Sam Ismail wrote:
>
> Ok, the weekend's not even over, and here's how I did:
>
> 101 Online - A neat little terminal with a 9" screen. The keyboard
> covers the screen and flips down with the push of a button. It has a
> built-in 4800bps modem. It was used to connect to some online service in
> California at some time or another. The whole thing is in this cute
> 10"x10"x10" package - $5
>
> Laser 50 with manuals - $4 (Hi Bill!)
>
> Commodore 64, Commodore 64C (two of 'em, one seems to be this weird clone
> since the plastic looks different from the other one and it has no
> markings), two 1541 drives, two Star NX-1000C dot matrix printers - All free
>
> Data General One (Model 2) laptop. Two questions: How did the model 2
> differ from the model 1? And I didn't get a power supply with this, but
> was told by a couple people all it requires is a special three-prong
> power cord. The receptacle is an oval with three conductors. Anyone
> know about this? - $15
>
> 2 Commodore 1541 drives, 2 Commodore 1571 drives - $8
> DEC Rainbow 100 with all the trimmings (extra cards, all software and
> manuals) - $10
> VIC-20 Modem - $1
> Commodore 64 user's guide, VIC-20 User's Guide - $1
>
> (the guy I bought this stuff from claims to have 7 PDP-11s and "several"
> PDP-8s that he's been hording. Needless to say I threatened him with
> great bodily harm if he didn't give me some. We agreed to meet to discuss
> the "free taking" of one of each system. He also has lots of other DEC
> stuff for sale and for give-away to those who would give it good homes. I
> will keep us posted on any late-breaking developments. He also said he
> has a Cyber hard drive unit which sounds like the size of a dishwasher as
> he described it. I think the model number was 690s or something. I know
> I'm way off. If anyone wants this its in California. Apparently he has
> tons of mostly DEC stuff he's been collecting from local colleges and
> universtities. Again, I'll keep us posted).
>
> And let's see, oh yeah, I'm not done!
>
> ZX-81 with manuals/power supply and...
> Victor 9000 and...
> IMSAI 8080!
> IMSAI MPU-A (Rev 4) 8080A CPU card
> IMSAI SIO (Rev 3) Serial card
> DCHayes Modem (I am assuming 300baud...S100!)
> Disk Jockey 2D/B 8" drive card (and some 8" drive...I forget the
> manufacturer)
> (4) Digital Research Company Memory Boards (I think each one is 16K)
> All manuals/schematics/notes plus some extra IMSAI fron panel overlays
>
> All this from the original owner for $100. What a bargain.
>
> Ok, this guy is cool. First of all, to you guys complaining that you
> never get anything good, here's the message I posted on my local forsale
> newsgroup which brought about this acquisition:
>
> ---BEGIN USENET MESSAGE---
>
> >From nnrp1.crl.com!dastar Fri Jun 13 18:41:15 1997
> Path: nnrp1.crl.com!dastar
> From: dastar_at_crl.com (Sam Ismail)
> Newsgroups: ba.market.computers
> Subject: WANT TO BUY YOUR OLD-ASSED COMPUTERS!
> Date: 11 Jun 1997 07:00:28 GMT
> Organization: Gigantor Industries, Ltd.
> Lines: 12
> Message-ID: <5nliec$b6s$1_at_nnrp1.crl.com>
> Reply-To: spam_at_spam.org (CHANGE THIS REPLY-TO FIELD IF YOU WANT ME TO GET YOUR MESSAGE)
> NNTP-Posting-Host: crl9.crl.com
> X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]
> Xref: nnrp1.crl.com ba.market.computers:90318
>
> I want your old microcomputers from the 70s and 80s. I do NOT want any
> common PC clone. I am looking mainly for stuff that doesn't exist in
> any way shape or form today. I am looking for rarer models, as I already
> own most of the more common micros of the early micro-revolution.
> Please e-mail me at dastar_at_crl.com with what you got and we can work out
> a deal. Thanks.
>
> ---END USENET MESSAGE---
>
> So this guy, Gary, responds and tells me he has an IMSAI 8080 and a Victor
> 9000 he wouldn't mind getting rid of. SCORE! So anyway, he used to be an
> attendee of the Homebrew Computer Club, which if you don't know was a
> bunch of hackers and geeks (including of course Jobs and Wozniak) who got
> together every week or month in (I believe) either Mountain View or
> Sunnyvale, to show off the computers they were building. Read Steven
> Levy's _Hackers_ for the complete (and very entertaining) story. He was
> telling me all these cool stories. One was about how a Lawrence Livermore
> National Lab employee made a bunch of paper-tape copies of Gates' BASIC
> when it first came out and brought them to a meeting of the HCC, claiming
> that on his way over, a box of stuff dropped from a bus, and when he went
> to go check it out he found all these weird paper tapes in it (40 or so)
> and that everyone was welcome to have them, whereby he began tossing them
> out into the audience. Gary of course got one of them, and invited me to
> look at and touch it under the condition that I didn't drool on it and
> muss it up. It was in perfect condition! The neatest thing about it is
> that it had "Z80 BASIC COPYRIGHT MICROSOFT" punched into it (that isn't
> the actual message, I've forgotten what it said already). He said the
> week after, Bill himself showed up and whined to the crowd, asking "How
> am I supposed to make any money off this if you guys are pirating my
> stuff?" I'm sure, in hindsight, Bill certainly doesn't mind the fact
> that the Microsoft BASIC standard created by the piracy of his original
> BASIC has made him a $32 billion man today.
>
> He went on to tell me the stories about how he built his IMSAI and applied
> fixes and patches for flaws in the design, and showed me the schematics
> and took me through some of the documentation. He's a really neat guy.
> We're going to be staying in touch. He's moving soon and he says when he
> cleans his garage out and figures what else he has he will probably let me
> have some of it, including his full run of Byte magazine starting from
> issue 4. He also has a CompuPro 8/16 that he wanted to hang onto, as well
> as a Heathkit H19 terminal that he built from the kit, but he says he
> might not want to take them with him.
>
> So anyway, that's what a day of tooling around the bay area got me. I also
> met Paul Coad at a parking lot sale and we ran into Doug Coward (you may
> have checked out his Web museum page, I forget the URL).
>
> It was a good day.
>
> Sam
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
>
> Sam
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Sam the DG1 series took a special brick supply. I have one at work (I
was private labeled at the Allen-Bradley T-45 programming terminal).
I'll measure the output and polarity and get back with you.
James L. Rice
Received on Sun Jun 15 1997 - 07:05:00 BST
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