• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

What are the top 10 rarest vintage computer bits you own?

Today I spent far too much money on something for my collection that is ultimately not really for my collection.

I bought an in box GCC HyperDrive kit. Yes, the overpriced one on eBay. The seller offered to warranty it for 30 days and offered it to me for 200 bucks and shipping - I took it.

I'm not sure how many boxed HyperDrive kits are still out there, and it pains me to say this but I will probably be separating just the MMI 112 hard disk drive from it to repair an even rarer drive I own, a prototype MMI 212.
I will probably keep the 112 and stick a Miniscribe in the box and sell it to someone else who actually has a 512k to put it into at deep discount.
 
famicomaster2 said:
I bought an in box GCC HyperDrive kit. Yes, the overpriced one on eBay. The seller offered to warranty it for 30 days and offered it to me for 200 bucks and shipping - I took it.
Click to expand...
Did it have any documentation? I didn't see any in the pictures. I have a couple of Hyperdrive systems. A complete kit would be pretty cool.
 
snuci said:
Did it have any documentation? I didn't see any in the pictures. I have a couple of Hyperdrive systems. A complete kit would be pretty cool.
Click to expand...
I don't know. I just want the MMI 112 drive for it's EPROM and for the collection. I don't own a Macintosh to which it could be installed.

I'd trade the set for the drive and some cash - or multiple drives, I'm not picky. Make me an offer if you're interested, it gets delivered on Friday.
 
famicomaster2 said:
I don't know. I just want the MMI 112 drive for it's EPROM and for the collection. I don't own a Macintosh to which it could be installed.

I'd trade the set for the drive and some cash - or multiple drives, I'm not picky. Make me an offer if you're interested, it gets delivered on Friday.
Click to expand...
That is the way to go. Then everyone wins. :)
 
I have a Mac 512K-no-e that in theory would be kind of cool to wedge a HyperDrive into, but only in theory, really. If I were going to get seriously into "old mac hacking" I'd probably rather have something like those Dove boardsets that added RAM and SCSI to essentially turn an original Mac into a pointlessly complicated Mac Plus specifically because it wouldn't tie me to needing to have a working MFM drive. :p
 
I have several vintage hard drives with unique patterns of 1's and 0's, that are found nowhere else in the world. One of a kind's. Super rare.

Ok fine... best I really have is a Sound Blaster 1.5. Only ever seen one ever come up for sale, and I snagged it. Probably is nowhere near as uncommon as I think it is. I installed the CMS chips on it.
 
Eudimorphodon said:
I have a Mac 512K-no-e that in theory would be kind of cool to wedge a HyperDrive into, but only in theory, really. If I were going to get seriously into "old mac hacking" I'd probably rather have something like those Dove boardsets that added RAM and SCSI to essentially turn an original Mac into a pointlessly complicated Mac Plus specifically because it wouldn't tie me to needing to have a working MFM drive. :p
Click to expand...
Fair enough, well I have absolutely no need for this kit and I have no interest in ever owning a Mac made before the SE, and I already have two SEs so this box will probably sit in my garage until someone inquires about it.

It did show up today, and unfortunately as suspected no paperwork. The rest appears to be there, but I have no idea what I'm looking at. I yanked the drive out of the bracket and it does appear to be working fine. I almost want to image the entire drive, but I don't have one of those fancy drive imagers from pdp8 or anything like that and don't really have interest in buying one. They cost an awful lot for a one time use.
 
In no particular order...

Panasonic JR-200u computer and accessories
Tomy Tutor
Commodore DPS-1101 daisy wheel printer
Typestore word processing system
X10 controller for Commodore 64
Euro Amiga 1200 (with £ instead of # on the 3 key)
DCTV for the Amiga computer
80-track hard sectored 5.25" drive (for my Heathkit H89)
TI-99 Peripheral Expansion Box
CSA Derringer 68030/882 accelerator for the A500/A2000, which supports 64MB RAM
 
I've seen a lot of great items in this thread and it looks like I will have to put together an improved wish list, after this. I (like so many of you) have a lot of computers and while some were hard to get, it was usually a matter of getting a better deal instead of them being completely unobtainable. One thing that I noticed in reading over the list is that some items are rare (no question), but some accommodation needs to be made for items that are rare because of their condition or local scarcity (less of an issue in a global economy, but still a common concern that you read about in the forums) and I'm thinking in some cases that has been overlooked.

For instance, there was mention of a Tandy 1110HD earlier that had a working HD. ALL of their hard drives have basically gone bad by now and if that poster has one of these, with an original HD that is still running, then I'm sorry, but that is by example, the definition of rare. Kind of like finding a 1997 Toyota Camry that's been well cared for and has 6K original miles on it.

I'm only going to list one item. If I am wrong about it being rare and these are found on every street corner, then would you be so kind as to point me to the address...?
Zenith CP150
open.jpg
...seriously, if there is decent store of information somewhere, or someone else has one (or several), I'd like to chat a bit.
 
Juror22 said:
I've seen a lot of great items in this thread and it looks like I will have to put together an improved wish list, after this. I (like so many of you) have a lot of computers and while some were hard to get, it was usually a matter of getting a better deal instead of them being completely unobtainable. One thing that I noticed in reading over the list is that some items are rare (no question), but some accommodation needs to be made for items that are rare because of their condition or local scarcity (less of an issue in a global economy, but still a common concern that you read about in the forums) and I'm thinking in some cases that has been overlooked.

For instance, there was mention of a Tandy 1110HD earlier that had a working HD. ALL of their hard drives have basically gone bad by now and if that poster has one of these, with an original HD that is still running, then I'm sorry, but that is by example, the definition of rare. Kind of like finding a 1997 Toyota Camry that's been well cared for and has 6K original miles on it.

I'm only going to list one item. If I am wrong about it being rare and these are found on every street corner, then would you be so kind as to point me to the address...?
Zenith CP150
View attachment 1269873
...seriously, if there is decent store of information somewhere, or someone else has one (or several), I'd like to chat a bit.
Click to expand...
Not even our local museum has one. And their collection is huge.
 
And if anyone's skeptical about the Tandy 1110HD with working hard drive, here's some pictures. I've finally reassembled it after replacing the clock battery and floppy drive belt.

IMG_20231217_150247_543.jpgIMG_20231217_150315_772.jpg
 
They’re Conner drives, right? Many of those have a little rubber bumper in them that turns sticky, taping over it can often fix dead drives. Nice looking unit. Are the drives proprietary in those?
 
3lectr1c said:
They’re Conner drives, right? Many of those have a little rubber bumper in them that turns sticky, taping over it can often fix dead drives. Nice looking unit. Are the drives proprietary in those?
Click to expand...

Yes, it's a Conner drive. I don't know if it's "proprietary" in that it's a special drive only for the 1110HD. But the 1110HD needs a 20MB XTA IDE drive - and nothing else works (as far as my research has shown so far).
 
I have a 1100FD, which I converted to Gotek (this isn't easy but that's another topic)
I really think the 1100 series doesn't get the love it deserves. However they are a nightmare to take apart. The fact it boots from DOS in ROM is a miracle, the deskmate that comes with it is still pretty useful and quite usable. The keyboard is great, the screen is acceptable.
 
3lectr1c said:
They’re Conner drives, right? Many of those have a little rubber bumper in them that turns sticky, taping over it can often fix dead drives. Nice looking unit. Are the drives proprietary in those?
Click to expand...
I love the screens on those - very readable for the time and your laptop's plastic is in very nice shape too. Those are the 20MB Conner drives that Tandy, Panasonic, GRID, et al used in the laptops of that era. There are a couple of threads in the forums that deal with attempting to replace them with an alternative (mostly CF/SSD), but since it wasn't a standard IDE interface, there was only one member that claimed to have found a solution and they never shared it, from what I read.
 
The rarest computers we have in the HomeComputerMuseum, in no particular order:
- Aesthedes 2 (working), only 7 remaining in the world as far as we know
- Holborn 7100 (the last one?)
- Holborn Prototype of the Holborn 6500 Prototype
- Acorn System 1 (working)
- Apple ][ rev 4
- a few silver label Commodore 64
- Golden Commodore C64
- Commodore VIC 1001
- Commodore MAX
- Amiga 3000UX
- ABC 1600 complete and almost working
- IBM 5100 and IBM 5110
- Amiga 4000 used for Titanic
- Amiga 2500 used by NASA
- IBM computer painted by Herman Brood
- Prototype CDi (multiple, including the prototype for the Philips CDi 180 and one of the two used for the prototype used to create the videochip)

It's slightly more than 10.. and I can think of a few more like Sega Pico, Sega Nomad, Nintendo DS Download Station, developer kits from Nintendo WII, Exidy Sorcerers (rare in US), IBM PCjr (rare in Europe), Tandy CoCo 3 (rare in Europe), Tandy TRS-80 Model 16 (rare in Europe), Sinclair ZX 80 (rare in US), Aquarius II and so on...
 
Things can also move from "common" to "rare" if you start collecting accessories. Expansion cards, bags, boxes, etc.

So you don't need to find yourself a computer that was maybe made in a thousand copies and is super expensive to get something rare in your collection. Sometimes either beeing lucky and finding an "in box" unit, an uncommon accessory, or simply collecting accessories and stuff about one of your favorite computers, for many years, leads to a "kit" of stuff that by itself is super rare. It's not uncommon to see empty boxes on ebay for example (there was just a Compaq SLT 386 box recently), you put a compaq in it, and you've got yourself something rare ( a compaq slt in its box.)
So this is what I'm trying to do, mostly due to space constraints, make the "kits" more and more complete, collect documentations, flyers, bags, original floppies, accessories, whatever, that goes aroung relatively common units.

All in all this is a hobby about stuff that was usually made in the million units, we have to live with this. If you want something unique, collect paintings :)
 
True. That happened with my Amiga CD32. Got it loose with only the PSU and the controller. After many, many years, it's now complete in box incl. all paper work, the game-bundle discs (all of them!) etc. Such a complete CD32 is very rare. Last one I saw on ebay sold for 2,000 bucks...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top