Vintage Computers anyone have an interest?

Mr Bump

Mr Bump

From under the bridge
Messages
9,632
Name
Paul
Edit My Images
Yes
having started my IT career back in the late 80s I was exposed to a lot of the early stuff even the old IBM XT/AT stuff.
I find myself enjoying a couple of youtube channels talking about a lot of this stuff, i also like some channels that talk about and restore stuff going back to he late 50s as well, anyone?
 
My dad used to have one of the first IBM PCs in his loft, 5 1/4 floppys etc, not sure what happened to it in the end.
 
My first computer was the original ZX80, and I have my first PC (An Amstrad 1640) in it's box somewhere.
Things have certainly changed since then!
 
You'd like the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley then, I do. I started in 1978, at home I had a Video Genie (16k RAM and onboard cassette tape drive), later a Spectrum, then Amstrad 1640 pc. At work I was first using an ICL2980 mainframe (4Mb RAM, VME/B, COBOL, 200MB exchangeable drives) and Univac 1106 m/f (128k RAM, fixed disk for OS, 36 bit, Assembler), later as Training Officer introducing the RAF to mini's and micros using the BBC-B with various add-ons and a DEC PDP10. I later built a collection including a Vic20 and some other stuff but never had a Commodore PET which would have been nice. I wrote code for an IBM AT to communicate with IBM SNAX terminal controllers etc etc. I could go on. Suffice to say I do get very nostalgic for the earlier days of computing.
 
lindsay said:
You'd like the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley then, I do. I started in 1978, at home I had a Video Genie (16k RAM and onboard cassette tape drive), later a Spectrum, then Amstrad 1640 pc. At work I was first using an ICL2980 mainframe (4Mb RAM, VME/B, COBOL, 200MB exchangeable drives) and Univac 1106 m/f (128k RAM, fixed disk for OS, 36 bit, Assembler), later as Training Officer introducing the RAF to mini's and micros using the BBC-B with various add-ons and a DEC PDP10. I later built a collection including a Vic20 and some other stuff but never had a Commodore PET which would have been nice. I wrote code for an IBM AT to communicate with IBM SNAX terminal controllers etc etc. I could go on. Suffice to say I do get very nostalgic for the earlier days of computing.
Click to expand...


i was a very avid spectrum user , i think i got my 48k at about 15 and absolutely loved it but never went further with any of that kind of stuff.
i got a job at an engineering company when i was 17 and they through an old twin floppy computer my way that had lotus 123 and i became the "costings clerk"
kinda did that for about two years then got caught taking the computer apart and my boss said you are in the wrong job..

anyhow he encouraged me to apply for a job with a computer company in Huddersfield where is started with a brand called Victor all the 88/286/386 stuff loved it..
 
I still have my ZX Spectrum and an Amstrad 1640 somewhere in storage, neither gave had the electrons flowing in decades.

As a user when working....

The lab installed DEC 'mini' computer which was something of the order of the size 5 off large (between 4 to 5 drawers) tall filing cabinets.

Then at another smaller company after I left the NHS they went computerised and got an IBM System 36 that iirc was about the size of a small chest freezer.

The computer age is a wonder of modern technology and to think in the phone I am typing this on it AFAIK has many1000's of times more computing power than that used in the Apollo spacecraft........let alone the ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad 1640.

Oh, the first printer I had was a dot matrix very useful technology and the company I worked at from 1991 was still using dot matrix printers in 2016 when I left. They were used to print the accounts reports and the multi part invoices.
 
My computer history is ZX81, ZX Spectrum(one with 48K of RAM - WOW!), BBC, Viglen, and then various ones - Scan, Dell and a few self built.

Dave
 
My first printer was a daisy-wheel, similar to the IBM "golf-ball" electric typewriters.
I remember the excitement of writing and running code to drive a 2400 baud modem so that I could join a "bulletin board" via dial-up connection. And later, Prestel - remember that?
But yes, there was fantastic innovation at high speed in the late 70's/early 80's. I remember my Squadron Leader got hold of an Apple 2e and we were experimenting with voice recognition using it...happy days
 
My first computer was a BBC B Micro in 1984. Got it as a used/repaired item from a friend at about half the cost of a new one. Had to repair it a few times and basically cut my computing teeth on it. Been ‘dabbling’ in computers ever since.
 
i downloaded virtual box and got the msdos 6.22 image files from archive.org and created a little VM with 4mb of ram and a 30mb hdd
 
Box Brownie said:
I still have my ZX Spectrum and an Amstrad 1640 somewhere in storage, neither gave had the electrons flowing in decades.

As a user when working....

The lab installed DEC 'mini' computer which was something of the order of the size 5 off large (between 4 to 5 drawers) tall filing cabinets.

Then at another smaller company after I left the NHS they went computerised and got an IBM System 36 that iirc was about the size of a small chest freezer.

The computer age is a wonder of modern technology and to think in the phone I am typing this on it AFAIK has many1000's of times more computing power than that used in the Apollo spacecraft........let alone the ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad 1640.

Oh, the first printer I had was a dot matrix very useful technology and the company I worked at from 1991 was still using dot matrix printers in 2016 when I left. They were used to print the accounts reports and the multi part invoices.
Click to expand...
My first proper computing job was with the NHS, ICL 2900 and DEC's. Most Regions used the same build of ICL and we could take all our disk packs, a load of 2400 ft tapes and run a DR of our payroll in another NHS computer centre.
 
My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20 as my school had just kitted out their new computer room with those. I had a 16kb ram expansion pack for it. I seemed to have the right mindset and got on with the teacher who was teaching himself at the same time as the kids.. Storage on cassette apart from a few items on cartridge.

That was replaced with an Acorn Electron, later with a plus 1 expansion box. Tape.

That was replaced with a BBC Model B, with a 6502 co-processor and twin 5 3/4" floppy disk drives. The school I was at at the time had a room full of BBC B's.

That was replaced with an Atari 520 STFM which got a 1Mb RAM expansion.

By this time my school had the BBC B's, a few Masters, a couple of Archimedes but had also got a few IBM 80286/80386 PCs.

Then I joined the IBM PC world and things became less seamless as things were upgraded. Started with a 386DX and MS-DOS 3.something, pre-Windows... A few wrong turns along the way - an AMD version which wasn't very stable. Going down the Vesa Local Bus route, when I should have chosen PCI.
 
Last edited:
leaky5 said:
My first proper computing job was with the NHS, ICL 2900 and DEC's. Most Regions used the same build of ICL and we could take all our disk packs, a load of 2400 ft tapes and run a DR of our payroll in another NHS computer centre.
Click to expand...
I am talking of 1973 to 1980...

AFAIK the hospital was one of the first to go computerised. The main computer room/hall was a fully air-conditioned basement room and was setup, I understand ,as primarily to 'run the hospital & wards' but there none to minimal computers in the labs.

IIRC the DEC mini was installed in haematology to ensure that results were more quickly available because the main hall computers used some barrel drives and head crashes disrupted access a few times a week. I had the chance to visit the computing hall a couple of times in about 1975 when the Dec mini was installed in the lab and it B****y freezing with I think multiple Winchester drives and two barrel drives. I recall being told all the kit was second hand!
 
Box Brownie said:
I am talking of 1973 to 1980...

AFAIK the hospital was one of the first to go computerised. The main computer room/hall was a fully air-conditioned basement room and was setup, I understand ,as primarily to 'run the hospital & wards' but there none to minimal computers in the labs.

IIRC the DEC mini was installed in haematology to ensure that results were more quickly available because the main hall computers used some barrel drives and head crashes disrupted access a few times a week. I had the chance to visit the computing hall a couple of times in about 1975 when the Dec mini was installed in the lab and it B****y freezing with I think multiple Winchester drives and two barrel drives. I recall being told all the kit was second hand!
Click to expand...
lol cold and noisy. The things we used to get up to. Storing beer under the false floor to keep it cold. Games of football with a cushion
 
Computing history in workplace...
  1. 1972...operated IBM 402 punch card accounting machine in a part-time job for import company
  2. 1974...used HP minicomputer in semiconductor circuit tester for Fairchild Seminductor
  3. 1975...started with Data General Nova minicomputer in computer graphics, then Data General Eclipse minicomputer in later computer graphics systems
  4. 1981...started with Digital Equipment (DEC) VAX minicomputer in computer graphics systems, then later in decade with Apollo graphic workstations

Personal home computing history...
  1. TI-99/4A, in 1980 my first home PC
  2. IBM PC with dual 5.25" floppy drives, in 1982 my first 'real' PC, In 1984 I upgraded to IBM-XT equivalent by installing a 5MB harddrive myself, it was 'only' $500 when purchased as a 'dealer' from the add-on manufacturer!
  3. IBM-AT, in 1985 my next PC
  4. ...then a long series of self-built PC's, ending about 2000 when buying factory-built PCs became better than the 'bother' in self-integrating your own PC.
...and the rest is almost ancient history
 
Last edited:
Started with a second hand ZX81, which was my Christmas present in 1981. Taught myself BASIC Replaced that with a Spectrum, started learning z80 assembler, then a BBC Micro (still have it in the loft) on which I learned 6502 thanks to the superb built in assemble in the BASIC ROM, then an Archimedes. After that it's all been self-built PC compatibles starting with one based on the 486DX4-75, though I sometimes buy second hand workstations from the likes of Dell or HP. Mostly write C and x86/x64 professionally these days though I'm currently doing a project in PHP, so someone must have a voodoo doll of me that they are sticking needles into.

I've also got a 2u Dell R730 in a rack to my left, and the noise that generates from its row of six 50mm high speed fans makes reading the fan noise management topic here a real giggle.

I type on an IBM Model M keyboard, one at work that I've had for over 30 years, and a couple more I have at home. I'd sort of like a PDP-11 (not that I have space), but someone has probably ported systemd (not to be confused with System V) to it now or something since it seems pervasive.
 
I have a coupleof cards and manuals for an Apple ][ e upstairs. But it's hard to feel any affection for computing in those days.
 
My second job was as a computer operator, there were 2 ICL 1904 mainframes, 128Kwords and 192Kwords, Words being 24bit.
The disk drives were 60MB exchangeable, the size of a very large washing machine, Input was via paper tape, punch cards or a OMR (optical mark reader) reader which was larger than the mainframe itself. There were stacks of tape drives as well. The numbering system used octal, 0 to 7 only.
The operating system was called George.

There was also a pdp mini computer used for OCR reading.

Output was via several Line printers.

Used since then various IBM Mainframe Systems.

My first computer was a Nascom1, which I soldered myself and had 4k ram. used to program it (Very badly) in z80 assember.

Had Tandy TRS80, BBC B, Acorn Archimedes, then onto IBM compatibles.
 
I wrote my first lines of Fortran in 1970 as a sixth-former. Two years later I was a computer operator at Quaker Oats, running their Honeywell H200/125 that had all of 32K words of magnetic core memory, six tape drives, a card reader and a drum printer. Oh, and a push-button console with big rectangular buttons that lit when pressed. Have a look at the computer used in the film of Billion Dollar Brain as that was an H200. I eventually completed a Computer Science degree followed by various jobs over 30 years in the trade including nine years at Wang UK.

My first personal computer was a UK101 followed by an Acorn Atom when I enhanced the UK101 once too often..... They used the same RAM chips and I had loads of them from where I was working at the time.
From there I went to an Apricot PC and then to IBM contemptibles (sic?). I built my first just after Xmas 1989 and I think I can still find the Xmas-day conversation between myself, Derek Cohen (first editor of PC World) and Robert Schifreen (the great Prince Philip Prestel hack) on whether I should use a 386SX or DX..
 
I was not interested in a personal computer unless I could have a hard disk drive. In the 1980's I bought an Acorn computer a RiscPC600 and it is still in my loft. It had a powerful desktop publisher, SS and database. At that time I also bought PhotoDesk V2 which had layers. When reviewed it was rated higher than Adobe PS 2 which had also just added layers. The RiscPC was the most powerful desk top at that time and I stuck with it until two events: a. PhotoDesk (just a man and a boy) had been scammed and lost a lot of money so went out of business. b. my children then needed a microsoft PC for school work. My children both fondly remember the Acorn and I have promised I will get it down again one day. As the Operating System was on mainly ROM, it booted up in about 5 seconds.

Dave
 
onomatopoeia said:
....

I've also got a 2u Dell R730 in a rack to my left, and the noise that generates from its row of six 50mm high speed fans makes reading the fan noise management topic here a real giggle.

.....
Click to expand...
In a previous job we once had a customer drop round a 4u rack server for us to set up - huge lump with redundant everything - we didn't have a suitable space in our rack for it without significant moving about, and it was just for a couple of weeks, so it sat on the pallet it had been delivered on in a spare room - sounded like an aircraft preparing for take off when it was switched on as the various fans kicked in!
 
Started sneaking into Tandy and using their display TRS-80 and programming it in BASIC (until we got kicked out!), then a friend of mine's dad bought an Ohio Superboard 2, must have been about 1980-ish? Then school bought a Research Machines 380Z and a 480Z to go with it. Turns out that thanks to Tandy and the SB2, me and my mate knew far more about operating and programming them than the poor maths teacher who'd been nominated as the "computer studies" head!

I started with a ZX Spectrum 16k, followed by a Z80 CP/M system that I built from a set of articles in Electronics & Wireless World (SC-84).

Then moved on to PCs... I don't think any PC I've used at work has ever been as powerful as the ones I've had at home, LOL!
 
@Snapsh0t mention of Wang reminded me......

My school had (IIRC only for a short time?) a Wang (teletype?) terminal that was linked to the main computer at Birkbeck College.

This would have been late 60's or possibly more likely early 70's

I think we used it for something in maths lessons?
 
10 PRINT "I have the longest sig in the world"
20 GOTO 10
 
I worked for Systime computers in the 80's, they made their own line if Dec like kit. After that I went into field service with DPCE/Granada and worked on lots of stuff including PC's including IBM PC XT/AT and whatever the MCA one that came after that was called. I worked on a lot of Apricot's from the generic ones up through the Xen, Xen-I, Xen-S and Qi ranges, the Fuji badged ones and Lan Stations and also Amstrads and anything and everything else that a customer had.

One Per Desk were big at one time too.

I do still think back to those days but mostly these days I avoid technology.
 
One Per Desks were a bit of a joke weren't they? I installed a couple with our dept managers at an insurance company I worked for. Great idea (Sinclair QL rebadged by ICL) but not really able to compete with faster more powerful desktops that were coming along. But then the ICL PC running MU-CCPM/86 was a clever OS that couldn't compete with the rise of MS-DOS then Windoze. At the time our offices were equipped with ICL DRS-20's, for general letter writing and quote processing, with their 8 inch floppies.
 
A lot of the IBM mainframes had controllers that used 8inch floppy drive to hold the micro code, the drives did not have any power saving modes. Often when restarting the mainframe from scratch the controllers would fail to read the microcode from the worn out floppy disk.

We had a Wang and IBM system (34 or 36 I think) to test out for office word processing duties, The Wang was as solid as rock, unlike the IBM which failed if someone got too close to it. Guess who sent the Computer Services Director to the USA for a holiday course.
 
UK101, ZX80, ZX81, Spectrum, QL with ICE, Video Genie, TRS80 and first PC in 82/83.

When the 486 got up to 100MHz, it was said to be physically impossible for them to go any faster :)

And I had a slide rule as well, not quite as fast :) But never crashed.
 
Back in the early 90's I started my IT career at the Legal & General head office in Kingswood, Reigate.

They were chucking out loads of Walters 286 pc's including keyboards and monitors.

I asked if I could have one and my boss said "take the lot if you want them". I ensured I got the request officially signed off with management.

So myself and a mate hired a Luton van and collected nearly 50 complete sets, formatted the 20MB (I think) hard drives and loaded Windows 3.0 onto them.

Took a fair while to prepare them all but we eventually sold them all for £50 a set via Exchange & Mart.

Happy days.


I still miss OS/2
 
Started as a programmer at BT with a ICL1900 running George III. It filled a massive room but I think someone has now got it to run on a Raspberry Pi !!

Then ICL 2966 and on to 3900. Think there was an ICL System4 and a DEC PDP-8 in there somewhere along the journey as well. Now using an Apple M2 Macbook Air at home and find myself looking for a COBOL and Pascal software development toolkit just to have a play around again.
 
lindsay said:
One Per Desks were a bit of a joke weren't they? I installed a couple with our dept managers at an insurance company I worked for. Great idea (Sinclair QL rebadged by ICL) but not really able to compete with faster more powerful desktops that were coming along. But then the ICL PC running MU-CCPM/86 was a clever OS that couldn't compete with the rise of MS-DOS then Windoze. At the time our offices were equipped with ICL DRS-20's, for general letter writing and quote processing, with their 8 inch floppies.
Click to expand...

No, they weren't really a joke at all. We had a large contract with the DSS which I ran, they had a lot of them and indeed I had one on my desk too. I was never a big fan but I could see how some could be if they weren't doing anything too intensive and a lot of people weren't at that time. I saw them as an alternative to the Wordplex things that some receptionists had at the time and ok for work which wasn't too demanding. Given the choice I'd rather have had OPD's on contract than those Wordplexes. I saw few failures in the OPD "computer" part apart from poor connections caused by ever more plug in modules being installed in ever longer backplane thingies at the back, people used to jack them up by wedging something underneath. The largest number of failures seemed to be with the colour monitors but they weren't a problems as we fixed them in house, well, I fixed them in house. I don't remember many mono monitor failures at all. I only used mine my for phoning and paging but others had word processer modules etc.

I did my databases and memo writing on an Apricot 286 or whatever we could spare. In those days I ran multi £m contracts on something like that using a thing called Rapid File which you could run from 720k floppies if you'd taken your HDD out to use it to fix a customers machine. I did all my performance stats, stock control and report writing with it. The DSS Small Systems groups often used similar kit and packages. One of our main contacts used an Amstrad.

We had a large number of DRS 20/50's at the DSS, BTP, Rentokil and others. I remember them well. Popular failures were the hard disks or at least the glass windows being blocked and people unplugging the network cable and of course if the system couldn't see both end resistors it didn't work. Another problem was the address switches on the front as if the cleaners had been in and had accidentally swept the address switches it wouldn't boot. I encouraged users to write the switch setting on the unit so that if the cleaners had got to it they could address it and get it booted without phoning me.

Oddities we had on contact in those days included Comart Communicators and Comart Quads and we had an ever growing number of portable things. Toshiba were big at the time. I left to do other things when Pentiums were becoming the norm so I saw from no processor at all and everything done through logic to Pentiums.
 
lindsay said:
You'd like the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley then, I do. I started in 1978, at home I had a Video Genie (16k RAM and onboard cassette tape drive), later a Spectrum, then Amstrad 1640 pc. At work I was first using an ICL2980 mainframe (4Mb RAM, VME/B, COBOL, 200MB exchangeable drives) and Univac 1106 m/f (128k RAM, fixed disk for OS, 36 bit, Assembler), later as Training Officer introducing the RAF to mini's and micros using the BBC-B with various add-ons and a DEC PDP10. I later built a collection including a Vic20 and some other stuff but never had a Commodore PET which would have been nice. I wrote code for an IBM AT to communicate with IBM SNAX terminal controllers etc etc. I could go on. Suffice to say I do get very nostalgic for the earlier days of computing.
Click to expand...
I wonder if we know each other from way back in the day. Where you at West Drayton?
 
Tulipone said:
I wonder if we know each other from way back in the day. Where you at West Drayton?
Click to expand...
No,, I started IT at RAF Innsworth (Gloucester), then moved to the MoD at Empress State Building as a lecturer, then UK Provident in Salisbury then to Germany with Motorola as a systems programmer on Tandem kit
 
Last edited:
great FB group , lots of stuff from my main time 80s. 90s

Log in to Facebook

Log in to Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family and people you know.
www.facebook.com www.facebook.com
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top