I woke up to an email notice of a local estate sale, already open, with a "Commodore computer." That usually means a C64 and the Clowns cartridge, but the photos revealed an item of quite another level. I couldn't make it until the afternoon, and anything rare/ebayable is usually gone minutes after opening, but luck was with me today. We have:
- Commodore B128-80 computer, in-box
- Commodore 8050 IEEE floppy drive, in-box
- Commodore 4023 LQ dot-matrix printer, in-box
- CA (Computer Associates) monochrome display. This is an odd one; I thought they only made power strips and mainframe tape racks and such.
No manuals for anything. They were either lost somewhere in the house or these items were purchased non-retail with no docs.
The B128 is fairly rare in the US but was blown out at a discount in the late 80s by the famous Protecto Computer Direct in Barrington, IL. I'm betting that's where this one came from - in fact it could be the very "computer/drive/monitor/printer bundle" they advertised. It was just like Protecto to sub in a cheap 3rd-party monitor like this one.
So the original owner got a bargain. And as soon the old man discovered there was zero software for it, back in the box it went.
Update: I guess this is indeed the "Protecto Special." This reddit user found the same combo, albeit with a different no-name display.
- Commodore B128-80 computer, in-box
- Commodore 8050 IEEE floppy drive, in-box
- Commodore 4023 LQ dot-matrix printer, in-box
- CA (Computer Associates) monochrome display. This is an odd one; I thought they only made power strips and mainframe tape racks and such.
No manuals for anything. They were either lost somewhere in the house or these items were purchased non-retail with no docs.
The B128 is fairly rare in the US but was blown out at a discount in the late 80s by the famous Protecto Computer Direct in Barrington, IL. I'm betting that's where this one came from - in fact it could be the very "computer/drive/monitor/printer bundle" they advertised. It was just like Protecto to sub in a cheap 3rd-party monitor like this one.
So the original owner got a bargain. And as soon the old man discovered there was zero software for it, back in the box it went.
Update: I guess this is indeed the "Protecto Special." This reddit user found the same combo, albeit with a different no-name display.
