Demography?

From: John Rollins <rexstout_at_ptld.uswest.net>
Date: Thu Mar 5 20:53:13 1998

>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.
Oh boy! Another chance to brag about my collection! :-)
I'm 17, I live in Portland, Oregon, I don't have a job(that should be fixed
soon, I need more computers but I don't have any money...), I might get a
'70 VW Beetle for my birthday, and I have around 25-30 computers, and most
of the time I can't remember them all. So here is a list:
 - IBM Series/1 minicomputer. 4956-K00 CPU, two 4959 expansion boxes, four
4967 hard drives, a 4963 hard drive, a 4964 8" floppy drive, a 4968 tape
drive and 4969 tape drive, three 4997 racks, two 4978 terminals, a box of
8" floppies and a huge pile of manuals. I'm in the middle of converting the
CPU to 110V, everything else is still wired for 220v. I plugged it into the
dryer outlet before taking it apart and it seemed to work, but I couldn't
get it to IPL.
 - Apple IIe with Color Monitor IIe(nice!), DuoDisk drive, and some Apple
joystick. Came in the original box with around 60 disks and a bunch of
manuals. Got it for free! In almost perfeect condition. Looks like it's
been sitting in a closet for a LONG time.
 - Apple IIgs ROM 03, AppleColor RGB monitor(but no cord), I haven't gone
to pick up the disk drive yet(I should, I got the computer in earyl
January), I got it for free at the PMUG swap meet.
 - Laser 128(Apple IIc cone, there was a thread a while back on this list
about the computer), I picked it up at a hamfest a few weeks ago for $5,
which included a VTech and IIc power supply, a zenith monitor, and a Apple
Monitor III. Only thing I don't like is the keyboard.
 - Apple Mac 512K, I have on I bought for $15, and one that I don't
remember where it's from.
 - Apple Mac SE, got it for $1 with 4/40, the hard drive died soon after,
and now has an 80MB drive that doesn't always spin up. A little bit of
burn-in, but not very noticeable. Screen brightness control doesn't work.
 - Apple Mac IIvx 12/80/CD, got it new just before Apple stopped making it
at the Computer City grand opening sale. Also got a 14" Apple monitor and
StyleWriter II printer.
 - Apple Mac LC II, got it in trade for a 19" rack and a 486, came with
4/40, now upgraded to 8/40(found some SIMM's I thought were 256K and they
ended up to be 2MB!!!), has a dead backup battery.
 - Apple PowerMac 6500/250 WOW! FAST! 250MHz PPC 603e chip, 48MB RAM, 3.7GB
hard drive, built-in Zip drive... $2500 brand new, got an Apple 15AV
monitor and MacOS 8 together for $8!!!!
 - Apple PowerBook Duo 270c 16/270 Nice little PowerBook. Has some wierd
problem that made the speaker go dead... Works fine when in a DuoDock.
 - Shugart 801 8" floppy drive with nothing to do... Got it for $6 with a
bunch of CP/M disks for an H/Z-89.
 - DEC VT-220 terminal, $2 at a hamfest, turned out to be a dead keyboard.
Jumpered past a dead fuse and it works fine now...
 - MicroTerm Ergo 301 Funny little terminal, seems to have a power supply
problem and maybe something else. VT-100 compatible, but I can't do
anythign until it gets fixed. $5 at a surplus store.
 - IBM 3191 3270-type terminal. Kinda useless without a mainframe... Got it
for free.
 - two leased-line 9600bps modems, virtually identical but from different
companies. Got them for free.
 - IBM 5150 An original PC! I like the cassette port. Has a 360k floppy and
25MB hard drive, 640K RAM. Also found a 5151 monitor later. Both were free.
 - IBM 5160 A PC-XT! 640k/25. More slots, but no cassette port :-(. Got it
free.
 - Leading Edge DC-2010E, another free 8088 640k/30. Even got an LE monitor
and keyboard! Did I mention all three of these 8088's came from the same
place?
 - Leading Technology XI, 386 computer I got free with a dead power supply.
Jumpered past a burnt off component and it worked fine. Various
configurations depending on what I wanted to do with it, I think it's water
damaged now so I guess I'll dry it out eventually and get it running again.
 - Compaq Deskpro 386S, 5/40 came with an IBM Token Ring card and all the
software. Guess where it was before it got to where I got it from!? The
Trailblazers basketball team! Yikes... I hate basketball!
 - Alcatel Terminatel. Hmm... Some wierd French data terminal I picked up
at a surplus store, I think for $10. Built in modem, cute little flip-down
AZERTY keyboard... Kinda useless, but it's fun to stare at...
 - Epson PX-8 CP/M laptop. Fun little thing, I got it for free. Has CP/M
and Wordstar in ROM. Kinda hard to use, and the battery doesn't seem to
hold a charge too well.
 - Zenith SupersPort 286 laptop. 640k/20. Heavy laptop! Weighs about 15lbs
with the battery. Turquoise backlight...
 - Apple LaserWriter Plus, upgraded from LaserWriter, got it for free, the
toner is almost gone. Works fine otherwise, even with a part or two broken
or missing...
 - IBM PS/2 Model 30-286 1/20, ISA bus. Got it free with a nice IBM
keyboard and monitor.
 - IBM PS/2 Model 50Z 2/60, MCA bus, got it free(and two more with no RAM
or disks)
 - IBM PS/2 Model 55sx 2/60, MCA bus, yet another free PS/2...
 - IBM PS/2 Model 80 2/70, MCA bus. I paid for this one, $50 with two
ethernet cards. Huge tower, and a full-height 5.25" ESDI hard drive.
 - Apollo DN3500, got it and a spare CPU in trade for a Z88, he got the
Apollo/HP stuff in trade for a huge PDP-11 system. Also got an IBM 8228
Token Ring MAU(I guess to go with the DomainRing network card)
 - TI-99/4A Funny little computer that's been around forever, my parents
got it when I was a baby and I sat around all day long pounding on the
keyboard :-) It's been exchanged for refurbished units probably a
half-dozen times. I could always set it up in maybe 5-10 minutes, and my
parents refused to even try saying it was too hard... What's so hard about
plugging in a power supply and hooking it up to an RF modulator hanging
from the back of a twenty year(back then it was only 10yo) old TV?
 - TI-83 calcualtor. OK, it's not exactly a computer. But it's close...
Similair in power to my Epson laptop. I've even heard talk of putting CP/M
on a TI calc. And I have seen at least one OS for it, and tons of games.
Well, that's all I can remember(or see on the taop layers of all the piles ;-).

-JR http://members.tripod.com/~jrollins/index.html - Computers
     http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Lair/1681/ - Star Trek
Received on Thu Mar 05 1998 - 20:53:13 GMT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Oct 10 2014 - 23:31:08 BST