IMSAI 8080, loaded with rare dual 8" drives

[boogydown]

Website: http://www.chalkattack.com/vintage-computers-for-sale
eBay listing: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170555638239

This jewel works great (as far as I can tell) and comes with a tape deck, keyboard, and massive disk drive box with 2 Shugart 800-2 drives. It has the standard C8080A processor in it and 54k total RAM.

I learned a basic RAM clear test, thanks to this excellent site, right here:
http://www.brainless.org/IMSAI/

Here is a video of me running that test on this machine, to show that the basic functionality is working:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Wck_8UzIzC-_VrW-giBfJg?feat=directlink

Although it worked fine, as far as any noticeable flaws (you can probably see from the video), some of the lights are a bit dim, and also, some of the bit-toggle switches don't always connect (a bit of dust?). But with a very minimal amount of effort, you can probably get this thing 100% refurbished.

The full list if installed cards:
* 1976 Processor Technology Co. VDM 1 Rev C -- Coaxial video card
* 1977 Digital Microsystems 16K Static Ram -- 16k RAM card
* Oct. 1979 Dataspeed Inc. The Conductor -- Floppy and Hard disk interface card
* Dec. 1976 Tarbell Cassette Interface rev.D Model 1001 -- Cassette interface card
* 1975 Processor Technology Co. 3P+S -- 3 Parallel ports + 1 Serial port interface card
* 1977 Software Technology Corp Music System -- Basic sound interface card
* 1978 GodBout/Compukit Econoram VIIa -- 24k static RAM card
* 1977 Processor Technology Co. 4KRA -- 4K RAM card
* 1978 GodBout/Computkit 106c -- Bus terminator card
* Oct. 1976 Electronic Control Technology 8KM REV 1 -- 8k RAM card
* Midwest Scientific Instruments PROM/RAM 8080 with 8 C1702A chips -- 2k RAM card
* 1978 IMS Assoc. Inc Pic-8 Rev.3 -- Priority Interrupt Controller card
* 1975 IMS Assoc. Inc MPU-A Rev.4 with C8080A CPU -- 8080 CPU card


I live in Austin, TX, but am driving to Wisconsin at the end of the month and can drop it off if you're on the route. Can also ship if necessary: US, Canada, Mexico, Europe (but it's not cheap -- it weighs 100 pounds!)

 

[Chuck(G)]

What's rare about dual 8" drives? Now Percom "dual" drives in that box would be unusal and pretty rare.

 

[barythrin]

Welcome to the forums at least I almost posted your ad from craigslist here but saw you had it on ebay (later post) and do have a bid so best of luck! Certainly anyone local would save a wonderful amount on the shipping ;-) but I already have one. Best of luck!

 

[Lorne]

This jewel works great (as far as I can tell) and comes with a tape deck, keyboard, and the highly-sought, massive duel-8" disk drive box.

Duel: a combat between two persons, pre-arranged and fought under fixed conditions, generally on an affair of honour.

Dual: consisting of two; expressing or representing two things.

 

[boogydown]

Ah! Finally found out they are 1979, Shugart 800-2 drives in an Integrand case. Well, I guess they're not that rare, eh?

 

[boogydown]

Bah! you're totally right about the dual/duel slip. At least I had the subject line correct!
(I fixed the post)

 

[boogydown]

Welcome to the forums at least I almost posted your ad from craigslist here but saw you had it on ebay (later post) and do have a bid so best of luck! Certainly anyone local would save a wonderful amount on the shipping ;-) but I already have one. Best of luck!

Thanks a ton! This place is pretty cool!
Local would be rad, but since I'm trying to get max value out of them (trying to settle Uncle's estate) I'm having to reach far and wide. :-/ Case in point: that bid is from a gentleman in Germany!

 

[Chuck(G)]

Ah! Finally found out they are 1979, Shugart 800-2 drives in an Integrand case. Well, I guess they're not that rare, eh?

No, not really--good drives and fairly common as 8" drives go. The original IMSAI drive box used, (I think) CalComp 103 drives which are considerably harder to find.

 

[boogydown]

Thanks for the info, Chuck! I'm definitely new to the computer-technology-from-before-I-was-born arena (now that I have officially dated myself, or the opposite thereof). The oldest comp I had before this was my Atari 520ST, which I used as my personal PC and programming platform for years. (still have it, in fact! with drives and monitor and original mouse! Still runs great, although the disks are corrupting one by one :-/ )

Anyway, I wish I could change the post title so that it's not misleading... any tips on doing so?

 

[Dwight Elvey]

No, not really--good drives and fairly common as 8" drives go. The original IMSAI drive box used, (I think) CalComp 103 drives which are considerably harder to find.

Hi
The case used by IMSAI is the treasure and not the drives.
I have a Digital Systems drive box with the built in controller.
Although, mine is not the early version, these were believed
( by me ) to be the first working controllers used on the IMSAIs
and ALTAIRs. A proto type version of this controller was used
by Kildall to do early CP/M development.
As I recall, it has 800-1's in it with the clock/data separator.
Dwight

 

[Chuck(G)]

The Imsai used a 2-board 8080-based controller (I've got the documentation for it). The Calcomp 103s are peculiar in that they use a (40?) pin header for signals and power, not an edge connector. The Imsai also had a little LED display above the drives to tell you what they were doing. I've still got the IMSAI case, but with Siemens drives and different power supply inside. The original power supplies (1 for each drive) were badly designed.

 

[MikeS]

Anyway, I wish I could change the post title so that it's not misleading... any tips on doing so?

I wouldn't worry; Chuck may have a truckload of 8" drives but I wouldn't exactly call them commonplace, especially with case and power supply.

 

[boogydown]

Sold today, $2,750!

 

[barythrin]

Very nice! Pretty high price for an IMSAI but you do have a lot with it so good to see (well ok.. good cause I have one j/k) it has some demand.