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What's the rarest thing you have/had? How much is it worth?

Re: What's the rarest thing you have/had? How much is it wor

Re: What's the rarest thing you have/had? How much is it wor

agrajag said:
Hi all.


1) What do/did you have that is rare/worth a lot?
2) Where did you get it from
3) How much did it cost you.
4) What item would you love to add to your collection.


Ok...Love to hear from all of ya's!
Click to expand...

1- Rare? A couple of things...an old Commodore Calculator(which is STILL new in the box)...I took it out of the box twice, once to make sure it functioned, and more recently, to take pictures of it. I paid a whopping $5 for it at the Trenton, NJ computer show about 7-8 years ago(I forget exactly, but it was the last year they held it at Mercer County Community College).
I also have a rare Amiga 500 Rev 8 motherboard...it was the last modification of the A500, and never actually shipped in the form of a system(IIRC). I purchased it from an Amiga dealer in NY, whom I met(and my friend had known for a while) at the Dayton, OH computer show. That cost me $75.

Are they valuable? I don't know. They are to me, and I have no intention of selling them anytime soon.
 
Yeah !
Finally got quote to work.
agrajag wrote:
  1. What do/did you have that is rare/worth a lot?
  2. Where did you get it from
  3. How much did it cost you.
  4. What item would you love to add to your collection.
Click to expand...
  1. Dr. Who game for PC. Never seen another one on eBay. To me, it's beyond priceless. I think I'd rather get run over by a Buick( and yes, I know what that feels like) than part with it.
  2. England
  3. About 8 quid, at the time
  4. Well, If there are any more Dr. Who games, the answer is obvious, barring that, I'd like some S100 stuff, mainly so I can play around with it. I know it pops up on eBay, but they're really colector prices, not "I want to muck around with it" prices

patscc.
 
1) Our rarest machine is a Four-PhaseSystems IV/90. That I know of there are only about 5 in the world. I would love to find out there are more. Out web page has a thumbnail that will show you a large picture of this machine.

We also have a Basic IV piece that is built in a wooden box! It may be just a dumb terminal. I have not dived into it yet.

2) It was given to me by an ex-Four Phase employee.

3) Only the gas to go get it.

4) Anything small. We right now have as much as we can hold - space is at a premium here.
 
Pertec PCC-2000?

Pertec PCC-2000?

- I don't know how many were made, but this was supposed to be the successor to the 8080 after Pertec bought Altair (going from memory here, someone please correct if I got something wrong). Pretty big and heavy - I'm going to have to find a new home for it soon to reclaim some space! Now if I can only find the manual and software I had to go with it...

Other rare/unusual items I've collected:

- Apple IIe with the IIgs upgrade. This is rare mostly because the cost of upgrading one's IIe to a IIgs cost nearly as much as just buying a IIgs system unit, so not too many actually sold. Anyone know the numbers?

- HP-86 computer/calculator (monitor sits on top of a system unit)

- Olivetti M-10, essentially a clone of the Tandy Model 100/102

- Woz IIgs with the Transwarp GS and SCSI cards

- Mac 128K (and one that was upgraded to a 512K)

- Set of Apple IIe sales cassette tapes

- Apple IIe with the French-Canadian keyboard (still have a couple)

- Atari 2400 video game console. Looks just like a 2600, but the box says '2400' on it...!

- sold off my Commodore SuperPet SP9000 not long ago with the dual floppies. I think they used LEAD for the case on that thing! ;-)

that's all I can think of right now. Quite a bit of this I got from garage sales, thrift stores, and some from a school board that was throwing out stuff the schools didn't want anymore. I wish I could've saved it all!

Bart
 
Re: Pertec PCC-2000?

Re: Pertec PCC-2000?

The PCC-2000 was Pertec's "Business System" that was supposed to carry the company into the next generation of computers, after they acquired MITS and ICOM. So they killed the Altairs. The 2000s had their problems, and were never too popular- other manufacturers had siezed the lead by then. Although they could run CP/M, they were usually issued with MITS/Altair/Microsoft 300-5 BASIC, along with the accounting programs that were eventually to to become known as Peachtree Software ("ASDC" software at the time).

If I recall correctly, they used the 8085 CPU (essentially, a souped up 8080), had 64K RAM, and dual 8" floppies.

You're right- they're probably pretty rare. Mainly because nobody wanted one of the things. Since MITS closed down in the late '70s, I've seen lots of Altairs, but only one PCC-2000.

Alltare


barto said:
- I don't know how many were made, but this was supposed to be the successor to the 8080 after Pertec bought Altair (going from memory here, someone please correct if I got something wrong). Pretty big and heavy - I'm going to have to find a new home for it soon to reclaim some space! Now if I can only find the manual and software I had to go with it...

Bart
Click to expand...
 
Re: Pertec PCC-2000?

Re: Pertec PCC-2000?

alltare said:
The PCC-2000 was Pertec's "Business System" that was supposed to carry the company into the next generation of computers, after they acquired MITS and ICOM. So they killed the Altairs. The 2000s had their problems, and were never too popular- other manufacturers had siezed the lead by then. Although they could run CP/M, they were usually issued with MITS/Altair/Microsoft 300-5 BASIC, along with the accounting programs that were eventually to to become known as Peachtree Software ("ASDC" software at the time).

If I recall correctly, they used the 8085 CPU (essentially, a souped up 8080), had 64K RAM, and dual 8" floppies.
Click to expand...
I never checked on the CPU (or the RAM), but the dual 8" floppies really jump out at you... ;)

Thanks for the extra info - that all sounds right. Too bad I couldn't remember it myself!
You're right- they're probably pretty rare. Mainly because nobody wanted one of the things. Since MITS closed down in the late '70s, I've seen lots of Altairs, but only one PCC-2000.

Alltare
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's why I thought it was rare. I'm more than a little curious as to how *valuable* it is, though...more than an Altair since there are so few of them around?

Thanks again for the reply.

Bart
 
Unfortunately, a thing like that's "value" is often determined not by it's rarity, but by how well-known it is, and how popular among collectors. Sometimes, it's hard to get a good price for something that is truly rare because not enough people are familliar enough with it to drive up the demand for it (& the price).

--T
 
some old rare cpus from the early 70's that were equvelent to a 286

a 32bit procesor cpu card for the heathkit h89 it has 2 gold cpus on one white chip peace
h10
h11
has all manuals for these and has software and paper stips still!! last check all in workking order


the cpu card herit gorden mines paid like 10,000$ for it when it was new my dad got it for free when the mine closed along with bunch of other computer parts manuals and old tubes and tools

i personly have some 1.53 gb drives from 1987 not sure w type they were since they take scusi cable and another smaller cable paid 10$ for 2 of them and has a 700 mb drive from 86 paid 5 4 for it all in the same day back when a 1 -5 gig used drive was 80$ lol. not to metion all the energy it too to cary the dam things home they must weighed 10-20 lbs each lol good thing it was just a stoll cuple block away from home over the tracks
lol
 
Rarest? Probably my BeBox dual 133. Around 800 produced.

Favorite? My NeXT Turbo Dimension Cube.

Next Favorite? My eight Sgi Indigo's or my Indy

Least Favorite? Xerox 6060

First in my collection was my Tandy 1000HD, but it was new from the Radio Shack computer center when I bought it in 1984.
 
For me it has to be my two GEM desktop IBM Compatibles. Sure they're only white box clones, but the cases and much of the hardware in those models ends up being very non-standard and nifty. They may not be that valuable to others, but they are to me, they do my work as well as form a portion of my vintage PC collection, and that out-modded thing I have is one of them too, that was my first case mod.

As far as collectors value, I've never had anything all that valuable in money.
 
Mad-Mike said:
For me it has to be my two GEM desktop IBM Compatibles. Sure they're only white box clones, but the cases and much of the hardware in those models ends up being very non-standard and nifty. They may not be that valuable to others, but they are to me, they do my work as well as form a portion of my vintage PC collection, and that out-modded thing I have is one of them too, that was my first case mod.

As far as collectors value, I've never had anything all that valuable in money.
Click to expand...

I used Gem 1.2 on my Tandy 1000's in the mid-80's. My wife at the time was not too bright for a college grad and could never remember the DOS commands to navigate between directories and to start apps. Gem was a life saver for me in keeping her off my back.
 
BeBox

BeBox

I used to have a 200mhz BeBox.

Nope, those were never sold. I only
know of two of them in existence.

Do I wish I kept it? yep ;)

Rarest? Probably my BeBox dual 133. Around 800 produced.
Click to expand...
 
I've been collecting commodore goodies for many years now so i have quite a collection of C= things.
But the rarest i have must be the C65.
There are only prototypes of this machine, they were never officially released.
The C65 is popular among collectors, so it's worth quite some money too.
Not that i'm planning to sell it :wink:
 
1) What do/did you have that is rare/worth a lot?
- Not really that rare, but a pain to keep at home. Cray Y-MP EL98

2) Where did you get it from
- Ebay

3) How much did it cost you.
- $750 which is .1% of it's original price

4) What item would you love to add to your collection.
- A Cray 1, 2, X-MP or Y-MP(full size)
 
Billions and Billions....

Billions and Billions....

Big house, huge basement, tons of junk. Some of the major stuff I've collected in the 30+ years I've been programming:

Two IMSAI's complete with dual double-density 8-inch drives, 64K RAM, and (later) additions of 5.25 and 3.5 inch drives. 4Mhz Z-80 in both. Both boot and run CP/M 2.2, Wordstar, MBASIC, Tiny-C, ZORK, etc.

Altair 8800 with Altair 8 inch hard-sector disk drive, 64K RAM, Serial I/O, Parallel I/O, all original MITS boards, 2Mhz 8080 (in the process of being restored)

The original 128K Mac with carry case, external 3.5 inch floppy, Imagewriter-I, and (only one I've ever seen) - a Micron Eye digital camera that used something called "optical RAM". Tons of software such as Smoothtalker, music programs, games, etc. Boots into Finder 1.0 and runs perfectly.

O'Dell word processor - a 12 inch CRT and dual 8-inch floppies running multibus boards and an 8085 processor. Boots and runs CP/M 2.2. Only one I've ever heard of.

The only working Genrad Futuredata I've ever seen or heard of. Used to develop software/firmware for virtually any 8-bit CPU, this one was used in the late 70's early 80's to develop firmware for Z-80 based multibus boards. Dual 8-inch floppies. Complete with OS, editor, compiler, linker, and debugger. Boots and runs fine. I have a second unit that lacks only
memory.

Original IBM-PC with 5.25 inch floppy, original IBM keyboard and monitor.
Boots and runs PC DOS fine.

Cromemco S-100 Z-80 based CP/M turnkey system. Boots and runs.

Via Video S-100 based Cromix system. Future restoration project.

Masscomp 68010-based Unix box. Boots and runs Masscomps Real Time Unix. Used in the development of the US Patent Office backfile scanning system.

TRS-80 Model I with 16K RAM. Powers up and runs Basic.

TRS-80 Pocket Computer with 16K RAM and attached miniature 4-color pen plotter. Runs BASIC. Still works!

Morrow Z-80 based portable computer with dual double-density 5.25 floppies and built-in amber monitor. Boots and Runs CP/M 2.2. Very nice CP\M machine.

Numerous Apple Macs of various vintage.

Numerous old S-100 cards by IMSAI, MITS, SD-Sales, Solid State Music (nice RAM cards), Cromemco, others.

I also collect and restore old keyboard instruments such as pipe organs, pump organs, and player pianos, but that's another story :)
 
I have the original prototype TRS-80 Model 4, with original blue prints. This was the test model submitted to Tandy before being put into production. The unit has no FCC sticker, and does not have the port map, or S/N. THe keyboard is all white. there is only one of these, eh?
 
billdeg said:
I have the original prototype TRS-80 Model 4, with original blue prints. This was the test model submitted to Tandy before being put into production. The unit has no FCC sticker, and does not have the port map, or S/N. THe keyboard is all white. there is only one of these, eh?
Click to expand...

Wow is the right word, think you can post a picture of it? without infringing any NDA documents or copyrights of course :)....I'm MORE than curious to get a glimpse of it :).
 
Pics of Prototype TRS 80 Model 4 vs. Standard Model 4

Pics of Prototype TRS 80 Model 4 vs. Standard Model 4

I believe that the "prototype" was the final in-house pre-mass production model.

Here are some pics that I took and uploaded to my web site that compare and contrast the prototype with a standard version:

http://www.vintagecomputer.net/tandy/trs80_4/

Notes:
1) keyboards are different
2) underside is different
3) amber vs. grey monitor
4) I am guessing that the diskette drive 0 on the prototype was replaced some time after standard production had begun and is not an original part.
5) I have not opened the prototype or the standard, there are no pics available of the insides.
6) I fogot to take a picture of the blueprints. They are engineering diagrams of the model 4. pretty cool..

Speaking of rare and Tandy, here is something else you may find interesting from my collection- a working Exatron Stringy Floppy:

http://www.vintagecomputer.net/tandy/trs80_1/exatron_stringy_floppy/

and a Lobo MAX 80
http://www.vintagecomputer.net/tandy/trs80_1/lobo/
 
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