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My (puny) collection

Terry Yager

Veteran Member
Joined
May 1, 2003
Messages
8,763
Location
Saginaw, MI, USA 48601
Working from (fuzzy) memory, my collection is in storage in another location. At one time my collection numbered over a hundred machines and many other bits. Today I am down to just a handful of (mostly CP/M) machines:

Kaypro 1 (1985)
Kaypro II (1983)
Kaypro 2 (1984)
Kaypro 4 (1983)
Kaypro 10 (with SWP Co-Power 88 co-processor board to run MSDos) (1983)

California Computer Systems S-100 mainframe (with dual CCS 8" floppy) (1981)
Homebrew S-100 built into a toolbox (1977)
Assorted S-100 boards including SD Systems SBC-200 (1983)

Tandy 102 (1988)

Hewlett Packard 75C (1984)

Texas Instruments CC-40 (1983)

Nixdorf LK-3000 (1980)

Compaq Portable 286 (1985)

Visual Technology Commuter Computer (1984)

IBM ThinkPad 770E (1998)

Unified Controls Inc. portable 386DX-40 (with built-in VGA CRT) (1989)

That pretty much covers it, IIRC, but am hoping to add some more choice pieces in the near future. My friend and fellow collector is moving his collection to a smaller storage space and will be thinning it out so I should be able to add to my collection, as space permits.

--T
 
Yeah, my first computer was the Kaypro II an I have had a soft spot for them ever since. I think the main reason I still have them is that they do not seem to bring very good prices on eBay. I value them more than the eBay buyers, apparently. (I paid $125.00 US for the 10!) Right now they are costing me $35.00 a month to store them, so thier value is going up all the time.

--T
 
Do you happen to have any spare 8" floppy disks laying around? Hell, it doesn't even have to work, I'd just like to get my hands on one. No one in this area believes they ever existed.

And I know what ya mean about the older machines not fetching their value on EBay. Seems like the only times you see something go for a decent price, is when it's something *I* want. :lol: Of course, it goes way out of my range....
I swear, it's a conspiracy.
 
Kaptain Skitzo said:
Do you happen to have any spare 8" floppy disks laying around? Hell, it doesn't even have to work, I'd just like to get my hands on one. No one in this area believes they ever existed.

I've got at least a hundred or so 8" floppies for my various machines. Send me a PM with your mailing address and I'm sure I can find a junker to send off.

Kaptain Skitzo said:
And I know what ya mean about the older machines not fetching their value on EBay. Seems like the only times you see something go for a decent price, is when it's something *I* want. :lol: Of course, it goes way out of my range....
I swear, it's a conspiracy.

It does seem that way sometimes. Every once in a rare while I do find a good deal on eBay and it makes up for all of the missed opportunities and bad deals that I end up with.

Erik
 
Erik- the disk arrived yesterday....looks fantastic. Really flipped my fiance out. Thanks again! Any idea how much data those things held?

It was funny, she looked at it, said "I've never seen one of those before."
Then I held it in front of her tower, and pointed out "the disk drive that this fits in, is probably bigger than your computer. And that's just the DISK DRIVE."
 
Kaptain Skitzo said:
Erik- the disk arrived yesterday....looks fantastic. Really flipped my fiance out. Thanks again! Any idea how much data those things held?

You're welcome! I'm glad it arrived safely!

The capacity for 8" media varied from about 250K at the very low end to about 500K for a SS/SD format up past 2MB for a DS/DD.

Kaptain Skitzo said:
It was funny, she looked at it, said "I've never seen one of those before."
Then I held it in front of her tower, and pointed out "the disk drive that this fits in, is probably bigger than your computer. And that's just the DISK DRIVE."

The drives certainly outweigh a current PC as well. They are VERY heavy! I know because I've carried enough of them around. . . :)

Enjoy!

Erik
 
Heh! The other day, my g/f's son walked in the house and saw me playing around with some 5-1/4" floppies. He asked me, "Do you actually have any machines that use those big floppies?" I said, "Big? These are just mini-disks," as I walked into the bedroom. I came out with an 8" disk and told him "This is what is called a 'standard size' disk". I thought he was gonna have a seizure, he was laughing so hard...

--T
 
"Terry Yager" wrote:

> Heh! The other day, my g/f's son walked in the
> house and saw me playing around with some
> 5-1/4" floppies. He asked me, "Do you actually
> have any machines that use those big floppies?"
> I said, "Big? These are just mini-disks," as I
> walked into the bedroom. I came out with an 8"
> disk and told him "This is what is called a
> 'standard size' disk". I thought he was gonna
> have a seizure, he was laughing so hard...

How about one of those huge tape reels which you
may see a Mainframe computer using. I mean
in comparision to a disk, those can be quite big!

Perhaps it's time to show you girl friends(?) Son
how big, a computer system can get, at least it
might give him some insight into how BIG things
can get! :)

Cheers,
CP/M User.
 
Sometimes I consider myself fortunate that I didnt have to learn punchcards, sliderules, real to real tapes, and 8" floppy disks.

I am from the generation that could still do math with pencil and paper (ask a kid to try that today) but was fortunate enough to have programable calculaters and home computers.
 
"Unknown_K" wrote:

> Sometimes I consider myself fortunate that I
> didnt have to learn punchcards, sliderules, real
> to real tapes, and 8" floppy disks.

Sliderules?

I don't see what the difference from a 8" disk
would be from a 5.25"/3.5"/3" etc except for the
size. Though by the time I found out about them,
they were just something been sold in the local
office shop for $100 for a box of 10! ;-)

I guess the closest I came to punchcards was to
think like a punchcard when writing COBOL &
Fortran programs. Certainally it was the case of
creating some errors.

> I am from the generation that could still do
> math with pencil and paper (ask a kid to try
> that today) but was fortunate enough to have
> programable calculaters and home computers.

I had to do Pencil & Paper way too, but I was
terrible (particularly long multiplication &
subtracting bigger numbers over smaller!).
If it's Basic maths then I'm still okay I suppose.

'Ol trusty scientific calc is great for BASE-N
calculations (Dec -> Hex or Bin or Oct), even
though they did show me the Ol' fashion way!).

Cheers,
CP/M User.
 
Sliderules were used to make calculations (mostly engineers/architects) before digital calculators existed. I guess they are collectable, never seen one to see how they work.
 
Unknown_K said:
Sliderules were used to make calculations (mostly engineers/architects) before digital calculators existed. I guess they are collectable, never seen one to see how they work.

They work fine. I still have mine, maybe two of them.
 
"barryp" wrote:

>> Sliderules were used to make calculations
>> (mostly engineers/architects) before
>> digital calculators existed. I guess they are
>> collectable, never seen one to see how they
>> work.

> They work fine. I still have mine, maybe two
> of them.

No wonder I didn't know what Unknown_K was
on about, since he had me imagining a Sliderule
as some sort of recordable media, you just
wanted to play a little game of picking the odd
one out, didn't you?! :)

Cheers,
CP/M User.
 
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