• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

My collection - by way of introduction

O

Oscar

Experienced Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2003
Messages
206
Location
Switzerland
Hi guys,

I've been collecting computers since the late 80s, and now have some 100 machines crammed into the hobby room. Time-wise, my collection starts with a KIM-1 and Imsai, ie mid 70s, and ends with some Suns from the mid 90s.

Like most people, I have to weed out the collection every few years and have tried to cull the collection in such a way that I end up with the most important machines, historically speaking, as long as I like actually using them. So I don't have an Apple ][, but a IIe, for instance.

Next to the "Historically Important" collection, I keep a good few oddball computers that I simply enjoy even though they have no place in the Grand Scheme of Things.

I just set up a new web site to outline the collection:
http://obsolescence.wix.com/obsolescence

On the site, I've tried not to sum up the technical specs of all machines (there's some unbeatable sites for that already) but to give a bit of personal opinion on the most interesting machines. I also got into the Homebrewing side of this weirdo hobby, especially with the N8VEM project - so there's some stuff on Homebrewing too.

Happy to hear any feedback of course.

Regards,

Oscar.
 
I'll start with some simple feedback.

"Wow!"

Not just an impressive collection, but an amazingly well laid out website, and great commentary. Really professionally done. I enjoyed reading through every page.

Thanks,

- Earl
 
Great web site Oscar, and welcome to the neighbourhood!

I believe you're the author of the N8VEM article recently published in Commodorefree issue 67 (pp. 29-32)?
http://www.commodorefree.com/magazine/vol7/issue67.pdf
Congratulations and kudos for a really well-written and informative piece of writing; hope it finally gives you the Wiki credibility the group was looking for.

PM me some time; maybe I can be of some help getting that Cromemco System 3 going. I assume the Z-2 wants one of the IMI 8" 7710 drives; you can use one of the smaller 5" drives instead but they're almost as scarce.

mike
 
Nice!

I like the personal impressions of the computers (even though I don't always agree with them :) ), rather than just a fact sheet. This personal touch is something I try to do on my own collection pages.

Tez
 
Last edited:
Oddly enough the site doesn't come up in my firefox (18). Not sure why though. I see the source code for the site just no contents. IE it works fine though. Nice site though :)

How many of the systems on there do you own? (just curious). OT I lose an auction for a Psion here in town because ebay opted not to send me any reminders that day. 1 bid of $20 I think and it went to that person, so congrats to them.

Love the CP/M intro page! Nice and simple to get folks the first few commands they'll need.
 
Welcome to the forums!

(Who needs floorspace?) You have a very good collection there.
Nice display of your computers on the website. The articles are well laid out and categorized.
 
Nice collection, and nice job with the writeups. However, the site...eugh. If I need to enable Javascript just to have a site come up at all, particularly when it's all static content, there's something terribly, terribly wrong - and the fade transitions...do you know how balky those things are on older computers and browsers?
 
Fantastic collection, and I love your write-ups. While technical conversation can be interesting, I really love the story behind the machines, and how we react to them today. Excellent reading.
Cheers,
Chris Hafner
 
All,

Apologies for my delay in responding, the flu got in the way.

Thank you for the mostly very kind response to my new collection web site! Sorry to hear it has problems with older browsers. It is one of these new-fangled HTML 5 sites, so some compatibility issues with older browsers are a price to be paid. The benefit was that it was very easy to set up...

Re Barythin - yes, all the machines on the site are part of my collection. Otherwise it would be cheating! As no collection is ever complete, the downside is that sometimes not the most important machines are shown. I.e, for the Apple Mac I never went back below the Mac II, whilst of course the original Mac 128k would be more deserving of being displayed. In general, I like to collect the machines I really like to use, and often that means I own later versions (Apple IIe versus II, or Mac II versus Mac 128k, Atari Mega ST versus Atari 520ST etc). Now that early machines seem to gain some value, that's not the right approach from an investment perspective. But then, investing in old computers doesn't seem to be a winning strategy to me anyway.

Given my limited skills in photography, I asked permission from the kind people at old-computers.com and oldcomputers.net to use some of their pictures. I'd rather show high-quality standard shots than home-made quick snaps revealing the natural state of my, er, Collection Room.



Regards,

Oscar.
 
Tez,

I pretty much saw all your youtube presentations and liked them a lot! Indeed, adding yet another site with specification summaries didn't make much sense to me and I went for the more subjective review.

Especially because I am still surprised how different these machines really are from each other. You don't really know how a 6502-based C-64, Apple II or BBC B provides a totally different experience despite having a lot of specs in common. Until you try them for yourself!

tezza said:
I like the personal impressions of the computers (even though I don't always agree with them :) )
Tez
Click to expand...

Oww... which ones do you not agree with? My dislike of NeXTs? Or the mild disrespect I've shown to the VIC and ZX Spectrum? Maybe we can rekindle the heated debates of VIC-versus-TI99/4A or Amigans-versus-ST users I enjoyed in the 80s :)

Kind regards,

Oscar.
 
Not that Terry won't reply but I think he was agreeing with you as his website also is a lot of his experiences with the computers which are not always the fanfare we idolize today. Not that he was disagreeing with any of your opinions. Often it's a great read too seeing actual use and stories of what had to be done whether it was a pain or not. I do love the factoids too so a good blend is nice to see. ..pretty sure I just said the same thing in several sentences.. off to the next thread!
 
Oscar said:
oww... which ones do you not agree with? My dislike of NeXTs? Or the mild disrespect I've shown to the VIC and ZX Spectrum? Maybe we can rekindle the heated debates of VIC-versus-TI99/4A or Amigans-versus-ST users I enjoyed in the 80s :)
Click to expand...

LOL! Naa, there is nothing wrong with mild disrespect. See my impressions of the Sinclair QL. :)

I was referring to just one comment I read. In discussing the Spectrum ZX you wrote "By 1982, the Commodore 64 set the standard and the Spectrum failed it, as simple as that."

I don't agree that it IS as simple as that. Technically, the Spectrum is less capable than the C64 but it was always priced quite a bit under it. Here in NZ at least it was about 2/3 the price (if not half sometimes) of the C64. You get what you pay for, and value comparisons are only valid if the release year and market prices are the same.

Tez
 
Oscar said:
Especially because I am still surprised how different these machines really are from each other. You don't really know how a 6502-based C-64, Apple II or BBC B provides a totally different experience despite having a lot of specs in common. Until you try them for yourself!
Click to expand...

I agree! This is why the later PC clones and various Mac machines of the 90s don't interest me. They do differ, but the differences are minor compared to the myriad of makes, models and designs that came out of the late 1970s into the 1980s. Although computing started way before that, that period was the beginning of "consumable" computing. Just like the first cars varied enormously before settling down to (more or less) standard designs so it was the case with early micros.

Tez
 
Tez,

tezza said:
LOL! Naa, there is nothing wrong with mild disrespect. See my impressions of the Sinclair QL. :)
Click to expand...

Harsh! But I agree. I remember when the QL came out, the mainstream press described it as a true revolution and truly fell for the hype. But within a year, QL's were selling for 70 pounds at the discounter and for once, I decided I did not need one even at that price.

tezza said:
I was referring to just one comment I read. In discussing the Spectrum ZX you wrote "By 1982, the Commodore 64 set the standard and the Spectrum failed it, as simple as that."

I don't agree that it IS as simple as that. Technically, the Spectrum is less capable than the C64 but it was always priced quite a bit under it. Here in NZ at least it was about 2/3 the price (if not half sometimes) of the C64. You get what you pay for, and value comparisons are only valid if the release year and market prices are the same.
Click to expand...

Err... That's actually very true. I will have to amend the text...

Regards,

Oscar.
 
tezza said:
I agree! This is why the later PC clones and various Mac machines of the 90s don't interest me. They do differ, but the differences are minor compared to the myriad of makes, models and designs that came out of the late 1970s into the 1980s. Although computing started way before that, that period was the beginning of "consumable" computing. Just like the first cars varied enormously before settling down to (more or less) standard designs so it was the case with early micros.
Click to expand...

The strange thing is how even today, with all the benefits of hindsight, it still takes actually playing with a machine to get its character. I thought I had a decent background in 6502 hardware (with Commodore, Apple II, some homebrew & industrial 6502 machines in my collection).
Then I bought a BBC model B last month, and was really stunned to see how unique that machine's approach to computing actually was. Funny. You don't see that from the specs, nor do you really understand it even from using emulators I think.

Regards,

Oscar.
 
Oscar said:
Especially because I am still surprised how different these machines really are from each other. You don't really know how a 6502-based C-64, Apple II or BBC B provides a totally different experience despite having a lot of specs in common. Until you try them for yourself!
Click to expand...

That's due to each machine using different custom chips for graphics and sound, as well as differences in the BASIC and operating system. So for example, even though they have similar specs, a C64 with the VIC-II and SID chips for graphics and sound, respectively, has a different appearance than an Atari 8-bit computer with the GTIA and POKEY chips, even though they are both 6502-based (the C64 using a 6510 derivative and the Atari using a custom 6502C). And no one could confuse the C64's cryptic LOAD "$",8,1 disk commands with the Atari's intuitive menu-driven DOS! :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top