I liked the Victor 9000's [1]; much like IBM PC's but better in several ways. never really caught on.
Ask HN: Which vintage computers do you find interesting?
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Re: Ask HN: Which vintage computers do you find interesting?
#12Wanted to pick up some old SGI stuff but it’s still hard to get and very expensive.
I did try to tell people there was money in old SGI and Sun kit rather than just scrapping it (and then had to buy spares from a scavenger of Sun kit I know of before Sun shut them down). I didn't realize there was much of a market for real SGIs now, though. We used to have a literal stack of Indys to swap in when one off maintenance packed up. Now I only have a mouse somewhere.
Re: Ask HN: Which vintage computers do you find interesting?
#13I’m into a weird part of retrocomputing where I mess with things other than just general purpose computers. Most of my equipment is old network/telecom stuff (mostly ISDN and general T1/E1 stuff rn, but I want to get into ATM) and network analyzers. Notably my Agilent J2300E which is a massive Windows 98 machine that look like a laptop but contains all sorts of sync and async serial interfaces too expensive to put on…
Tasteful. LSI-11 for the likely cheapest PDP (though we weren't -11 fans)?
X.25 may have been legendary, but certainly not mythical! It was what the UK academic network ran on long ago, and worked well, but was steamrollered by IP (which ran over it for a while). I was rather surprised at how primitive computing/networking was at the US equivalent lab when I spent a summer there. I wouldn't know where to look for kit now, but it's surprising what lurks in the bowels of academic establishments! I've seen suggestions it's still in use in other environments. There was something of a competition for the most obsolete bits found by out Field Support.
Edit: There's probably assorted X.25 in Jim Austin's collection, specifically on the GEC 41xx: http://www.computermuseum.org.uk/
Re: Ask HN: Which vintage computers do you find interesting?
#14Old Amiga stuff is still attainable and supposedly really rewarding to play with/program.
Which models are attainable in particular? I've always wanted to have a Video Toaster capable machine (A4000T especially) but I can't seem to find them anywhere.
A2000 is far more obtainable, sometimes already found with a Video Toaster installed. And with PiStorm and other plug in accelerators, the processing power of the 2000 vs 4000 (with some caveats) is less important.
Also the A4000T is very 'collectible' right now. $$$
Re: Ask HN: Which vintage computers do you find interesting?
#15In the 90s, I once saw a commercial on a magazine selling a notebook computer that looks like a cheese. I always wanted it, but I don’t recall the brand.
Re: Ask HN: Which vintage computers do you find interesting?
#16Atari ST 520/1040, for the built-in MIDI ports and retro sequencing software.
Re: Ask HN: Which vintage computers do you find interesting?
#17Do replicas count? I recently got a fully functional PDP-11 replica, running RSTS. This is currently my favorite vintage computer, because the PDP-11 happens to be the very first computer I ever programmed on.
Re: Ask HN: Which vintage computers do you find interesting?
#18Z80 machines w/ CP/M and the IMSAI 8080. I like the old IMSAI 8080 machines and got to use one many years ago and it’s fun and visceral to program with machine code. direct understanding.
Re: Ask HN: Which vintage computers do you find interesting?
#19Slot 1 based Pentium 2/3. The golden age.
imo the standout of that era was the Abit BP6 board that let you run dual celerons and overclock the hell out of them. The p2's had half speed cache on those slot cards, and the celerons usually beat them in my real world applications on memory latency.
Re: Ask HN: Which vintage computers do you find interesting?
#20In the 90s, I once saw a commercial on a magazine selling a notebook computer that looks like a cheese. I always wanted it, but I don’t recall the brand.
Such a weird thing... If you ever find it let me know!