Some Older Computers
This is the IBM Pcjr. I bought it at a garage sale for ten
dollars complete with original manuals and monitor. It has 128k of
memory, a 5.25 floppy drive for 360k disks, basic on ROM, and will boot
with dos. The PCjr was introduced in 1983 and was intended to compete
with the computers that were flooding the home market. It was a dismal
failure. IBM discontinued it a couple of years later.
This is the IBM 5155 Portable Personal Computer. I bought
it at a garage sale for five dollars. This one was completely dead
when I brought home--someone had been playing 'tech'-- but with a few fresh
boards from my junk pile I had it working in no time at all. IBM
brought it out in 1984 and it didn't sell too well either. At thirty
pounds or so it was kind of heavy to lug around. It was discontinued
after a couple of years.
This is the IBM XT. The XT came out in 1983 and was used mostly
by business in those days. At seven or eight thousand dollars, it
attracted very few home buyers. I've bought quite a few of them at
junk shops for a few dollars apiece. They make great word processors
to give to young kids. This is the only one I have set up at the
moment and neither the keyboard or the monitor are IBMs. But I do
have the genuine ones. I also have a number of IBM PCs which first
came out about two years earlier. The PCs look the same from the
front but they have only five slots instead of eight and they have a cassette
port.
I bought this Commodore 64 at a garage sale for ten dollars.
It came with all sorts of stuff. External floppy drive, tons of software,
books, printer, even a huge box of printer paper. These machines
came out in 1982 and they sold millions of them. Some people still
use them. I have another Commodore--a Vic 20--but I haven't gotten
it to work yet. For five dollars it came with a big box of goodies.
The Radio Shack Color Computer or CoCo first came out in 1980.
I did have one of the earlier models but the one in the picture is the
CoCo 3 which I bought in 1986 or so when it came out. That is the
RGB monitor that came with it and there is also an external floppy drive
which is not shown.
This Apple IIc was given to me by the owner who was just about ready
to fling it. They first came out in 1984 and it has a built-in floppy drive
on the side. It is very light and was intended as a portable.
There was no monitor with this one so the monitor pictured is a Heathkit
which I built at some time in the early eighties.
This Macintosh Plus was also given to me. The lady who owned
it had just bought a new Pentium for her kids and didn't know what to do
with the old Mac. The Plus first came out in 1986, two years after
the original Macintosh, and was the first Macintosh with SCSI, using a
DB-25 connector at the back of the computer. This particular computer
has an external SCSI 20MB hard drive and the RAM has been upgraded to the
full 4MB. One day I hope to be able to add an original Macintosh
to my collection. It's on my wish list.
That just about takes care of my collection of 'antique' computers.
I have 286s, 386s, and 486s but they don't really belong in this group.
In fact the Macintosh Plus probably should not been included but I couldn't
resist rounding off my collection with the Mac. All these 'obsolete'
computers make good word processors and can do most of the things today's
computers do except at a much slower speed. People even surf the
net with some of these computers. For anyone who might be interested
I've included a several links which will take almost anywhere in this old
stuff. And if anyone cares to comment or offer advice I can be reached
at ksikola@muskoka.com
Obsolete
Computer Museum
Jim's Computer
Garage (museum) - The Collection
TRS-80
Color Computer Homepage