"Mark Metzler wrote:
I was in WalMart last night, and I swung by the Electronics area. I was curious as to how much a replacement drive would cost me for my PC at home, which has a 17gb drive in it. They had a 80gig drive sitting on the shelf next to the surge suppressors for $70. Never mind that it comes with the software to copy everything to the new drive. So I stood there trying to do the math on what it would cost to equate that volume of storage with ST506 drives at $1995.00 a pop. My head started hurting, so I rounded the ST506 to $2000.
It would take 16,000 ST506’s to reach the memory of the drive in WalMart (again sitting on the shelf, not behind a locked cabinet).
At $2000.00 a pop, it would cost me $32,000,000.00.
Now that would have been a nice sale, but would have been stolen by Jim Scharffe or Mike Daniel.
Here is another perspective. If stacked on top of one another, they would be as tall as a 667 story building.
If from sea level, they would stack high enough to top the tallest building in Downtown Denver.
If sold with a cabinet and power supply, Josef Rabinowitz would be retired. "
"Ohmigod! I'm reminded of when I worked for Heath Kline at Priority One Electronics in Chatsworth...and before that for Galaxy Computers in Woodland Hills when the Commodore 64 was introduced! We thought it huge compared to the Timex Sinclair...."
"We both have been into computers since 1970's & currently own 6 OSBORNE's in working condition. Although we use DOS now, we miss cpm & how actually FAST it was compared to Windows. We miss dBase. Append as well instead of Access now. We still have data on 5 1/4" discs we need to put into the dos machines we use now.
Sorry to hear you are leaving the business - we certainly hope you find a buyer who will keep the collection intact!
Best to you & your wonderful efforts!"
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SYSTEM WE ARE ALWAYS LOOKING FOR VINTAGE COMPUTER SYSTEMS
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THE FREEMAN PC MUSEUM
Welcome to The Freeman PC Museum collection. The following is a complete list of vintage computer systems in the museum. Feel free to scroll through the list, view details of the system, see related links and advertisements, and join in on the mini forums for each of the systems.
The following list is complete. If you are searching for a particular model, manufacturer, or a list of computers from a particular year, use the "Search" form on the left. Thank you again for visiting The Freeman PC Museum, and enjoy.
The TRS-80 Color Computer 2 replaced the Color Computer Model 1 in 1983. Tandy Color Computer 2 64Kb in original retail box, (2) Tandy joysticks (in box), Tandy CCR-82 Computer Cassette Recorder (in box), Tandy Micro-Printer, TRS-80 Appliance Controller (in box) and all manuals and documentation. Books include The Color Computer Playground, CoCo Electronic Book with MAZE MASTER, SHAPE MASTER, THE NUMBER FACTORY and WORDWIZARD thinking games for use with the Electronic Book. Also software cartridge Spectaculator, cassette tape ZAXXON. Also (2) new Tandy C-20A Cassette Tapes.
Introduced in November of 1983 and dubbed, 'The Commuter'. It's an early MS DOS machine that's extremely trim and lightweight for it's era, with a big sturdy carrying handle and two good working 5.25" disk drives. Includes PC-Draw software and runs under MS or PC DOS. The machine has two video output ports: Composite Video which is shown in the photograph displayed on a television, using a 5-pin DIN connector, and RGB Monochrome which has a DB-9 port. There are also one parallel, one serial, and one expansion port. System is in good shape, nothing broken or damaged. Both drives work well, and the keyboard is good. There is a hard-shell, removable keyboard cover that seals it up into a nice pizza box shape for transport.
Complete system, includes, monitor, drive unit, cpu, and keyboard, all in good working order. Also includes documentation for Morrow 2000 Printer and modem as well as some additional software. George Morrow integrated single-board Z-80 board with CP/M in a case that resembled the IBM PC. Here is an excerpt from Computerworld article written by Lawrence J. Magid about George....."George Morrow, who later designed several computers of his own, was one of the first engineers to design and market a memory board for the Altair. He distributed them by mail under the company name, "Morrow's Microstuff." Morrow was later to found "Thinker Toys," but was forced to change the name to Morrow Designs after a lawsuit with the company that owned the rights to Tinker Toys. "I hated to give up the original name", he said in an interview. "It expressed playfulness and thought...that's what it was all about."
Morrow likens the early days to the wild west. "It was wide open. There were no restraints on what we did. Now that's not the case. There are traditions, there is momentum and we live in a society that has its rules."
He knows about rules and the penalties for breaking them. He credits the demise of Morrow Designs, in part, to his failure to jump early on the IBM PC bandwagon. "Emotionally and technically, none of us in the company would have been happy just making a clone. We felt that the PC was such a dog of a machine." Morrow's company, in mid-1980's, did develop one of the first lap-sized PC compatible machines, now marketed by Zenith Data Systems."
