tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78093679294607570632024-03-06T02:32:42.871-06:00Silent700Occasional droppings related to old technology, media and hoarding issues.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger149125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-55268332248181363992018-05-23T23:14:00.000-05:002018-05-23T23:15:13.872-05:00VCF East 2018
I've finally made my first ambassadorial mission from the Midwest Neutral Zone to the Federation outpost of Wall Twp, New Jersey and attended the 13th Vintage Computer Festival East. Poor weather on Friday gave way to a perfect Sunday evening load-out, with a soft, creamy filling of diverse classic computers and meeting online friends in person for the first time.
The VCFed folks have a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-58956935885383406942017-08-13T21:28:00.001-05:002017-08-13T21:32:40.204-05:00One of the Holy Grails
Most of the sought-after classic computers can be had, somewhere, for the right price. But I've never wanted to pay that price, at least not from a dealer or in competition with a planet of bidders. Local finds are the best finds, and thanks to Craigslist's alerts system, I've finally captured one of the most iconic machines in the collecting hobby, the famed "Wargames computer".
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-92081945092574594392016-10-29T16:18:00.000-05:002016-10-29T16:21:52.570-05:00A Somewhat Rare Local Commodore Find
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, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-17691922304303833072014-12-17T00:09:00.001-06:002014-12-17T18:43:47.658-06:00Is This Something?
{tl;dr: I was given some old BBS session logs and I scanned them. Link in the third-to-last paragraph.}
People give me things. I've built reputations in certain circles as everything from hoarder to pack rat to collector to amateur historian and, I hope, someone who cares about history, even if the narrow section of it I ended up fascinated with is understood by few and of Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-60949633666595103912014-07-07T17:46:00.001-05:002014-07-07T17:50:51.205-05:00Sun-1 Board Inventory
Thanks to some very helpful people who have encountered these beasts before, I have learned much about the Sun-1 era chassis I wrote about in the last post. And yet, there is much to be learned. I will be posting all I know when I think I have learned all there is to know. In the meantime, I have inventoried the Multibus cards in the chassis and have charted them here and Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-2080282924040051822014-06-15T19:04:00.001-05:002014-06-16T10:41:24.094-05:00Leads: Always Follow Them
So I was dragging my feet, pushing things to the back burner and off the stove, getting-around-sometime to replying to an ad on Craigslist for some old UNIX posters. I eventually made the trip into the city and retrieved them. They will be photographed and scanned and hopefully reconstructed for sharing online. Another back-burner project for now.
As it often goes during a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-25474762834459187862014-03-24T01:55:00.006-05:002014-03-24T01:55:59.328-05:00And Some More Slides
This batch is not nearly as interesting as the last. Some time ago I acquired a box of random DEC slides. They were stowed away and forgotten until I dragged out my slide scanner for that last job. The scanner hadn't left my desk yet so I figured I'd take care of these, too.
They appear to be schematics, tables and diagrams meant to accompany some sort of training text. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-72281437334890864952014-02-15T22:08:00.002-06:002014-02-15T22:22:39.143-06:00Recovered Some Slides
I recently had the good fortune to attend a local estate sale which featured a great deal of telephone, switching and computer equipment. Although I was two days late for the "good stuff," I did come away with quite a few interesting items. Among these was a small box of slides:
When I spotted the box amongst a pile of scattered papers, I inspected one or two, saw telephones andUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-28003433362238478512014-01-29T00:05:00.003-06:002014-01-29T00:05:51.730-06:00A Script For When Your Duplexing Scanner is Broken
I do a lot of scanning. I've got a whole lot more to do. Efficiency is getting to be important. Starting years ago with a cheap flatbed and not a lot of disk (when my scans were terrible,) I've come some distance, owning a few decent scanners with high-speed ADFs and duplexing ability. But there's a thing about duplexers - they're often broken. Not just offline, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-21498917542016904142013-03-15T20:22:00.001-05:002013-03-15T20:22:50.435-05:00Another big haul - March 2013 edition
So I won an item on ebay for 1 cent and forgot about it, as did the seller. About three months later, he wrote and asked me to come get it, as well as "a few other things" he had in his garage. Well, I'm a fool for free stuff, so here's what I got.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-16017708183139154302012-12-16T14:10:00.004-06:002012-12-16T14:10:51.223-06:00That damned Google+ Picasa redirect
Hey Google - when I send someone a Picasa album or pic link, where do you think I want them to go? Answer: Not Google+
This can be fixed by adding a "noredirect=1" argument to the URL but placement matters:
This works:
https://picasaweb.google.com/102190732096693814506/DropBox?noredirect=1#5822348278420254786
This doesn't:
https://picasaweb.google.com/102190732096693814506/Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-42622504457173069622012-01-29T21:40:00.004-06:002012-01-29T23:44:36.402-06:00Lotsa BallsThe correct name, of course, is IBM Selectric Typing Element. I've got a good pile and finally got around to inventorying them.I was hoping there was a complete guide out there for IBM elements but I haven't found it (sounds like another project.) I did find some scans of a brochure from GP, who also made elements for the Selectric line. I compiled them into a PDF for the docs site.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-51740637185693678092011-12-18T23:54:00.003-06:002011-12-18T23:56:06.361-06:00Quick on the mouse-stickSaw the headline and had enough caffeine in me to jump into action and win the Internets:http://kimjongunlookingatthings.tumblr.comUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-30078824772298642552011-07-18T21:03:00.000-05:002011-07-18T21:04:19.533-05:00AHA-2940 Under Windows 7What's the most popular PC SCSI card of all time? 1541C? Maybe. Or it may be the AHA-2940 family. It's up there, anyhow. And what card did Microsoft (and Adaptec) drop support for in Windows 7? The AHA-2940. Fortunately, I found a workaround which appears to succeed:http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winserverfiles/thread/bf0bb207-3b5d-489d-be74-56031dfe4651Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-58749281909600381092011-04-24T19:38:00.004-05:002011-12-18T22:48:47.614-06:00Basement Electronics Lab of Dqqm, v.91bToday's upgrade is the home-made equipment rack. My first project involving my new table saw. No fingers were lost in this operation:From the bottom:- Micronta DVM- Tektronix 466 'scope- A pair of low-amperage, noisy PSUs (will be replacing as soon as I can pick out a decent one)- China-brand frequency detector- Micro-Seven PBX emulatorAnd in the front is a Heathkit analog/digital lab/trainer.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-68692926576915919832011-04-07T14:49:00.003-05:002011-04-07T14:54:38.533-05:00Google Books and MagazinesHere's an interesting note...Google Books has a whole lot of magazines up now. One of them is Info World. I've had it come up in a lot of searches for old tech products and the articles have been very helpful. If you browse their Info World selection, the furthest you can go back is 12/22/86:http://books.google.com/books/serial/ISSN:01996649?rview=1&lr=&sa=N&start=960However, most Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-81296510398865358432010-12-30T18:21:00.001-06:002010-12-30T18:21:42.101-06:00What is it?I uncovered this while sorting out all the Apple // stuff. It has no other port on it. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-90253436157103850262010-12-29T01:27:00.002-06:002010-12-29T01:39:13.349-06:00Wall of DEC (and Sun)VAXStations, VAXServers, DECStations, DECSystems, Sparcstations, Sun 3...we got it all.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-1975253780056319532010-12-28T22:52:00.003-06:002010-12-28T23:19:08.097-06:00Wall of CP/M13 Kaypros, an Osborne 1 (plastic) and a pair of Altos 580s (which ran MP/M, too.) Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-64680248687219475462010-12-18T00:05:00.000-06:002010-12-18T00:06:01.352-06:00Bag of Crap!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-27037575464002757812010-12-12T19:21:00.003-06:002010-12-12T19:31:48.627-06:00Operation: DefragIt's time to get the house in order. There's the basement, the garage, the office, the office closet. I want to stack like with like - a shelf of Kaypros, a shelf of DEC stuff, a shelf (or three) for Commodore. I'm not sure, short of inventorying everything (not going to happen until it's organized) and mapping it all out in Visio first, if this plan will work. So I will employ a more Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-73860638670010961362010-11-25T12:20:00.004-06:002010-11-25T21:04:40.980-06:00New Acquisition: Pravetz 82I've been looking for one of these for about a year now. I've got a contact (umm, eBay seller) in Bulgaria who qualifies as about 20% of the classiccmp scene over there. First he sent me a Pravetz 8M, a dual CPU machine that I exhibited at VCF-MW this year. But this is the beast I was after: the first of the Pravetz line, their clone of the Apple //+.The build quality is definitely a step Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-87087713772941789742010-10-29T12:15:00.002-05:002010-10-29T12:18:02.571-05:00SA600 UpdateBack on Monday I attacked the front door panel to the SA600 rack with some cleaner, some CLR and some naval jelly. Amazing stuff! I don't think I'll even repaint it now (since I'll never get the color matched right.) Have a look at the before-and-after.Next is getting that rear cable manager and side panels on.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-29388772050023881382010-10-24T22:07:00.003-05:002010-10-24T22:14:32.924-05:00A Random ProjectI'm keeping a gmail task list of projects I could be/should be working on, but the usual "decision paralysis" sets in once it grows larger than five or so items (I think it's up to about 20 now.) So I just chose one at random and spent a bit of time on it tonight: re-assembling the DEC SA600 rack I picked up last weekend in Madison, WI. It came with two RA90 (SDI interface, 1.2gb - in 1989!) Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7809367929460757063.post-68768272734586345242010-09-20T23:50:00.002-05:002010-09-20T23:53:06.221-05:00Kick Start This ThingI'd like to start posting here again. I'm thinking about blogging some tech projects. I'm surrounded my infinite things to work on, so it might provide some focus and motivation, not to mention some entertainment, to record my work. Now, what to do first.........Meanwhile, VCF-MW was a blast. I learned a few things about organizing a show and just how much stuff I can't do at the same time. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0