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How many of your comps are older than you?

How many of your comps are older than you?

  • Total voters
    29
Another "none". I was born in '53, so, I predate everything but the sliderule, the abacus and some REALLY heavy iron.
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The UNIVAC-I came out in '51 but I don't know how many you'll find on EBay since they only ever sold 46 of them. You probably won't find any "new in box" old stock around either. With a floor space requirement of 943 sqft I guess you'd call it a floortop.
 
it still amazes me how many young, and i mean really young, people are into vintage computing.
 
One day there will be collectors owning computers older than their grandparents! We are not quite there yet, but may be in 10-15 years time. I assume the youngest person today with a teenage (12+) grandchild would be born around 1961, and that would be a stretch requiring two generations in a row to become a parent at the age of 18.
 
3.
I have a slide rule, a 1950's comptometer, and a 1930's Burroughs adding (and subtracting!) machine.
My Creed 7b's are WW2 vintage terminals, but not strictly computing.

Grandfather aged machines... I have a few models from 32+ years ago, apple ][, cromemco, the pdp-11/34 clone, adm3 terminal, and probably some of the S100 stuff.
wow it doesn't seem that old!
 
Erik? Your one of the elite collectors, how about you? I'm sure you have computers older than most of us here although I don't know if you have any heavy iron hanging around.
 
My XT is older than me by 2 years :). That's the only vintage computer I have (for now). I put it together to relive my childhood, haha (my parents threw out my 286 clone when I was 8 because I accidentally formatted the hard drive and they had no idea what to do). I probably should have found an AT, but that'll be my next project :).
 
Chuck(G) said:
I suppose there's always a possibility of finding an old ball-and-plate trajectory "computer".
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What if you use the designs from Charles Babbage, Georg and Edvard Scheutz to build your own diffential/calculation engine using materials of the 19th century? While it wouldn't be genuinely old, it would at least be a replica. Vince Briel, are you listening? :-D

Well, it says three calculation machines were built by father and son Scheutz, as well as later, further improved machines. I suppose chances are slim for a private collector to get something pre-1900, but one could always hope.
 
Holy crap. I think I know where 2 of those TR-20 machines are including a bunch of jumper blocks and cabling.

[EDIT: Actually after closely examining the pictures I have no doubt that there are 2 of these machines in Omaha right now. I'll have to go fetch them Monday.]
-Matt
 
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Not counting game consoles, none.

The oldest computer (for sure) is my Tandy 1000, that computer is only a year my junior.

My oldest game console is the Atari 2600 though, and that's only 2 years my senior.
 
Does an Abacus count?

Does an Abacus count?

As I am from the Paleolithic era(1954),my most vintage device is a vintage Chinese Abacus.(Over 80 yrs old)
(I messed up on the survey and marked the wrong spot!)
cgrape2
 
I would have to be along with the 'None' crowd.

I'm a bit younger than many of the other 'none' posters, but being born in 1976, there are still very few reasonably-sized computers that are even potential for my collection. (A Xerox Star or Altair 8080 being the only two that I actually desire.)

The Apple I was officially unveiled early in the month I was born, but wasn't actually available until after I was born; so even if I got one, it wouldn't count.
 
cgrape2 said:
As I am from the Paleolithic era(1954),my most vintage device is a vintage Chinese Abacus.(Over 80 yrs old)
(I messed up on the survey and marked the wrong spot!)
cgrape2
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Shouldn't that be Paleologic? :p The abacus is certainly a very good computing aid, especially in the hands of someone who has really learnt to use it. I've seen older people with an abacus and a regular modern calculator side by side - in fact, I've seen a calculator with abacus combination in one unit. I think it was by Sharp.

In the end, I believe that a computer should best be defined as something which incorporates stored instructions, and an abacus doesn't do that - although it incorporates concepts of memory and registers.
 
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