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(WAS: support how many systems...) NOW: Breakdown Support by Type

billdeg

Technician
Joined
Nov 18, 2003
Messages
3,885
Location
Landenberg, PA USA
Starting a new thread because I have a related but off-topic question.

First off, I was a little surprised to hear from those who answered that they listed so many "newer" systems in the x86 categories. Not sure if that's representative of this board in general...interesting. Indicates that there is a change in focus in this hobby here compared to 10 years ago. Maybe Apple people in particular just "have" and don't fix, I don't know :)

My mix of supported systems (powered on in the past two years and repairs attempted if necessary), by *time spent* not number of systems is listed below. The mean year of on-topic systems I have supported during this period is 1980 with a range 1959 to 1993. You can see it's pretty evenly split...

DEC - 10%
S-100 - 15%
CP/M (that are not S-100 or Tandy) - 5%
IBM PC Family and Clones (8086/286) - 12%
Newer x86 any make - 2%
Apple 7%
CBM / Amiga 20%
Tandy 15%
Atari 2%
Other micro 6%
Other non micro (that are not CP/M) 4%
Analog computers 2%
 
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Newer x86 any make - 10% (only 'cause my A3000 is dead)
DEC 0%
S-100 0%
CP/M 0%
IBM PC Family and Clones (PC/XT/AT) 0%
Apple 10%
CBM / Amiga 65%
Tandy 5%
Atari 0%
Other micro 5%
Electromechanical computers (relay based) 5%

This is total computer usage at home, not just "hobby usage". I did not include 'smartphone'.
 
DEC - Nil
S-100 - Nil
CP/M (that are not S-100 or Tandy) - Nil
IBM PC Family and Clones (8086/286) - 10%
Newer x86 any make Below 486 but above 286 - 40%
Newer x86 any make Above 486-20%
Apple-Nil
CBM / Amiga-5%
Tandy Nil
Atari-Nil
Acorn Risc machines 25%
Other non micro (that are not CP/M)-Nil
Analog computers-Nil
 
I didn't answer the first question, as I don't know how many I can support. I know how many I cannot support, as I have ~230 computers.
I've been concentrating on S-100, and will probably sell off the Apple, Commodore, and Tandy parts of my collection. As I was thinking
about this question and looking at what I have, it actually made me stop and wonder how I would get the time to do all the things I had hoped to do.
I mean what do I really need 8 Apple IIgs computers for, or Commodore 64's, or Tandy CoCo's?:blush:

DEC - 1%
S-100 - 30%
CP/M (that are not S-100 or Tandy) - 10%
IBM PC Family and Clones (8086/286) - 5%
Newer x86 any make - 10%
Apple 15%
CBM / Amiga 10%
Tandy 10%
Atari 0%
Other micro 8%
Other non micro (that are not CP/M) 1%
Analog computers 0%

Kipp
 
Edit: I did this wrong, list below is on population not time spent

DEC - 0% (unless my Digital 486 counts :p )
S-100 - 0% (sadly)
CP/M (that are not S-100 or Tandy) - 0% (sadly sold my only CP/M system)
IBM PC Family and Clones (8086/286) - 42%
Newer x86 any make - 40% (mostly because they're easily obtainable)
Apple 1%
CBM / Amiga 6%
Tandy 1%
Atari 0%
Other micro 9%
Other non micro (that are not CP/M) 0%
Analog computers 0%

Edit: for time spent, since I started recolllecting, it's been 60% 8088/286, 10% 386+, 10% CBM/Amiga, 5% Mac/Acorn, 5% UNIX (IBM RT + AIX 3B2-400). I grew up in the PC era, which is the primary reason for this. The secondary reason is I don't really have an affordable way to aquire older hardware to learn and maintain.


I'd love to be in some of the other categories, but PC's were my collection focus (it's what I grew up messing with) and I'm space / price limited. Locally some things like a DEC PDP8 - I've only ever seen once in my entire life and he wouldn't sell it.
 
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