Massive Retro Haul!

[Huxley]

Okay, wow.

So, the other day, in my usual digging around on my local Craigslist pages, I found a guy up near Los Alamos, NM (about 2 hours north of Albuquerque, where I currently live) who'd posted about a batch of old computer stuff he had to sell - he was asking $25, but since I was willing to drive up, he was happy to just give it all to me for free.

Here's my very rough estimate of the contents of the 4 very large plastic bins I took from his front porch:

Apple IIgs with what appears to be a color monitor (10"?), 5.25 and 3.5" disk drives, keyboard and mouse - this just 2 days after I won a local auction for a IIgs! Arrgh, what timing!

Commodore VIC-20 (no power brick)

Commodore 128 (no power brick) - it's amazing - I brought this home on the same day I got out bidded on a C128 setup on eBay!

Tandy 486 system of unknown specs, with a Tandy-brand dot matrix printer

IBM PS/2 system of unknown specs

IBM PC Convertible with several add-on units (serial, parallel, printer, video) - no power brick

Atari 600XL - no power brick

Atari 1040ST - I think this one has a power brick, but I'll have to check

Mac Performa 6200CD

A pile of SUN-brand hard metal mouse pads

A huge mess of cables - serial, parallel, SCSI, who knows what else, and a bunch of odd networking cables and ethernet transceiver boxes

A huge batch of keyboards - some SUN, IBM, Apple, generic, and a few that I don't have any clue about yet

A collection from what appears at first glance to be some early 90's era HP server system - I've got a HUGE mainboard, a bunch of expansion cards with some type of edge connector I don't recognize at all yet (one of them seems to have a pair of 166mHz Pentium chips on it)

A TRS-80 Modem II - this thing looks bad-ass, with a bunch of 70's style metal flip-switches!

Wow, okay, that's it for know - I've got the day off tomorrow, so I'm going to start playing and digging some more - there's bound to be more cool stuff in there!

Whew.

Huxley

PS I just snapped a few pics of all this stuff laid out on my garage floor - here's the link: Click me!

 

[funkytoad]

Wow!

Thats Amazing!

Way to go!

 

[TheNeil]

 

[jkoci]

Wow. Nice slice of computing history.

 

[coius]

Couldn't have done better myself.

I am a MAJOR luddite Buff. I *LOVE* old technology, especially when how incredibly simple they are, and how they can do a LOT that modern computers can do (in fundamentals). The fun things I like to play with are the DDC Controller's that honeywell uses. Anyone up for a 4Mhz 68000 CPU and 64KB ram?

The DDC also has a version that uses the PPC 601e CPU (yes, they made them, but they are industry components, not computer) And they had a whopping 96KB Ram!!! talk about luxury!!!

if you don't know what a DDC Controller for Honeywell is, they are programmed for Temperature Controll in Large Buildings. They can be used to control temperature within 3/10ths of a Degree at ANY Time. They also hook up in a network and are smart controllers. They use the HYNTP (Honeywell network technology Protocol) and are REALLY cool, because they work in a P2P system

Anyways, back to the technology, I had a TRS-80 Model 100 Portable that was REALLY cool

Everything ran on 4 AA's

the Floppy ran on 4 AA's, the computer ran on 4 AA's, the tape drive, and even the Phone Coupler!!! (well, ok, it ran on 4 D batteries, but still!)

But like I said, *VERY* nice haul if I might say. have fun playing with your newly acquired Wealth!!!

 

[Unknown_K]

If you have extra of those aluminum sun mousepads let me know, could use one.

 

[MultiFinder]

NICE!

Oh, and if one of those 3.5" floppy drives is an 800k, and you don't need it, drop me a line

 

[Sludgedragon]

since I was willing to drive up, he was happy to just give it all to me for free.

I'm sure you made him very happy knowing his stuff would be going to a good home where they would be appreciated!

 

[Huxley]

since I was willing to drive up, he was happy to just give it all to me for free.

I'm sure you made him very happy knowing his stuff would be going to a good home where they would be appreciated!

I think so - his original email to me lamented that there's no place to recycle old computer stuff in northern New Mexico (other than my garage, that is...).

I'm having a blast playing with the IIGS - I've gotten it up-and-running, and after many hours spent tinkering, I've got my MacBook Pro happily sending Apple II disk images over via ADTPro! Too cool, huh?

Huxley