Greetings from Australia!

[jd]

Hi all,

I'm a paramedic from Australia who collects Apple Computers (see my collection at http://jd.sjaa.com.au).

I got introduced to computers by my father back in the late '70s when he was a systems analyist. I took up with the Apple ][ in 1980 and worked on summer vacation as a programer with the University of Melbourne. A couple of my early programs can still be found on ground.

Since then I've changed career paths, but maintain my interest in computing. I still volunteer as network adminsitrator for the St John Ambulance Australia organisation here in Victoria. With a limited budget they now have a small Linux server farm with frame relay gateways into each local office.

At home, I found that after a few upgrades, I ended up with a small collection of machines and just got carried away from there.

I very much enjoy getting my collection up and running with original software of the day, and get a kick out of seeing how much the older machines can do.

My pride and joy is my Lisa (1). I found it as an upgraded Lisa 2 and managed to track down the Twiggy drives, Lisa 1 ROM, front panel and software. Unfortunately, the drives do not recognise known good LOS v1 disks. I was successful once, but the ProFile wasn't connected to be installed. Since then, no luck. I'm guessing the drives need recalibration. If anyone happens to know how to do this - please let me know!

I'd be happy to chat to anyone about the machines in my collection.

 

[Erik]

Welcome!

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to the VC Forum!

I, too, would be proud of an Apple Lisa 1. That's a very nice find and I hope you figure out how to get it running. I've heard that those twiggy drives were a bear (which is one reason they were replaced) but they should be servicable.

The rest of your collection is, by the way, also very impressive.

Enjoy the forums!

Erik

 

[Jon Jarmon]

Hi Justin.That is a very impessive collection.I love your Apple collection.
I only have the compact Macs and the Apple 2's.Someday I hope to find some kind of LISA.

 

[CP/M User]

Re: Greetings from Australia!

"jd" wrote in message:

Hi Justin,

> I'm a paramedic from Australia who collects Apple Computers
> (see my collection at http://jd.sjaa.com.au).

I was just generally wonderning how well those machines work. I
used to use Apple IIs & Mac's at school & there used to be some
technical problems with them (but some of the kids didn't respect
the machines).

But generally, I quite like the abilities of them. I was shocked
when I found out the Mac Plus only had 128k of memory (yet had
a reasonibly good GUI which came with it!).

Cheers.

 

[jd]

Re: Greetings from Australia!

Hi CP/M User,

I was just generally wonderning how well those machines work. I
used to use Apple IIs & Mac's at school & there used to be some
technical problems with them (but some of the kids didn't respect
the machines).

I've never had a problem with my Apple IIplus since I purchased it in 1980. My Apple //c (which was a later cheap machine) is a different story.

Generally, speaking most of the computers I have purchased as new (or tested prior to purchasing second hand) have been fine.

But generally, I quite like the abilities of them. I was shocked
when I found out the Mac Plus only had 128k of memory (yet had
a reasonibly good GUI which came with it!).

Well, actually the Mac Plus was shipped with a minimum of 1Mb RAM (and could be maxed at 4Mb with 30 pin SIMMS). You may be thinking of the original Macintosh which was hard wired with 128k RAM.

 

[CP/M User]

Re: Greetings from Australia!

"jd" wrote in message:

Hi,

>> But generally, I quite like the abilities of them. I was shocked
>> when I found out the Mac Plus only had 128k of memory (yet had
>> a reasonibly good GUI which came with it!).

> Well, actually the Mac Plus was shipped with a minimum of 1Mb
> RAM (and could be maxed at 4Mb with 30 pin SIMMS). You may
> be thinking of the original Macintosh which was hard wired with
> 128k RAM.

The Mac Plus was the original Mac wasn't it. I'm thinking of the first
Mac which came out in 1984. The Mac Classic I thought had 1Mb
expandable to 4Mb I thought (or 'am I getting them muddled up).

Cheers.

 

[jd]

Re: Greetings from Australia!

Hi again,

The Mac Plus was the original Mac wasn't it. I'm thinking of the first
Mac which came out in 1984. The Mac Classic I thought had 1Mb
expandable to 4Mb I thought (or 'am I getting them muddled up).

No, the original Macintosh was just call "Macintosh" and it sported 128k RAM. Later they were badged as Macintosh-128K and the upgraded Macintosh-512K became available. The Mac Plus replaced both of these in Jan 1986 and came with 4 x 256K RAM SIMMS (ie 1 Mb).

Various histories of the time tell the story about that fact that the first Mac was meant to have 512k, but it was thought to be too expensive (remember that the Lisa only one year earlier failed with a pricetag of $10k, which amongst other things was partly due to the 512K-1M RAM it required).

Interestingly, some histories state that the Steve Jobs demo of the first Mac when it was released in 1984 used an early version of the Macintalk text to speech application. This actually required 512k to run, thus the demo Mac was in fact a 512 machine which was not available in stores for some time!.

Isn't classic computing interesting!

 

[CP/M User]

Re: Greetings from Australia!

"jd" wrote in message:

Greetings,

> No, the original Macintosh was just call "Macintosh" and it sported
> 128k RAM. Later they were badged as Macintosh-128K and
> the upgraded Macintosh-512K became available. The Mac Plus
> replaced both of these in Jan 1986 and came with 4 x 256K RAM
> SIMMS (ie 1 Mb).

Ah, okay. The first time I used a Mac (which was a Mac Plus) would have
been in 1990, which was around the time the Mac Classic came out!

Unfortunately for the Lisa, it failed because of the price tag. So I've
always thought that the Mac kicked off well because of the price.
Having 128k of RAM being the key, I suppose.

> Various histories of the time tell the story about that fact that
> the first Mac was meant to have 512k, but it was thought to be
> too expensive (remember that the Lisa only one year earlier failed
> with a pricetag of $10k, which amongst other things was partly
> due to the 512K-1M RAM it required).

Yes, I've heard the story about the Apple Lisa. My Personal Comuter
Handbook (which came out around 1983-84) has a picture of it with
it's GUI. The book only stated it having 1Mb of RAM. Having a black &
white screen might have been a disadvantage for the price tag.

> Interestingly, some histories state that the Steve Jobs demo of
> the first Mac when it was released in 1984 used an early version
> of the Macintalk text to speech application. This actually required
> 512k to run, thus the demo Mac was in fact a 512 machine which
> was not available in stores for some time!.

Another setback for Steve I guess.

> Isn't classic computing interesting!

Yes! )

Cheers.

 

[Jon Jarmon]

I think that the Ultimate computer collector would try to obtain
a Xerox Parc Alto workstation.You know what I mean, the one that had the 3 button brush roller computer mouse,ethernet and laser printer first developed in 1973 that later inspired the Apple LISA & Macintosh.
I hear that someone named AL has a collection of a whole bunch of those in his garage.He should be at this forum or the digibarn.I have a 1977 September Scientific American issue that has a 10 page or so article written by Alan Kay about the Xerox Alto and the developments at PARC.

 

[Erik]

I think that the Ultimate computer collector would try to obtain a Xerox Parc Alto workstation.

Bruce over at the DigiBarn has a nice set of Xerox workstations and I'd bet good money that Sellam of Vintage Computer Festival fame also has at least one or three.

I'd love to get my hands on one, but I don't see them going for cheap enough for me to justify it. . .

It will have to go on the list of items I may never own, but sure would like to. Other items on that list:

Apple I
Apple Lisa (Twiggy drive original)
Mark-8 (original - I may buy a contemporary kit just to play with one)
Scelbi 8H

There's probably a few more. . .

Erik

 

[Jon Jarmon]

Hi Eric.By the way thanks for the great forum.Now this is a message board that I just Love.
I have the Original Magazine about the Mark 8.It's in my shed.I believe that it was a Radio-Electronics Magazine back in 1973(Hard to remember things 30 years ago).Maybe I should pull it from the shed.Thanks for the info about the digibarn and Vellum of Vintage computer festival having them.I think that a Mini-Alto should be replicated with smalltalk on it.
When the Pirates of Silicon Valley TNT movie came out(althought it has TONS of historical errors and simplifications) notice that the movie has the Actual Machines in it.I believe that there is a company that collects historical computers for movie props.

 

[Erik]

Hi Eric.By the way thanks for the great forum.Now this is a message board that I just Love.
I have the Original Magazine about the Mark 8.It's in my shed.I believe that it was a Radio-Electronics Magazine back in 1973

It was the July 1974 issue of Radio Electronics and you should definitely pull it from the shed! I have a copy of that one myself. There is only basic information about the Mark-8 but you could buy the details from Jon Titus to build the machine.

There is currently a gentleman who is selling kits on eBay from time to time. These are new kits built to the old specifications. I believe he also provides a CD-ROM with the old articles and specifications.

I may buy one someday, but they still tend to go for around $500 or so.

You are very welcome for the forum, and thank you for visiting! Tell your friends!

Erik