"Mark Metzler wrote:
I was in WalMart last night, and I swung by the Electronics area. I was curious as to how much a replacement drive would cost me for my PC at home, which has a 17gb drive in it. They had a 80gig drive sitting on the shelf next to the surge suppressors for $70. Never mind that it comes with the software to copy everything to the new drive. So I stood there trying to do the math on what it would cost to equate that volume of storage with ST506 drives at $1995.00 a pop. My head started hurting, so I rounded the ST506 to $2000.
It would take 16,000 ST506’s to reach the memory of the drive in WalMart (again sitting on the shelf, not behind a locked cabinet).
At $2000.00 a pop, it would cost me $32,000,000.00.
Now that would have been a nice sale, but would have been stolen by Jim Scharffe or Mike Daniel.
Here is another perspective. If stacked on top of one another, they would be as tall as a 667 story building.
If from sea level, they would stack high enough to top the tallest building in Downtown Denver.
If sold with a cabinet and power supply, Josef Rabinowitz would be retired. "
"Ohmigod! I'm reminded of when I worked for Heath Kline at Priority One Electronics in Chatsworth...and before that for Galaxy Computers in Woodland Hills when the Commodore 64 was introduced! We thought it huge compared to the Timex Sinclair...."
"We both have been into computers since 1970's & currently own 6 OSBORNE's in working condition. Although we use DOS now, we miss cpm & how actually FAST it was compared to Windows. We miss dBase. Append as well instead of Access now. We still have data on 5 1/4" discs we need to put into the dos machines we use now.
Sorry to hear you are leaving the business - we certainly hope you find a buyer who will keep the collection intact!
Best to you & your wonderful efforts!"
DONATE YOUR OLD
SYSTEM WE ARE ALWAYS LOOKING FOR VINTAGE COMPUTER SYSTEMS
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO DONATE TO
THE FREEMAN PC MUSEUM
Welcome to The Freeman PC Museum collection. The following is a complete list of vintage computer systems in the museum. Feel free to scroll through the list, view details of the system, see related links and advertisements, and join in on the mini forums for each of the systems.
The following list is complete. If you are searching for a particular model, manufacturer, or a list of computers from a particular year, use the "Search" form on the left. Thank you again for visiting The Freeman PC Museum, and enjoy.
The Vintage Osborne-4 "Vixen" was the last computer produced by Osborne before it closed for the second time in 1985. This machine was still in development when the company filed bankruptcy in 1983. It was another step in the ego-driven company that ignored what the customer’s really want and like the Executive only caused more lost marketshare for Osborne.
Very few of these units were ever sold. It is extremely rare and we are proud to have one in pristine condition. It has a smaller footprint than earlier Osborne models. The screen is 7” and the keyboard is attached and folds down to act as a riser for the computer. Nice design. The Vixen had a 4 MHz Zilog Z80 cpu, 64Kb RAM. 24 lines x 80 columns of memory-mapped videodisplay, (2) 400Kb disk drives and optional 10Mb hard drive.
Ohio Scientific Challenger 4P in very good condition. See more photos for manuals. Thanks to Carl Gochnauer in Iowa for holding on to this nice computer for all of us to enjoy.
Black Bell & Howell version of the Apple II+. Nicknamed "Darth Vader". A limited number were manufactured by Apple and marketed by Bell & Howell, primarily for schools. This unit was individually owned and not used in a school, therefore the case and keyboard are in near mint condition. The motherboard is dated 1979 and this system has the original Apple Disk Interface card and a couple of other add-in cards. The inside of this machine is spotless! Clean and dust free, looks new inside. The case is mint, no cracks, scratches, dents, or anything. These are rare and especially hard to find in this clean condition, since most of these were in the educational market and got hammered on by school kids... not this one though. It is in excellent condition.
1975 Sphere Corporation introduces Sphere I computer kit, with Motorola 6800 cpu, 4Kb RAM, ROM, keyboard and video interface. Selling price $650. Thanks to Carl Gochnauer in Iowa for holding on to this nice computer for all of us to enjoy.
