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Greeting from Minnesota

Joined
Dec 16, 2003
Messages
46
Location
Minnesota
I am a life long collector of all types of stuff including calculators and computers. My fascination with computers started in 1975 when I took a math teaching position that included teaching some programming. My classroom quickly grew into a miniature computer museum thanks to donations from parents working at Control Data and Univac. Our first computer lab was equipped in 1978 with 24 Apple II computers--we were the envy of the region! My, how times have changed.

I left teaching in 1982 to join MECC as a software designer. We produced software for K -12 Schools and did titles like The Oregon Trail, Munchers, Speedway Math, TesselMania, and Storybook Weaver. One of the nice benefits of working for MECC was there was a huge storeroom of computers including prototypes and early production models from companies like Apple and IBM. Several of these now reside in my garage along with lots of the documentation. It will provide me with many hours of sorting and tinkering around once I retire!

One of my more interesting encounters while working at MECC was a visit from Steve Jobs in 1982. He told his "Apple 1" story and I immediately started my search for one of my own. He was not very cordial when I asked where to look, but a guy with him (Mike Murray) gave me a lead and it resulted in purchasing an Apple 1 (serial no. 01-0005). I eventually parted ways with my Apple 1 when Jean Louie Gasse of Apple approached me to buy it. He wanted to trade me a Macintosh with a laser printer for it. I said no. I wanted to buy a new van and eventually Apple paid the price. So...Woz sold his van to finance the Apple 1--and I sold my Apple 1 to finance my van. Worked out pretty well. I have had 2 other Apple 1 computers since. One now lives in California and other hangs on the wall of my old boss.

I probably have 100+ micros in my garage--lots of Apple II's, Radio Shacks, Commodores, Ataris, Acorns, PCs, Ohio Scientifics, single board experimenters types, and a few early S-100 systems. Also have collected several early calculators and slide rules. Some day I hope to do an inventory and take pictures to post on my web site. Here is link showing some pictures inside my garage:

http://www.solomonson.net/computer.pics/Garage.jpg

I have not done much with my computer collecting for several years, but am starting to get interested again. Joining a group like this might help inspire me!

I do have a couple computers that are not in my garage, but sit in my den. One is a very early Intel 8008 system that nobody seems to know much about. In addition to the CPU, it also includes an EPROM burner unit. I bought it, along with an Altair, from an engineer at an electronics swap meet in the late 1970's. Here are a couple photos. Let me know if you can shed any light on the Intel system.

http://www.solomonson.net/computer.pics/Intel.CPU.jpg

http://www.solomonson.net/computer.pics/Intel.Misc.jpg
http://www.solomonson.net/computer.pics/Intel.EPROM.jpg

http://www.solomonson.net/computers/Altair.jpg

I am looking forward to communicating with other collectors.

Craig Solomonson
Cambridge, Minnesota
 
Hello Craig and welcome to the VC Forum!

I envy you your garage and the collection it holds! I wish I had that space and some of those machines! Especially the Apple I. I doubt I'll ever be so lucky. . .

I'm sure you'll have a lot to share here.

Enjoy the forums!

Erik
 
thank you for Oregon Trail :mrgreen: i had it on Apple //e back in the day, now i just have the 68k Mac version... not as cool but still fun.

I would like everyone to know that i was the Number Munchers king of Oak Elementary School in memphis tennessee, back when our computer lab was all Apple ]['s and //e's. its since been converted to eMacs, IIRC. :)
 
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