group. Have you ever gone to it? User groups used to be a great place to pick up cast off systems. Won't get the high value vintage stuff but common place near vintage should show up frequently.
 
Basically you just have to decide what interests you the most you can look
at my signature below and see what I collect I have not add my Spectrum +2 or
my CPC464 I got interest in these with the brexit prices went down to were
I could afford them..
You also might want to see what little jobs you can pick up that will be a big
help...:D
 
krebizfan said:
Napa is listed as having a users group. Have you ever gone to it? User groups used to be a great place to pick up cast off systems. Won't get the high value vintage stuff but common place near vintage should show up frequently.
Click to expand...

That sounds great! But, how do I get there?
 
I am only 17 and I usually look on ebay. I also ask people I know if their business they work at has any computers the don't want. but I am into more of the hardware side of things.I have only been collecting for about 1 year and I have quite a few systems now from the 80's and 90's.
 
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