Hi from Auckland!

Introduce yourself. Tell people why you are interested in vintage computers and what (if anything) you've got.

Hi from Auckland!

Postby ajross on Wed Jan 23, 2013 4:33 pm

Hi everyone. I joined this board last week and I'm really pleased to see such a thriving little community of enthusiasts here. A little background on me, I came to NZ in 2010 from the UK. Over there I had a bit of a computer museum going, similar to tezza seems to have amounted here.

Unfortunately when it came time to move over, I didn't have a job to come to in NZ, nor a house (I stayed in a lodge home for the first 10 days!), then moved into a tiny kitchenette-type apartment in the city, a big come down from a big 4 bedroom house with my own room dedicated for my working computer museum! So I knew that it was going to be almost impossible to get my then wife to agree to ship all of the museum, especially as sprog number 1 was on it's way. So, with much sadness I passed my museum onto other worthy recipients so that they could carry the torch on.

I amassed lots of kit including things like DEC VaxStations, early Sun Lunchbox/Pizzabox sparc machines, BBC Micros, Apple //s, IBM 5160 & 5162 & Portable, Amstrad CPC 6128, Atari ST , Amiga , C64C and many more machines besides. I most liked my Apple // Europlus and also //e as I read the original Apple 'red book' from cover to cover and felt like I knew that machine down to the pinouts on the circuits. It was designed with love by Woz and so I spent a lot of time with that. I bought a Contiki card for it and had it surfing the web as well as FTP'ing down disk images.

As I grew up with an XT as my first 'real' computer, I naturally favoured my IBM PC XT, and later the 5162 (which was awesome - a AT/286 in an original retro XT case). Anyway, the 5162 unfortunately died a horrid death (although I'd seriously love to get my hands on one again). So I reverted back to my XT/5160 and for a while had a 80286 on a board which gave it that ability to surf the web and do other cool things that the original 4.77 8088 just didn't quite have the oomph to do, but the card proved unreliable after a while and so eventually I went back to 4.77MHz.

Anyway, I decided to keep my XT and my //e, storing them with my folks back home for 9 months until I finally got a decent job and house in Auckland. The //e sadly didn't make the trip, but the rugged old XT is still running as strong as it ever did, even with my strange SCSI hard drive upgrade the data was all intact (it's got a 120MB Apple SCSI hard drive in it from an old Mac LC2). I am still actively using that machine for all manner of things from writing a book to chatting on IRC and using FTP (I have the Xircom printer-port to network interface dongle thingy and a packet driver) which seems to work wonderfully for that.

I'd love to get an Apple //+ again at some point in time as I still have my software and books as well as some cards so I'll keep looking on this website and on trademe to see if one pops up at a reasonable price. I guess even a clone will do to begin with.

Very happy to be a member of this forum and if anyone needs any help with old kit I'm happy to see if I can help out. I've done some weird things with kit that was never supposed to work in that way, so perhaps I can help.

Cheers,

Ali
ajross
 
Posts: 23
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2013 7:49 am
Location: Auckland

Re: Hi from Auckland!

Postby tezza on Wed Jan 23, 2013 6:36 pm

Hi Ali,

Welcome to the forums. An XT with a SCSI drive certainly sounds like a strange beast! Good to hear it's still going and in use.
Tez (Terry Stewart) (Administrator)
Collection: https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/co ... /index.htm
Projects and Articles: https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/index.htm
Twitter: @classiccomputNZ | YouTube: Terry Stewart
Trade Me: tezza5
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Re: Hi from Auckland!

Postby WelshWizard on Wed Jan 23, 2013 7:17 pm

Hi Ali,
welcome, Seem you have just arrived and I will shortly be on the way back to the UK, ( legal matters, regarding a family will is forcing me back for a long legal battle. :-( ) But I will be taking all my collection with me, not starting again.
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Re: Hi from Auckland!

Postby ajross on Wed Jan 23, 2013 8:59 pm

Hi everyone, just in case you are interested, here's what my IBM PC / XT with a SCSI card, 250MB hard drive and an ethernet adaptor looks like (video):

http://youtu.be/0jS0NoP7tS8
ajross
 
Posts: 23
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2013 7:49 am
Location: Auckland

Re: Hi from Auckland!

Postby SpidersWeb on Wed Jan 23, 2013 9:29 pm

Welcome aboard :) Good to see another youtube user too, I like having stuff to watch!
Tez has been doing his video series, and I've been trying but never finish editing, have to sort myself out.
Did throw up a quick one to demo FastLynx 2 last week tho, feautres one of my 5160's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDW7z3yCUxs

Pretty awesome that you're finding practical uses for your vintage PC. I need to find some more myself.
Wanted - Dead or Alive - Reward $$$: Compaq Deskpro 8088 / 286 / 386 - IBM RT 6150/6151 parts - AT&T 3B2 parts
VC Twitter
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Re: Hi from Auckland!

Postby Carcenomy on Wed Jan 23, 2013 9:59 pm

Nooooice, I always like seeing old hardware being made to behave in a modern setting. Full marks! :)
Just the local Commodore hobo and middle-aged PC hoarder.
eisa on Trademe. A lasting reminder of a Compaq fetish when I was younger.
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Re: Hi from Auckland!

Postby caluser2000 on Sat Jan 26, 2013 7:22 am

Welcome Ali.Good stuff.
The Acorn never falls far from the tree.. x86 GUI whore.
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Re: Hi from Auckland!

Postby Gibsaw on Sat Jan 26, 2013 10:00 am

You're going to fix up the IIe?

If you share the process, (lots of screenshots) people will be able to help. There's quite a lot of restoration work that goes on here.
"dsakey" on trademe. Apple II's are my thing.
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Location: Auckland

Re: Hi from Auckland!

Postby ajross on Sat Jan 26, 2013 12:44 pm

Ironically, the wife went back to the UK all by herself anyway !
ajross
 
Posts: 23
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2013 7:49 am
Location: Auckland

Re: Hi from Auckland!

Postby ajross on Mon Jan 28, 2013 6:45 pm

machinecoder wrote:Can I PM you (private message or just ask on here?) regarding some assistance for an Apple][ computer,
its a euro plus, there are some jumpers and some ICs(LS#373) missing around the keyboard Decoder IC
and im not getting any voltage at VCC, or VGG? I have tried a second AY-5-3600PRO encoder but still no-input.

no other faults except the keyboard encoding.

Very frustrating, im considering replacing the AY-5-3600 with an MCU if all else fails.

[edit] I will start a topic in the "repair and frustration" section


Hmm, sounds like you are doing all the right things. You say some jumpers are missing, which ones are these? I can go from there if that's any use?
ajross
 
Posts: 23
Joined: Sat Jan 19, 2013 7:49 am
Location: Auckland


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