I appreciate a lot of machines, but there isn't the time or the space to master them all so I keep a fairly small set of machines. My favorites are the PCjrs.
Think of a PCjr as a clone put out by IBM that just wasn't quite compatible enough. Lots of clones were more compatible with the PC than the PCjr was, but the PCjr had the magical 'IBM' letters on it. That made owning and living with a PCjr kind of interesting.
My Jrs range from unexpanded 128K models to monsters with SCSI adapters, bi-directional printer ports, clocks, hard drives and CD ROMs. Some have three floppies. It's quite a range of hardware.
Other machines in the collection are:
- PC AT upgraded to a 386, which serves as a 'big brother' to the Jr. All of the original parts to make it back into a 286 are still here, and I'm still running the Seagate ST225 hard drive that came original on the machine.
- An older PC with a BIOS date of 10/19/81. This makes it a 'PC1', and it's old enough were it doesn't count past 544K of memory and it doesn't scan the ROM areas for add-in cards.
- Timex Sinclar 1000. This is the Sinclair ZX81 clone. It was my first computer, and I really need to revisit it - it has a lot of potential, and I know almost nothing about it. Twenty years later, I'm finally ready for it.
- Spare parts for the PCs. I'm rediculously uptight about being able to keep these things running for years and years. Luckily most of the parts are easy to come by.
- Williams Defender arcade game. Yes, the real deal - in my basement. ;-) Runs a Motorola 6809.
I wouldn't mind having an Apple ][ or Apple ][+, but that would be require a parallel universe to spring up in the house. It's at least as complex/rich a machine as the Jr and would take a while to get back up to speed on it. C64s are in the same category.
In 20 years, is anybody going to brag about their Dell 8100 desktop?
Think of a PCjr as a clone put out by IBM that just wasn't quite compatible enough. Lots of clones were more compatible with the PC than the PCjr was, but the PCjr had the magical 'IBM' letters on it. That made owning and living with a PCjr kind of interesting.
My Jrs range from unexpanded 128K models to monsters with SCSI adapters, bi-directional printer ports, clocks, hard drives and CD ROMs. Some have three floppies. It's quite a range of hardware.
Other machines in the collection are:
- PC AT upgraded to a 386, which serves as a 'big brother' to the Jr. All of the original parts to make it back into a 286 are still here, and I'm still running the Seagate ST225 hard drive that came original on the machine.
- An older PC with a BIOS date of 10/19/81. This makes it a 'PC1', and it's old enough were it doesn't count past 544K of memory and it doesn't scan the ROM areas for add-in cards.
- Timex Sinclar 1000. This is the Sinclair ZX81 clone. It was my first computer, and I really need to revisit it - it has a lot of potential, and I know almost nothing about it. Twenty years later, I'm finally ready for it.
- Spare parts for the PCs. I'm rediculously uptight about being able to keep these things running for years and years. Luckily most of the parts are easy to come by.
- Williams Defender arcade game. Yes, the real deal - in my basement. ;-) Runs a Motorola 6809.
I wouldn't mind having an Apple ][ or Apple ][+, but that would be require a parallel universe to spring up in the house. It's at least as complex/rich a machine as the Jr and would take a while to get back up to speed on it. C64s are in the same category.
In 20 years, is anybody going to brag about their Dell 8100 desktop?