It was thus said that the Great Seth J. Morabito once stated:
>
> I'm kind of curious as to the demography of the Classic Computer
> Mailing List. What are people's backgrounds, what are they doing now,
> and so forth.
I'm a 29 programming living on Lower Sheol (aka South Florida) currerntly
doing consulting work for one company (helping them with their Unix ports)
and partner in another company where I'm the project lead on GeoFind
(
http://www.geofind.com/ - a meta search engine for the Internet). I'm not
fond of Unix, but I'm less fond of Windows (so that's why I'm typing this up
on my new Linux box).
My collection just happened as opposed to me actively seeking it out.
My first computer was a Color Computer 2 with 16K and Color BASIC. I
upgraded it to 64K myself (I think I was 15 or 16 at the time, and it did
require a small hardware modification to the motherboard) and was forced by
RatShack to have them upgrade it to Extended Color BASIC. I eventually
ended up with one disk drive and a Tandy Daisy wheel printer for the thing,
and I still them (oh, and the Tech manual as well).
My second computer was an IBM PCjr when IBM was selling off the last of
them in 1987. I got mine from a friend's father who worked at IBM and it
came with 384K RAM, parallel port, joysticks, new keyboard and cable and as
an added bonus, the Technical Reference Manual. It was then that I made the
decision to buy (if possible) the tech manuals for any computer I get (if
possible).
My third computer was my first used computer - another Color Computer. I
don't recall why I bought it, just that I did. I think that was the start
of my collection really. My next computer was an Amiga 500 (new) and that's
the last new computer I've bought. The rest have been used.
I was always known as being a bit odd, and after awhile, I just started
accumulating computers. A Data General/1 here (from a previous employer who
no longer needed one), a dead Xerox there (right now making sure the carpet
stays down in the computer room), a uVAX 2000, two Tandy 6000s (and possibly
a third), two HP/Apollos Series 400 (yes, they are 400, I just checked 8-) a
few terminals, a C-64 and I hate to say this, but a stack of PCs and PC
monitors (bleh - forced to take them to get the DEC vt320 terminal).
On the wish list front, I'm not actively seeking out computers (as I have
in fact, run out of space), but I would like to:
Get the Xerox working, which I doubt I will any time soon.
Get a new drive for the uVAX 2000, as I suspect there's a
screw loose inside the drive that's rattling around. It'd be
nice if I could get a copy of VMS (with TCP/IP) with a developent
system (or Unix). Just how special are the drives and/or format
for the DEC systems? I have extra harddrives, but I'm wondering
if I can use them.
Get the OS for the HPs. This I'm working on.
Get the second Tandy 6000 back together and see if it still works.
It worked when I picked it up, but I'm not so sure after I
dropped it off (literally. Those suckers are heavy! If anyone
can send me just a T6k case, just the case, I'd be happy)
Make my own desks to fit the equipment here. I have the design,
it's viable (I talked it over with an architect friend of mine)
but I just need to get the time, money and materials.
So, that's about it for me.
-spc (Help! I'm drowning in silicon)
Received on Sun Mar 01 1998 - 16:10:34 GMT