[Dr. Deeps]

I've been thinking of buying a TI-89(the last one I had was one when I had an uncontrollable urge to break into lockers in junior high school.) What are some good uses for them? One of my friends has a Subnet calculator that I would need to buy a TI-89 for.

[B!N4RY]

Do math, and draw parabolas.

Take that question elsewhere, this isn't the thread for it.

[MIPS]

This thread reminded me I still ahve a Rainbow 100 I have to work on as the hard drive bearings are totally worn out. (I should youtube this shit).



Edit: Yes I did and since then I ran upon a repository of software for the system, as well as I found out that even with the IBM compatibility program, Code Blue, It's still not 100% compatible as graphics memory is separate from the system memory map and thus all software must bee coded to make calls to the graphics chip in order to access it. The cool thing is that it's powerful enough that it can draw vectors which was something a regular PC could not do at the time on its own without specialty hardware.

[Tezzanator92]

Didn't you post a thread ages ago about the dim screen? - I vaguely remember something related to it.

Also, Got a BBC Micro yet? :)

[Itsjustguy]

Retro Computing ?

[Zero-Point]

MIPS posted:

What you going to do with that? Make an N8VEM? Go get a Motorola 68000 and then we might talk.

I was actually planning on making a robot, seeing as most of them were salvaged from old robotic arms that didn't work anymore. Decided that should I ever start on it I'd call it "Hannibal", since it'd be made mostly from cannibalized components.

[poopiecrap]

You guys make me feel bad, all i have is retro consoles
I wonder if my atari 2600 still works.

[IlikeHL2]

hope this is retro enough for ya
i found an old school computer, it had wolf3d hidden on it.
i tried to play and this happened.

that only happened once though.
sound on it is fucked too, its amazingly funny, shooting nazis and they all go 'ZZHHAHAHAAZZZZZ'

[butre]

I have a TI-82 from 1993, does that count?

[MIPS]

An eduquest with a CD drive? What madness is this?

[butre]

oh shit I thought that was a zip drive

[B-hazard]

MIPS posted:

Did someone say my name?

Are you an alt of Pentium or what?

[butre]

B-hazard posted:

Are you an alt of Pentium or what?

yeah welcome to last august

[IlikeHL2]

MIPS posted:

An eduquest with a CD drive? What madness is this?

I have no idea why it has one honest

[Fatal-Error]

I still have my Commodore Amiga 1200 HD, with workbench 3.1 installed, I have been looking for a proper Commodore monitor for literally ages, Once I find one my desk will be complete! my first ever computer was a Commodore Amiga 2000, the american model with the metal case. I loved playing Lemmings and Cool Spot on it. Its so damn hard to find the hardware now though, I'm going to try and keep my amiga going for as long as possible!

[Neddix]

I wish there was somewhere, anywhere round here where I could pick up some old pc's. Thing is everything to be found round here is Pentium 3/4 and just not as interesting as the stuff in this thread.

[Wayword]

while i'm here i'd just like to say thanks for the half life game for the dreamcast mips.

[Demache]

I've got an old-ish laptop from around 1994.

An AST Acentia 910N.

Sports a blazing fast intel 486DX4 @ 75 Mhz
16 MB of RAM
3 1/2 inch floppy
And a whopping 500 MB Hard Drive
Its been upgraded to Windows 95.

I apologize in advance. They are only cell phone quality pics.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14575796/IMAG0030.jpghttp://dl.dropbox.com/u/14575796/IMAG0031.jpgDat color VGA STN screen.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14575796/IMAG0033.jpgEasy access to RAM. Just slide the panel on top.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14575796/IMAG0034.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14575796/IMAG0036.jpgI have no idea where this floppy has been....
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14575796/IMAG0037.jpgHard drive was designed to be easily removable so you can insert it inside your desktop PC and work on your stuff from that. Sort of a cool idea actually.

Edited:

It still works entirely. Even the battery can hold a charge for about an hour or so, despite being incredibly old.

[codenamecueball]

Tezzanator92 posted:

Didn't you post a thread ages ago about the dim screen? - I vaguely remember something related to it.

Also, Got a BBC Micro yet? :)

my school threw one of them out 2 years ago...

Edited:

along with like 5 5¼ inch drives

[Warship]

Demache posted:

Even the battery can hold a charge for about an hour or so, despite being incredibly old.

How the fuck?

[sonictrey]

I'm thinking about getting a retro computer soon, any suggestions as to what I should get?

[MacTrekkie]

sonictrey posted:

I'm thinking about getting a retro computer soon, any suggestions as to what I should get?

A Mac Classic is an easy one to get into and they are still fairly plentiful.

[wingless]

sonictrey posted:

I'm thinking about getting a retro computer soon, any suggestions as to what I should get?

Commodore 64's are awesome, Or a Commodore Amiga 500.

Edited:

MacTrekkie posted:

A Mac Classic is an easy one to get into and they are still fairly plentiful.

Or this.

[limulus54]

I know a guy who sells computers from a recycling plant. saw an Apple lisa there once.

never bought anything from that era though. there's a bunch of them though. I just honestly don't know what I would do with them. they're often missing hard drives cause they're from government offices.

[bohb]

MacTrekkie posted:

A Mac Classic is an easy one to get into and they are still fairly plentiful.

I'd get something a tad more modern. All of the original box macs with the built-in CRT were pretty awful. You needed a special tool to open them and since most of them lacked active cooling, the CRT, the circuitry driving it and the power supply tended to overheat and catch fire or worse.

I've had many different box macs over a period of time and the only one worth a spit was the Macintosh SE/30 FDHD. I was really lucky with it because it had a NuBUS upgrade card with a 25 MHz 68030 (the onboard CPU was a '030 16 MHz) and 8 MB of additional RAM on the card, plus a color video controller (gave a DB-15 VGA for the back on an external monitor.)

In any case, I'd recommend something a bit newer like something in the Macintosh II family or LC family (the LC III and III+ were the best, the I and II had problems like a weaker 68020 and only 10 MB RAM max.) Some of the AIW LCs (520, etc.) were pretty good also.

Edited:

limulus54 posted:

I know a guy who sells computers from a recycling plant. saw an Apple lisa there once.

never bought anything from that era though. there's a bunch of them though. I just honestly don't know what I would do with them. they're often missing hard drives cause they're from government offices.

The Lisa was an awful machine, be glad you didn't pick it up. Of the more terrible things to nitpick about it was the CRT had non-square pixels and a funky resolution to match, making it vastly incompatible with almost all software not specifically written for it. Also equally weak was the MC68000 CPU at 5 MHz (the much smaller box macs had an 8 MHz 68000 or 16 MHz 68030.)

[Lapsus]

Fatal-Error posted:

...a proper Commodore monitor...

Does this count?


Anyways, is a Toshiba T6400DXC old enough for this thread?


It's even got a movable keyboard! :3: [I turned it off because the harddrive bearings are really really bad, didn't want to keep it on for too long at all. It runs Windows 3.1]



I've also got a somewhat damaged, yet still awesome, and nearly-complete Olivetti M15! I've got a carrying case, the charger, the unit itself, and the manual, but I don't have any software for it at all. It has no internal storage, just two 3.5" floppy drives. I can turn it on, but it immediately asks for software that I don't have :smith:

[Warship]

Lapsus posted:

but it immediately asks for software that I don't have :smith:

The software is probably somewhere on the internet. You just have to look the right places

[SuperDuperScoot]

bohb posted:

The Lisa was an awful machine, be glad you didn't pick it up. Of the more terrible things to nitpick about it was the CRT had non-square pixels and a funky resolution to match, making it vastly incompatible with almost all software not specifically written for it. Also equally weak was the MC68000 CPU at 5 MHz (the much smaller box macs had an 8 MHz 68000 or 16 MHz 68030.)

My mom used to have a Lisa a few years ago (when dinosaurs roamed the earth is the way she puts it) while working at her current job.
I think she did anyways... I'd have to ask again.

I wonder if they ever kept their old computers......
(She works at a big university in the parking and transportation department as a supervisor)

Edited:

I love the sound of that hard drive for some reason.

[johan_sm]

Whoa keyboards haven't advanced at all. They were blocky as fuck and they still are(the best ones atleast)

[SuperDuperScoot]

Mine is extremely flat.

I can't type on the blocky ones at all, they hurt my fingers and I make assloads of typos on them.

I'm weird.... :saddowns:

[knutmora]

I have an C64, C128 and Amiga 500.
Fuckin' Radar Rat Race.

[limulus54]

bohb posted:

I'd get something a tad more modern. All of the original box macs with the built-in CRT were pretty awful. You needed a special tool to open them and since most of them lacked active cooling, the CRT, the circuitry driving it and the power supply tended to overheat and catch fire or worse.

I've had many different box macs over a period of time and the only one worth a spit was the Macintosh SE/30 FDHD. I was really lucky with it because it had a NuBUS upgrade card with a 25 MHz 68030 (the onboard CPU was a '030 16 MHz) and 8 MB of additional RAM on the card, plus a color video controller (gave a DB-15 VGA for the back on an external monitor.)

In any case, I'd recommend something a bit newer like something in the Macintosh II family or LC family (the LC III and III+ were the best, the I and II had problems like a weaker 68020 and only 10 MB RAM max.) Some of the AIW LCs (520, etc.) were pretty good also.

Edited:



The Lisa was an awful machine, be glad you didn't pick it up. Of the more terrible things to nitpick about it was the CRT had non-square pixels and a funky resolution to match, making it vastly incompatible with almost all software not specifically written for it. Also equally weak was the MC68000 CPU at 5 MHz (the much smaller box macs had an 8 MHz 68000 or 16 MHz 68030.)

oh I know it was terrible. I know a bit about the history of the PC. Just seems like something interesting because it was terrible, like those pennies or stamps with errors on them.

[B-hazard]

I have a load of 90's/early 2000's stuff in my attic:
IDE Raid Card:


Loadsa Ram:


About 3 or 4 of these dual CPU servers:




Also have various other bits and bobs.

[sbradford26]

Itsjustguy posted:

Retro Computing ?

http://www.wimp.com/powerfulabacus/

[MIPS]

bohb posted:

The Lisa was an awful machine, be glad you didn't pick it up. Of the more terrible things to nitpick about it was the CRT had non-square pixels and a funky resolution to match, making it vastly incompatible with almost all software not specifically written for it. Also equally weak was the MC68000 CPU at 5 MHz (the much smaller box macs had an 8 MHz 68000 or 16 MHz 68030.)

It's a fact that there are only SEVEN known programs that were ever released for the Lisa:
-LisaWrite
-LisaCalc
-LisaGraph
-LisaList
-LisaProject
-LisaDraw
-LisaTerminal

Also, it uses oval pixels which on their own are really weird.

[Marnetmar]

[benjgvps]

If you're looking for software, go here: http://hotline.boffomac.com/gethotlinekdx.php

Download one of the client programs and connect to hotline.boffomac.com

[Turnips5]

I wish I had some old computers now for some reason.

I loooove Amiga and C64 music <:D

[POWA KILLERDeux]

I'd like a C64 and a MSX2.

[MacTrekkie]

Marnetmar posted:

Awesome idea for a LAN case. Small LCD and a mini-ITX board in a Lisa case.