Walkmac

[pinto_guy]

Thanks macdoogie. Anything you can find on the "mystery signal" topic would be great. 

By the way, I am in the process of refurbishing 2 (perhaps 3) more Walkmacs of this type, that we will be putting up for sale. Not sure at what price and under what format (Private sales, eBay, CL... ?). If anyone in this forum is interested, please PM me.

Also, in the collection of floppies, we found an HyperCard file promoting the Walkmac SE, successor to this Walkmac. We put a screen shot of navigating the demo in this youtube video. It's precious  :-D

 

[pinto_guy]

Sorry I put the wrong video link on my previous post, and I can't edit any longer. The right youtube video is here 

 

[PB145B]

That’s really cool! I think I remember reading about these years ago. As for the display, it’s definitely a plasma. The electroluminescent displays were a very bright yellow, while plasmas were always orange.

For example, the DynaMac used an electroluminescent display.

 

[pinto_guy]

Here is another system that I worked on in the last few days. It looks like perhaps a prototype to the commercial Walkmac. It is also based on a Plus, and features what looks like to same plasma display, although this screen is powered directly from the computing unit. It features similar removable FDD and HDD cartridges on the side. The HDD is a very compact Conner CP-340. They added an Adaptec adapter card for a reason that escapes me, since the 340 is supposed to have the SCSI interface. I could get everything going, except this modular HDD. The Adaptec card actually seems to draw a lot of power (chips get hot to the touch), and the system hangs upon booting from either the external HDD or the modular FDD when this Adaptec card is connected.



For the fun of it, here is what it looked like coming out of a 30+ years storage in Chuck Colby's attic.

 

[cheesestraws]

Beautiful work!

 

[ScutBoy]

Nice work!

 

[KnobsNSwitches]

Thanks for posting the 'before' pics. What a mess! Great job with a really unique bit of hardware

 

[pinto_guy]

One of my friend in crime found this old Infoworld article. So it does appear that this model was destined to be commercialized.

 

[olePigeon]

Oooo.  Additional screen?  Looking at the price for it, I wonder if they were planning to make a portable flat-screen external plasma display.  That would have been awesome!

 

[bibilit]

 I like the grille mesh around the plasma screen. 

Have one one of those hard drive enclosures as well. 

 

[pinto_guy]

Gents: I was able to fix all three of the 2nd generation Mac Plus Walkmacs that we had (see photo of the three brothers below). I sold one privately, and keeping one for myself. We have just listed the third one on eBay here FYI

 

[olePigeon]

Wow, those look gorgeous.  Is it me, or is the middle one a bit smaller than the other 2?

 

[pinto_guy]

No, same size. Probably an optical effect

 

[Jinnai]

Wow, super cool, thanks!

 

[pinto_guy]

And here are the two cousins after restoration. We'll put one up for auction on eBay soon.

 

[Mighty Jabba]

These are such fascinating machines. Love this thread. 

 

[pinto_guy]

If anyone interested, it's now on eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/193747790896

 

[JDW]

When did Mr. Colby pass away?  There is no detailed Wiki containing that information.  The video below, dated 2016, shows him alive at that time.

 

[pinto_guy]

Nobody is quite sure when he passed away, but we estimate it was about 2 years ago. Actually this week-end, we held a huge estate sale and disposed of all the remaining stuff from the 400 boxes that he left behind.

 

[JDW]

Since you are not privy to the date of his death, I take it you were hired by the family to liquidate his estate?