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Re: New (almost) aquisitions

PostPosted: Wed Aug 15, 2012 11:19 pm
by arjoll
Gibsaw wrote:heh.. and another one of those HP85's show up. (one of those was a bit of a headache for some people on here a while back. :) I'll be really interested to see if that goes.

All in time - I need to find my workbench and the floor of my workshop first so I have somewhere to slowly and methodically work on these things; standard stuff like replacing Rifa X2 caps and cleaning things! I hadn't checked for an 85 here but I see the thread you mean.

To fill in on this gear - it was stored in the back of an upstairs storage area in a laboratory, long forgotten. Part of their hot water supply is nearby, and while there's a little evidence of leakage (water stains on the particle board floor) it was nowhere near the computers. So it was in an airy, warm space so I'm hopeful dust is the only problem with the gear. I won't know until I start poking around and powering up though.

One remaining issue with be media - I'm hopefully there will be some 5.25" floppies for the Pet somewhere, and there is no problem with the IBM and Compaq, but the Amstrad and 85 are going to be 'fun' - one tape with the 85, still in the drive and no 3" floppies for the Amstrad. Wish I'd put a bit in for those ones on Trademe a couple of weeks ago!

Re: New (almost) aquisitions

PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 8:15 pm
by Carcenomy
Give me a yell dude. I just realized you're actually a local - I have a stash of Amstrad 3" disks if you want to grab some to test it.

Re: New (almost) aquisitions

PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 9:49 pm
by tezza
How are you going with those machines Andrew?

Re: New (almost) aquisitions

PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 10:03 pm
by arjoll
Carcenomy wrote:Give me a yell dude. I just realized you're actually a local - I have a stash of Amstrad 3" disks if you want to grab some to test it.

Yup, I'm local - in fact I probably met you a couple of times when I was a manager at a certain local IT company! I'll get in touch once I get the Amstrad running, not quite sure when that'll be though.

Re: New (almost) aquisitions

PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2012 10:05 pm
by arjoll
tezza wrote:How are you going with those machines Andrew?

Step one was tidying up the workshop enough to move the machines in - that's underway now, after lots of madness with work. It'll probably be another week or so before I get a chance to start sorting this stuff out.

Re: New (almost) aquisitions

PostPosted: Thu Oct 11, 2012 8:35 pm
by arjoll
Yay, I've just picked up a pile of CPC stuff including 3" disks from Trademe :)

Hope I wasn't bidding against anyone here.... is ajmck a member?

Wait - does this mean I should actually make an effort and start sorting through this stuff? :shock:

Re: New (almost) aquisitions

PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 5:55 pm
by caluser2000
Wouldn't worry too much about bidding against other forum members. I'd imagine we've all done it at some point. Anyway congrats.

Re: New (almost) aquisitions

PostPosted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 8:58 pm
by tezza
Yes, most people on this forum bid on bits and pieces on Trade Me. We're bound to compete for stuff occasionally. Usually they want to spend more than I do :D

Re: New (almost) aquisitions

PostPosted: Tue Oct 16, 2012 7:14 pm
by Carcenomy
arjoll wrote:Yay, I've just picked up a pile of CPC stuff including 3" disks from Trademe :)

Hope I wasn't bidding against anyone here.... is ajmck a member?

Wait - does this mean I should actually make an effort and start sorting through this stuff? :shock:


YEP! Buahaha! Sing out if you need a hand dude.

Re: New (almost) aquisitions

PostPosted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 4:25 pm
by arjoll
It's been quite a while, but I've been spending a bit of time over the last few days tidying up the workshop a little and finding my workbench again, so this afternoon I thought I'd have a quick look at some of the gear I picked up. There's a lot of work ahead of me, but today I had a first look at some of the gear and found:

CBM 8032 - makes a little sqwarking noise, no display. I've read these things don't like being left for 30+ years untouched, so it'll be a project for later.

CBM 8050 - missing a little plate holding it together, but otherwise looks unmolested. There's no real point looking at it until I get the 8032 operational.

HP 85 - has an 82903A 16K memory expansion and 82936A ROM drawer, containing 00085-15004 matrix ROM and 00085-15003 I/O ROM. The tape drive powers up, but no main power LED. That probably indicates a straightforward fault, such as a loose connector.

Amstrad CPC6128 - works, wrote a little for...next look printing some numbers, but I didn't have any software handy - it's all stored in my office. Nice to get some life though.

Apple //e - this is a non-enhanced PAL, chip date codes are all 83 so earlyish for NZ, and being non-enhanced confirms that. All of these computers came from a medical lab, and this one has origins in the public health system (based on asset stickers). Money would have been no object, and it has some interesting cards - obviously the obligatory Disk II and parallel printer cards (the latter labelled C.Itoh/NEC), but then it gets interesting.

There's a long card in the aux slot, a Titan Neptune. It's obviously an extended 80 column card, but has a lot of empty sockets so potentially more than a standard 128k - I'll do more research. A Computer Shop SERCOM-II is probably a serial card, and there's an interface card for a Houston Instruments HIPAD digitiser - would be nice if I had the actual digitiser!

More interesting is the Micro Works DS-65, which is a video digitiser. It is hard-wired to a box with three pots in it - these have been wired in where three skeleton presets sit on other pics I've seen - and a 3 pin header connected to two RCA sockets. A little research shows this computer was probably used for early computer analysis of radiography - see http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/27/4/549.full.pdf.

I will power up the Apple IIe once I've taken some photos to document what's there, and changed the x2 caps in the power supply.

IBM PC 5150 - this is a late 5150, with a 64-256k system board, and 83 date codes on the chips. Still five slots though. The cards are an IBM 1501483 XM Black & White/Parallel card (MDPA), IBM 6181682 XM floppy drive controller, a WD1002-WX2 controlling the hard drive and an Emulex card that I'm not sure of the function of. It has various markings including 375364 and PT1010218-A, "SMC (C) 1984," a small switch on the back and a ribbon cable connected to an IC socket near the keyboard and cassette connectors. I'd guess RAM, but not sure of the function of the ribbon cable and switch.

Obviously the half-height hard drive isn't original, but the power supply appears to be - it has a 63 watt one which is consistent with it being original. As with the Apple IIe, I'll wait until I have documented it and changed X2 caps before attempting to power it up.

So, I've got a lot of work left, but at least I have a better idea of what I have out there. I've still got to see what the condition of the Compaq LTE 486 laptop and C64C is like, and then some more recent acquisitions (a Z88, DEC Pentium laptop and a BBC Master Compact) - but at least I can see bits of my workshop!

Re: New (almost) aquisitions

PostPosted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 4:27 pm
by arjoll
Oh, for those interested - this is the workbench after tidying: https://twitter.com/arjoll/status/584263347933032449

And the random pile that's not allowed in the house before I started on it today: https://twitter.com/arjoll/status/584263772325294080

Re: New (almost) aquisitions

PostPosted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 10:33 pm
by tezza
Some nice machines there!

Re: New (almost) aquisitions

PostPosted: Wed Jun 10, 2015 3:38 am
by sidney
I second that!