What is your retro computing most "irrational want?"

[+x=usr(1536)]

I wound up getting a unicorn on accident, so I'm not actively wanting any more unobtanium.

 

https://imgur.com/gallery/WCO1sIZ

 

-Thom

 

Ooooh. That's some prime fap material right there

[tschak909]

 

Ooooh. That's some prime fap material right there

 

That is a special TEMPEST GRiDCASE model that was designed for classified information processing. Was the last model to have the thin film electroluminescent display, and was not sold commercially, but only to the US Govt (and specifically to select departments). By most counts there are about 5 of these left in the whole world, less than 50 were made. (standard procedure was to destroy upon decommission, this one survives because only the tempest hard drive caddy was removed...a replacement disk was bolted directly to chassis to get it working again.)

 

-Thom

Edited April 24, 2019 by tschak909

[+x=usr(1536)]

 

That is a special TEMPEST GRiDCASE model that was designed for classified information processing. Was the last model to have the thin film electroluminescent display, and was not sold commercially, but only to the US Govt (and specifically to select departments).

 

-Thom

 

Yep. That's what makes it so fapworthy

 

Somewhere I have a Newton MP130 that was government-issue. I'll need to dig that out next time I'm near where it is; it has some unusual modifications.

[KG7PFS]

My most irrational want is enough room to set all this stuff up.

[tschak909]

I am looking for a Control Data Viking-721 PLATO terminal. Extremely difficult to find:

 

 

This one has a Control Data CDC-110 floppy disk drive and controller, turning the terminal into either a micro-PLATO system or a CP/M system, depending on booted disk.

 

-Thom

[AMenard]

My unicorn: An Amiga 4000T at a price I can afford :-)

[Rockin' Kat]

I guess my most irrational want is an Apple Lisa in working order. Followed up with an Apple ///.

[Britishcar]

Apple /// and Apple Lisa, I have both and both are in perfect working order. The Lisa is particularly amazing. The OS is astonishing. You can really see why it went for $10K in 1983.

[JamesD]

I fixed my Apple III, got it to boot, then sold it.
The OS, and some of the software was sort of advanced, but not enough to justify keeping the huge beast.
Freakin heavy!!

 

[bluejay]

My most irrational want for a PC would be the Daewoo IQ series comouters, CIB(Not NIB! I actually want to use it!). These are licensed versiona of MSX computers obly sold in South Korea and a broken one in a flea market would cost $200. 

In gaming... Probably a CIB Magnavox Odyssey?

[Osgeld]

On 6/29/2019 at 7:54 AM, JamesD said:

I fixed my Apple III, got it to boot, then sold it.
The OS, and some of the software was sort of advanced, but not enough to justify keeping the huge beast.
Freakin heavy!!

 

 

lol I do this all the time with system's, I have more fun fixing them than using them 

 

as far as the apple II I grew up with one, and when it left I never looked back, until I did so I had a //c for about 7 years then I sold it a couple years ago, it has its charms, IMO as a productivity computer its one of the best, but now day's im not using it to write papers and keep the budget up to date, I want something goofy and fun like an Atari or Commodore that plays advanced space shooter and demos n shit 

[jdollatari]

apple lisa perhaps a next or one of the cubes. Only thing retro I have atm is a g3 color mac (blue shell) looking to get an apple 2 of some sort next. Oh and msx and fm towns from japan would be nice to!

Edited August 30, 2019 by jdollatari
adding

[Flojomojo]

I want a Sharp x68000 for no other purpose than to play Star Wars: Attack on the Death Star. 

 

 

[Tempest]

24 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

I want a Sharp x68000 for no other purpose than to play Star Wars: Attack on the Death Star. 

Yeah I've toyed around with getting an X68000, but they're expensive, hard to find games/accessories for, and require some knowledge of Japanese for a few things.  I thought about emulating one, but if I'm going to emulate an X68000 for arcade quality games then might as well just use MAME.  It's definitely one of the last systems on my want list, but not one I think I'll end up getting.  

[Flojomojo]

I've tried it in emulation, which is plenty for me. The game has a lot of Japanese, so until I get the realtime translation stuff from RetroArch working, it's probably best to just dream about it. Hence "irrational want."

[roots.genoa]

1 hour ago, Flojomojo said:

I want a Sharp x68000 for no other purpose than to play Star Wars: Attack on the Death Star. 

 

 

I don't know if you are aware of this, but this game was probably the first 3D game in which you can choose between camera angles. The creator of the game, Mikito Ichikawa (a very nice guy by the way), testified about it during a trial because SEGA wanted to patent troll the whole industry about this feature they thought they invented with Virtua Racing.

[carlsson]

On 8/30/2019 at 4:38 PM, jdollatari said:

msx and fm towns from japan would be nice to!

This thread is about irrational wants, things you really don't have any reason to want or would know what to do with if you got it. It would seem like at least some of the items you listed are quite the opposite, dear wants you could argue why you're getting them and have use of them.

[tep392]

I was reminded of my irrational want during a Smithsonian visit. While not cost prohibitive, I just dont know what I would do with it. Would probably end up as a display piece. 

[Tempest]

42 minutes ago, tep392 said:

I was reminded of my irrational want during a Smithsonian visit. While not cost prohibitive, I just dont know what I would do with it. Would probably end up as a display piece. 

There are several computers I've wanted over the years, but reached the same conclusion.  Other than maybe bringing them to shows to show off, they're not something I'd actually use much so they'd just sit on a shelf.  I've got too much stuff like that as is.

[Flojomojo]

1 hour ago, tep392 said:

I had a Mac SE in college. The very beige Plus from the year before, pictured here, felt like ancient technology even though it was only a year old. 

[ubersaurus]

At this stage, probably a Cosmac VIP. I got my Spectrum last visit to the UK, and while an MSX would be neat the VIP is just so weird!

 

 

An Altair 8800 would also be neat if only to run that Space War conversion to it.

Edited September 12, 2019 by ubersaurus

[+adamchevy]

Right now it’s an IBM 5150 AT.

[Osgeld]

On 9/4/2019 at 9:47 AM, tep392 said:

I was reminded of my irrational want during a Smithsonian visit. While not cost prohibitive, I just dont know what I would do with it. Would probably end up as a display piece. 

wordperfect and zork with a toggle switch bootloader *yea I know roms n shit but 

[JamesD]

19 hours ago, ubersaurus said:

At this stage, probably a Cosmac VIP. I got my Spectrum last visit to the UK, and while an MSX would be neat the VIP is just so weird!

 

 

An Altair 8800 would also be neat if only to run that Space War conversion to it.

The VIP is more like the early single board machines like the KIM 1... but with a really limited video added on. 
I'd love to spend some time programming the CPU, but the rest of the hardware is so limited, it's hardly worth messing with.  
It's cool from a historical standpoint though.

I think I'd skip the Altair and go with a modern equivalent.  There's a work alike machine out of Japan with a Z180 (64180?) that looks pretty cool.
 

[carlsson]

^^ Perhaps someone could interface the RCA 1802 with a non-RCA graphics chip like the famous TI VDP or why not a VIC-II. I'm aware of the 1869/1870 VIS used in e.g. the Comx 35 but though it has higher resolution and eight colours, it isn't super exciting graphics wise. (But that is a discussion for another thread)

 

Edit:

Oh, there was an obscure Spanish arcade game in 1982 called Night Mare that is driven by two 1802's (one for main logic and one for sound generation) plus two VDP 9928 chips relabeled EFO 90501. While not being a computer, I suppose it could qualify as an irrational want for an arcade game collector.

 

MAME source with some technical details:

https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/mame/drivers/nightmare.cpp

Edited September 13, 2019 by carlsson