smontanaro 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/s...computing.html

Seems to be some spiritual overlap with this crowd:

tyrion

I have a friend who still uses a 68000 based Wicat computer from the 80s.

steelbikeguy

It's hard to not have an emotional attachment to all that cool stuff of one's youth!
I've limited myself to just my old HP calculators; essential gear for an engineer!
I do live vicariously through youtube, though. The CuriousMarc channel has done some work on neat old HP computers, flight hardware from the Apollo program, etc. Really interesting to see how things were done, or maybe see things that I had some familiarity with.

Even mechanical computing hardware has its allure. I have a small temptation to pick up an old slide rule, but don't know what I'd do with it.
Other stuff, like the handheld Curta mechanical calculator is just a fascinating bit of hardware. Again, no desire to own it, but just watching it being operated is mesmerizing!

Steve in Peoria

squirtdad

i would consider, but can't fit a ibm 370, tape drives and disk into my garage says the old cobol programer

SJX426 

Still have my slide rules from college and the HP45 and 65

bikingshearer 

That is way too cool. Thanks for posting that.

steelbikeguy

that sounds like the new stuff!

I've got the HP-15 from my college days, back when it was the cutting edge calculator.
I've also got my HP-42 from when I was working on my masters degree. The HP-42 was a refinement (or next generation?) of the classic and much desired HP-41C. Getting beyond the 7 segment display allowed so many new features!
There is a HP-42 emulator on my iPod too... very handy.

Steve in Peoria

smontanaro 

I still have an HP-25 around here I think. It hasn't worked for years. I never investigated constructing a new rechargeable battery pack for it.

gthomson

Oh, I thought maybe you were talking about something like this. Riding C&V bikes is awesome. Using C&V computers is painful ha ha

steelbikeguy

I love my old Avocet bike computers!
Simple, functional, light... just don't ask about the lifetime of the battery.
I even have a NOS Avocet 20 in the parts box, if my other Avocets ever wear out.



Steve in Peoria

steelbikeguy

I had to look that up...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-25
It mentions that it was roughly equivalent to the Texas Instruments TI-58C, which I had prior to the HP-15. Those LED displays were neat, but as noted, the need for nicad battery packs really hurt the functionality. I recall going into tests with the TI-58C and just hoping that the battery lasted for the hour.

Steve in Peoria (very happy to upgrade to a liquid crystal display in the HP-15 and not worry about batteries)

pcb 

Pacer 2000, baby! Go big, or go home!!!

Although I did use one back in the day, mine is long gone. Just snagged this pic from the web....

dedhed

Who would still have that stuff lying around? Vintage K&E stadia calculator I saved when they were cleaning house at work , a Pickett business slide rule, and my first real calculator where you can still see formulas written on it.

squirtdad

still have mine. Slide rules were still faster than the very first calculator I had experience with. Then the math teacher bought an HP45.....nothing was the same reverse polish notation rules

Road Fan

In my first aerospace EE jobs, I used a slide rule (either a Deitzgen or a Post, both log-log types) and a HP41CV. The 41 ran my circuit simulations (little flying geese flapping across the display), while I designed magnetics, sensor interfaces, and power switch drive circuits using the slide rule. Today the 41 has given up the ghost, and I still use slide rule now for scaling calculations such as gearing numbers. But Excel is better.

The slide rule I now use is my Dad's old one (K&E) that he bought in the late 1940s for his years in college.

As far as rebuilding desktop computers, ...... meh. I got stereo stuff to fix first, not to mention bikes. Don't you have to have the OS of the right version available on floppies? There's no downloading updates. Now being able to use a shell for DOS that mimics the Unix command line functions - that would not be so bad!

grizzly59

So are my wire wrap tools, wire, sockets, and S-100 backplanes worth something now?

Road Fan

I always wanted the added accuracy of a long slide rule like that Stadia, but when one finally came available I found it only had the basic scales of a school slide rule, like we used in Freshman Algebra. I wanted teh higher accuracy with log-log and trig scales. With my other ones I was usually faster than with a calculator. Somewhere I have a 6" shirt pocket scientific slide rule, but I haven't found it recently, it may have fallen out of my pocket.

Road Fan

I would tend to doubt it!

DiegoFrogs

While it's not terribly old, I'm writing this on a 2012 Samsung Ultrabook that I recently bought for stupid little cash from a used electronics store that went out of business.

I upgraded the (almosty certainly non-OEM) tiny SSD to 480 GB, replaced the battery and installed a fresh copy of a Linux variant to replace the probably illegal copy of windows (sticker was removed). It's funny how a high-end computer from back then with just a few thoughtful, tasteful upgrades could be so good.

Actually, there's a huge overlap in my hobbies...

I'm not sure if it's my appreciation of older things and how much I enjoy the journey, or just that I'm a thoroughbred cheapskate.

Road Fan

I have a 41 CV emulator on my iPhone.

Chuckk

My first home computer was a Radio Shack Color Computer (6809). Here's a few of mine

steelbikeguy

I wasn't expecting to hear a discussion of wire wrap!

I've got an electro-mechanical clock that my dad bought in Germany in the 40's. It has a switch linked to the escapement that briefly powers a solenoid on each pendulum swing. The solenoid gives the pendulum a tiny push, keeping it running.
Well, in the intervening decades, the switch wore out, so I came up with a way to sense the pendulum position and apply a properly timed pulse to the solenoid.
That wasn't enough work, so I decided I needed to come up with a way to compensate for the change in pendulum length as the temperature changed. This meant I needed to measure the pendulum period with some precision, so I wire-wrapped a circuit to measure the pendulum period!

the clock:



the timer that measures the pendulum period:



the underside of the board, showing the wire that is wrapped around the posts of the sockets.




No idea whether wire-wrap tools are worth anything. I'd hate to lose my Clauss No-Nik 30 ga wire stripper, though.

Steve in Peoria

JohnDThompson 

You young whippersnappers have it easy with your portable computing devices. This is real manly technology:

SJX426 

HP 35 was the first then the HP45. $400 BITD. My 65 was the same price several years (2) later. Had a HP10c at one point too. Nice improvement. Always liked RPN.

xiaoman1 

I still have my Texas Instrument SR-!0....massive computing power with 4 functions!

from the net
Best, Ben