rarest computers. was: RE: Xerox Alto Restoration + Emulation

From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk_at_yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Tue Aug 3 06:25:23 2004

On Mon, 2004-08-02 at 22:43, Tony Duell wrote:
> > Acorn System 5 (maybe 20 or so left worldwide?)
>
> I have one.

Yes, but you have one of everything :-)

Actually, IME ex-employees from the various hardware companies often
seem to have stuff hidden away in storage from their days with the
company, and have almost forgotten about it - as it's there just as a
memento of their time there, rather than something that they consider
collectable.

In other words, it's hard to give estimates on surviving numbers of what
were always uncommon machines, just because I get the impression there's
a lot that'll never see daylight again until they end up as landfill...

> > Torch Quad X (I don't know of any others left)
>
> I have one of those as well, missing a few trivial bits like the PSU
> output cable. I do haev the mainboard, PSU, drives, etc.

Any install media? That's one thing I don't have, so the machine's
shelved until I can work out a good way of being able to back the drive
up and restore it if needs be. I've actually got two QX's and a memory
expansion board, but one CPU board is duff.

> > Torch Triple X workstation (maybe 30 of those around?)
>
> I have a few, including one with a Quinring (5 slot VME expansion slice)
> on top.

The quinring's aren't common. The Torch Primagraphics workstation has
one, plus I think I have one spare which isn't attached to a machine. If
you ever need keyboards or mice, shout - I have around 15 of the
critters :-)

I've got 5 complete Triple X machines I think, plus a couple of spare
boards, plus a prototype Triple X. Again, I need a good way of dragging
the data off the drives on to modern media; once I've done that I'll
have spare machines that I can give to people.

> > RML 480Z metal-cased system
>
> And one of those _somewhere_...

I'm not sure how many ended up with the metal cases; a guesstimate would
be somewhere above 50 though. But then 380Z's were common as muck at one
time and all seem to have vanished too.

I found an RML advert in an old comp magazine at Bletchley of a pair of
cream 480Z's along with a *white* 380Z at the weekend. I'm assuming it
was a mock-up as I've never known of a white 380Z before.

cheers

Jules
Received on Tue Aug 03 2004 - 06:25:23 BST