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Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment.

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Old 13th Feb 2016, 1:15 pm   #81
geoff_n
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

I had a Data General Eclipse at one time. It was the first computer to be connected to an optical telescope via a CCD camera. It had been to Kit Peak in Arizona and Moana Kia (spelling?) on Hawaii. It was a full 15" rack full plus the two tape drives in carrying frames and needed a full 15 amps (240volt)to get it all going. Eventually we found a home for it at the national museum of Scotland and it was a whole transit van full when we took it up to Edinburgh.
The colour graphics unit had it's own power supply as did the 70MB hard drive and there was also a HP colour terminal of the first type ever made. Glad to have been able to save it but was pleased to the space back.
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Old 13th Feb 2016, 4:12 pm   #82
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

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Originally Posted by geoff_n View Post
Eventually we found a home for it at the national museum of Scotland and it was a whole transit van full when we took it up to Edinburgh.
The National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh?

I took a ride up to Edinburgh on the newly re-opened section of the Waverley (railway) line a few months ago and that was my destination for the day, but unfortunately around half of it - including whatever science / technology / transport space it might normally have - was closed for re-arrangement.

I'm going to have to go back again if it's likely to have such interesting things in it. But then, I still haven't been down to see the major English computer museums either.
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Old 13th Feb 2016, 8:15 pm   #83
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

If you're in the train network around Edinburgh again, cross the Forth and have a look at the Museum of Communications. It's about 200m from Burntisland railway station, and it's the sort of museum where you also get shown round the storage areas. They're open Saturdays. It's the University of Edinburgh/Harry Matthews collection. I saw a minicomputer in a rack when I was last in It might have been DG or CDC.

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Old 13th Feb 2016, 8:48 pm   #84
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

To my shame, I've never heard of the museum of communications before now, so thanks for that info. Going off to look it up now.
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Old 13th Feb 2016, 10:16 pm   #85
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

Harry Matthews worked at the university of Edinburgh, and he wound up with some old equipment. Other people finding out about this asked if he would like... and it snowballed. It used to fill the rooms behind the entrance to the entrance at the Kings Buildings campus.

It grew too big and took up a lot of storage space as well. Eventually it had to move out and a disused cinema in Bo'ness became a temporary home. Harry died, but the helpers continued. The BBC donated the gear from the Queen Street studios in Glasgow. Eventually with fundraising and lottery funding, the collection bought its own premises, a not so old mariner's social club in Burntisland, just across the river from Edinburgh and with a direct rail link. The floors needed reinforcing!

Then an old lady in a very large house up in the Highlands died. Her brother had been very keen on wireless, and the family was very rich. He'd gathered all the parts and sets he'd wanted in the twenties and thirties, and then he went to war. He didn't come back. His family closed-up his rooms wth all his gear in them, and the garages with his cars. And that's how it stayed until about 10 years ago.

The radio gear, all in as-new condition, was donated to the Museum of Communications. One item that is remarkable was a brand new HRO which had arrived too late for him to use. It looks brand-new today.

The collection has wireline stuff, Crooke's telegraph, telephony (a working strowger demonstrator), radio, TV, Radar (Selex, nee Ferranti, usually loan them some of the gear from their foyer display at Crewe Toll) There's some computing stuff, though not a great deal, and there's a useable amateur radio shack.

They have a 50-seat lecture theatre, an exhibition space and the real joy are the jam-packed storage racks behind the exhibition space.

Heinz Wolff is the patron, and there is a good staff of volunteers. Phone first is good advice . Opening is normally Saturdays, plus whenever people are around or special openings for parties etc... somewhat negotiable.

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Old 14th Feb 2016, 10:17 pm   #86
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

The Data General went to the main store which is full of the most incredible things, steam excavators and so on right up to quite modern electronics and it was back in the ninety's so it could well have ended up in the communications musuem when that was created.
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Old 24th Feb 2016, 2:23 am   #87
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

Well, I've still got my Epson HX-20, and it still works. Sort of?

I bought the machine way back when it first came out, late 1982 I think, on the basis of a detailed review in PCW mag. It was my first computer. Got me right into fairly serious programming. Next year, the TF-20 disk unit for the HX became available, and I got that - more 'strange', being in effect a computer in it's own right, a full CP/M computer but totally slaved to the HX (the TF booted from it's own floppy, loaded CP/M, and then a dumb terminal prog - at this point, you turned on the HX (connected via a single cable) and the two machines now detected each other, and the HX received an extension to BASIC from the TF). Now, the HX - OS = BASIC, could access various DISK functions from within BASIC, very neat, especially as the functions included direct sector read/write which allowed access to ALL parts of the disk.

Had a FORTH language ROM in my HX, finally got some FORTH code set up to allow the FORTH to access the TF-20 disks.

BUT - just recently, the connection between the HX and the TF has failed, they just will NOT connect. I suspect a solder joint on the HX connector socket, as it's been flexed a bit over the years - not least because my HX is now running off an external battery pack (4 @ 'A' batteries).

One day I'll get it all working again??

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Old 24th Feb 2016, 2:23 pm   #88
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

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I used to have a Compaq Portable 386 - a beautifully-built pre-laptop machine with a mono plasma display. The whole thing folded up into a package about the size and weight of a sewing machine, so was indeed portable, but was mains powered, so unusable on the move.
Checking the details today to refresh my memory, I was astonished to see that they sold new for $12 -14000! Needless to say, mine was second-hand.
I still have two of these, one working and one not. The working one has the optional ISA expansion module. We used them in field service, before the advent of laptops.

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Old 24th Feb 2016, 5:28 pm   #89
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

Re the Epson TF20 floppy drive.

I think that wins the award for the strangest floppy disk unit ever. There is actually a Z80 and 64K DRAM in there (and a 2K EPROM that is switched out after it boots). The operating system is similar to CP/M with the CCP replaced. The drives themselves are those Epson ones with voice coil (not stepper motor) head positioners, the head positioning system is almost a miniature version of that in the DEC RK05 (!).

I think you can download the schematics and service manual if the poster a couple of posts ago wants to repair his. Or contact me (PM or a thread here), I've repaired mine
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Old 24th Feb 2016, 6:22 pm   #90
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

I have a Brunswiga the same as this:
http://www.johnwolff.id.au/calculato...IMG_2294-5.jpg

I've never used it anger but still remember sitting a statistics exam at university and the room was filled with more modern versions of this machine. Multiplication and division involved multiple rotations of the crank handle and the machine would ring a bell when your result was displayed. The only problem was whether the bell you heard was your's or that of one of your neighours!

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Old 24th Feb 2016, 6:28 pm   #91
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

I also have one of these, but grey - which is a nice reminder of the ones I used at school.
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Old 24th Feb 2016, 7:35 pm   #92
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

Normally the bell on a mechanical calculator rings when the accululator changes sign (or sometimes only when it goes from +ve to -ve). So for doing long division (restoring method) you would subtract repeatedly until you heard the bell, then add once (the 'restore') and shift the carriage. And then repeat...

I have an officially modified Victor Comptometer with no carry parts and with solenoids over the keys. It was used as a printer in a data logging system. Seemed far too interesting to scrap, so it's on my shelf...
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Old 24th Feb 2016, 10:01 pm   #93
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

When I was a vacation student at the old STC Submarine Cables Lab at North Woolwich in 1968, the lab had a motor-driven mechanical calculator that I did occasionally get to use, but I don't remember the make. As well as add and subtract, it could multiply and divide, although these took longer. I remember that in division mode it would make a noise like the start of a steam train, presumably as the iterations got progressively shorter, and would gradually creep along bench due to the thump that happened every time a return action took place. Its use was accompanied by blue flashes from the motor commutator and a faint smell of ozone.
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Old 25th Feb 2016, 1:45 pm   #94
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

That's a very evocative description. I can just smell it now...

Now, does the smell of ozone take you straight back there?

(It takes me back to playing with model trains)
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Old 25th Feb 2016, 9:41 pm   #95
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

I remember one of the electro-mechanical calculators from university - if you tried to divide by zero it just went into an endless loop and you had to pull the mains plug.

Roger
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Old 24th Apr 2016, 5:14 pm   #96
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

The first machine I had was a paper punch tape writer/reader; I don't remember the make but would recognise it if I saw a picture - no luck with this so far on Google. It was entirely electromechanical with the punch tape unit about the same size a washing machine full of relays. The punch tape machine was connected with a thick cable to a full size desk containing an electric typewriter which acted as the human interface. There was a problem which caused the MSB to stick which I never successfully fixed but spent many happy hours dismantling and testing before I found a work around - I guess the fault is why I was given it as a geeky kid in the 70s. I think I still have some of the relays from the punch tape machine in an old catering margarine tub.
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Old 24th Apr 2016, 10:52 pm   #97
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

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I remember one of the electro-mechanical calculators from university - if you tried to divide by zero it just went into an endless loop and you had to pull the mains plug.

Roger
We also had one of those ,which came in handy for doing the month end reports on the Anglo Swedish cable stats. Likewise ,that was our favourite party trick- divide a number by zero and watch as it went mad.
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Old 26th Apr 2016, 9:27 am   #98
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

No as exotic as many in this thread, I still have a Yamaha CX5M that I bought new in 1985.

It was advertised as having MIDI, but Yamaha forgot to mention that the midi 'IN' wasn't in fact operative, so one had to use the non midi keyboard that came with it, not a great idea for a dedicated music computer

Still, I did win a Roland synth competition with it !
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Old 26th Apr 2016, 11:42 am   #99
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

Years the met office used to have a 12 bit processor in an automatic weather station, might have been an Intersil, can't quite remember.

They also had an analogue computer to process the data from a modified ww2 Cossor tracking radar used to follow radio sonde balloons.

I would not be surprised if they are still using them.
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Old 26th Apr 2016, 1:27 pm   #100
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Default Re: Strangest computer you have had?

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Years the met office used to have a 12 bit processor in an automatic weather station, might have been an Intersil, can't quite remember.
The Intersil 6100-series: basically a " |D|I|G|I|T|A|L| PDPn-a-chip".

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersil_6100_family

[I had more experience in embedded systems of the LSI11/02 chipset which was a PDP11-on-a-chip: somewhere I've still got a slew of documentation on how a LSI11/02 board - with a massive 64Kbytes of RAM - could be interfaced to a CAMAC crate]
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