Ransom Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Feast your eyes on this. TRS-80 Model 100.jpg Wow, they had those back in 1908? Amazing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youki Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 This was mentioned at the very beginning of the thread, too. If we were voting, this gets mine. None come close. the PET i have seen in the beginning was not that one, it was a PET 200 , i think. But i read really quickly , i may have missed it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyChris Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 Wow, they had those back in 1908? Amazing! Must be some kind of a glitch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 23, 2014 Share Posted April 23, 2014 For me it is that one! It is one the commodore PET of last generation. It makes me thing to the TV Show : Space 1999! That is one of the best looking I've seen yet, and I agree, it has Space: 1999 written all over it! I'd love to have one of those to sit next to my 1200XL and Apple IIc setups! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 That is one of the best looking I've seen yet, and I agree, it has Space: 1999 written all over it! I'd love to have one of those to sit next to my 1200XL and Apple IIc setups! To me it looks like the Grandpa of this... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 It just needs to show those blue eyes on the monitor and I'd agree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanrunomad Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Bell & Howell "Darth Vader" Apple II 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 It just needs to show those blue eyes on the monitor and I'd agree. Okay... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Bell & Howell "Darth Vader" Apple II That's the machine that first introduced me to computers when I was in Jr. High. I had my first basic programming lessons on it, the height of which was programming my name or other words to scroll in a 'diagonal' pattern on the screen. Not long afterwards I got my very first computer, the Timex/Sinclair 1000. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyChris Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Sexy computer. I'm surprised nobody put this one up yet. Altair 8800 (1975) Sometimes I wish I was living when all this was going on, but then I think, I would have also needed a boatload of money. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Sexy computer. I'm surprised nobody put this one up yet. Altair 8800 (1975) altair_8800.jpg Oh gawd, yes, I would lOVE to see a big fat ANIMATED GIF of this computer with the lights BLINKING! BTW, did you know you can currently buy a reproduction kit? Go here ----> http://www.altairkit.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyChris Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 Oh gawd, yes, I would lOVE to see a big fat ANIMATED GIF of this computer with the lights BLINKING! BTW, did you know you can currently buy a reproduction kit? Go here ----> http://www.altairkit.com/ I don't think that kit is available anymore. I almost bought this mini version though. http://www.brielcomputers.com/wordpress/?cat=18 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Bell & Howell "Darth Vader" Apple II AW YEAR If I had the money I'd be on one of those suckers like white on rice. Nostalgiagasm and all that. And I already have a beat-up //e. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 (edited) Now take the functionality of a Altair 8800, give in built in audio, the ability to display to television monitor, add a full stroke keyboard, then give it a casing in IBM blue with actual treated walnut wood sides that a wife is more likely not to have you kick into the garage, and you have the Sol Terminal 20. Even the insides were beautiful in arrangement, with daughter boards that started the computer with 2K of ram allowed the computer up to 64K of ram. This beauty hit the markets in June 1976. The computer was a kit you built and even gave instructions on how to treat the walnut wood panels. VIDEO -------- Used a VDM-1 Video Display Module in a time when displaying to television rather than a printer was a fairly new idea. GAMES ------- Example of Trek 80 on the left in this video which led to many hours of fun. Fairly complex Star Trek game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaLSX8_Q7aE Targ was another fun game. Not only did it have the fun gameplay ability of letting you guide the missile as you'll see in the video, but also had "sound effects". Here is the emulator showing the gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_E5UnCVll8 By placing an AM radio near the computer and playing with the tuner, you can get "sound effects" with the game.: http://www.sol20.org/media/targ_am.mp3 Both of these games were ported to the TRS-80 Model I. TELECOMMUNICATIONS --- Recently called a BBS and the Sol Terminal 20 had no difficulty at all trucking along at 19.2K baud. Higher speeds were selectable through the toggle switches on the back of the motherboard. STORAGE --- Had the option of a paper reader, punch cards, cassette, or if you had a few more bucks you might have scored a floppy system in which 3 1/4" and 8" floppies were available. Here are sounds of klacking away on the nice keyboard, accessing the disk system: Sol Sounds.mp3 Hard drives were also available, but were huge and very expensive. MUSIC -- I tried to find information on the sound board, but I believe it was said it was a 4 bit sound board which made some good music, when you remember we are talking 1976, possible. Here is a version of Star Wars that I recorded from my Dad's Sol Terminal: Star Wars.mp3 Interesting fact, this computer was released nearly one year before Star Wars would be released on May 1977. Other good reading on what a jump of technology this beautiful machine was in 1976 are: http://www.pc-history.org/sol.htm http://oldcomputers.net/sol-20.html http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/sol-20/ And very special thanks to Jim Battle on the Sol Terminal 20 archive, where you can get the Solace Sol Terminal emulator for the PC and play the games and music mentioned above: http://www.sol20.org/solace.html SUMMARY -- My Dad's Experience with the Sol Terminal 20. If you were computing from 1976 to 1980 this was the computer to have. Most of what we have come to know about computers with a display to a monitor, onboard sound capability, the floppy disk used into most of the 80's, and even the keyboard we type on were all adopted by the Sol Terminal 20. While the Sol did not invent any of the ideas mentioned above, they had the "Wisdom of Solomon" to incorporate all those ideas into a beautiful IBM blue package with wood siding that even a wife could tolerate. (This is obviously not a picture of my dad, but a generic ad of the day of a woman working away on a Sol Terminal.) My Dad had/has one of these, expanded to 48K, added the 3 1/4" floppy disk system (want to say they were Percom made). In late 1979 Dad would see the Atari 800 playing Star Raiders on a projection screen television and like many who had Altairs, Sols, Pets, and the like were simply blown away. The next level of computers had arrived. That said, the Sol Terminal 20 was the utility machine that was used for porting many Atari 2600 game images for loading to an early static ram cartridges for hours of gameplay for his kids, and helped in decompiling the onboard roms of the TRS-80 Model 100. The Sol Terminal 20 was then finally retired in the late 80s after a decade of use by the TRS Model 100 once my Dad established a floppy drive dock and monitor for the Model 100. The Sol Terminal 20 still works fairly well after nearly 37 years. The foam pads on top of silver discs in the keyboard needed to be replaced, and some of the older eproms for the personality modules are looking like they need to be replaced soon. However, the computer is still fun to play with, especially for the occasional game of Trek 80. If you asked me the sexiest computers of all time... definitely the Sol Terminal 20, the Atari 800, the Atari TT030 and Mega STE (that case design), and about any Macintosh computer design that is not beige. Edited April 26, 2014 by doctorclu 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted April 27, 2014 Share Posted April 27, 2014 Message from Jim Battle of the Sol Emulator site for Solace and the Sol Archive: "Hey, Greg, that was a fun read. One error though, repeated twice: the floppies were 5 1/4", not 3 1/4". 3.5" floppies came a bit later. That is really great that your dad created a soft-loadable 2600 cartridge!" Oh yeh, true, 5 1/4". Should have known that from my own Atari 400/800 days, just been so long since I have had to say 5 1/4" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spamh8r Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 I'm in agreement with the SEVERAL people who are fans of the 1200XL. Beautiful machine. If I were to go back a bit further, I would add a couple others: Not sure why I chose the blue theme, but there they are: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 28, 2014 Share Posted April 28, 2014 (edited) That first picture doesn't seem to want to load up...at least not for my PC... That Minivac 601 looks like an electronics project board rather than a computer... Edited April 28, 2014 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobertLM78 Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 <SNIP> "Wisdom of Solomon" <SNIP> That is an excellent website Doctorclu - and an excellent post as well . 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dendawg Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 Even though it was never released, I loved the look of the Atari 1450 XLD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 (edited) Sexy computer. I'm surprised nobody put this one up yet. Altair 8800 (1975) altair_8800.jpg Sometimes I wish I was living when all this was going on, but then I think, I would have also needed a boatload of money. I've always wondered...just what the h*ll can that thing actually do?!? What can it be programmed for?!? And exactly what kind of info/output can a few dozen LED lights display?!? It's cool looking, but it always seemed to me to be basically worthless, even by 70's standards... It seems to me that my Texas Instruments 2500B Datamath calculator, circa 1973 can do more than the Altair 8800... Although, I'd love to own an Altair, I know they are worth a small fortune... Edited April 29, 2014 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 I've always wondered...just what the h*ll can that thing actually do?!? What can it be programmed for?!? And exactly what kind of info/output can a few dozen LED lights display?!? It's cool looking, but it always seemed to me to be basically worthless, even by 70's standards... It seems to me that my Texas Instruments 2500B Datamath calculator, circa 1973 can do more than the Altair 8800... Although, I'd love to own an Altair, I know they are worth a small fortune... You do realize they hooked the Altair up to a terminal through a serial port right? That calculator reminds me a bit of my first calculator. It had a red display. It was simple but it was a great little calculator. I was totally bummed out when it died. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 (edited) You do realize they hooked the Altair up to a terminal through a serial port right? That calculator reminds me a bit of my first calculator. It had a red display. It was simple but it was a great little calculator. I was totally bummed out when it died. No I didn't realize it was hooked up to a terminal. I've seen dozens of pictures of it over the years, I've seen in on shows and in movies (most recently 'Jobs') and never once have I seen it hooked up to anything else, it was always pictured stand-alone. As to the calculator, I bought it at a garage sale or thrift shop (can't remember for sure which) about 5 or so years ago and I've been using it for my main adding machine ever since, it still works great. Edited April 29, 2014 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyChris Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 I've always wondered...just what the h*ll can that thing actually do?!? What can it be programmed for?!? And exactly what kind of info/output can a few dozen LED lights display?!? It's cool looking, but it always seemed to me to be basically worthless, even by 70's standards... It seems to me that my Texas Instruments 2500B Datamath calculator, circa 1973 can do more than the Altair 8800... Although, I'd love to own an Altair, I know they are worth a small fortune... Here, you can play Kill the Bit. Altair 8800 - Video #3 - Kill the Bit Game.mov I have edited down this YouTube video. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 No I didn't realize it was hooked up to a terminal. I've seen dozens of pictures of it over the years, I've seen in on shows and in movies (most recently 'Jobs') and never once have I seen it hooked up to anything else, it was always pictured stand-alone. Ever seen 'War Games'? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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