I fixed a 44 year old computer today, what a blast from the past!

[phaZed]

What's the oldest computer you have fixed in your business?
I got an 1981 Osborne 1 in with a bad power supply. The Rifa branded caps let the smoke out while the customer turned it on for the first time in over 30 years!

I replaced all the power supply capacitors with modern equivalents and we're back up and running, ready for service once again!
It's not everyday you get to boot up CPM 2.2 with 60K of RAM

 

[Rigo]

What's the oldest computer you have fixed in your business?
I got an 1981 Osborne 1 in with a bad power supply. The Rifa branded caps let the smoke out while the customer turned it on for the first time in over 30 years!

I replaced all the power supply capacitors with modern equivalents and we're back up and running, ready for service once again!
It's not everyday you get to boot up CPM 2.2 with 60K of RAM

View attachment 17393View attachment 17394View attachment 17395View attachment 17396View attachment 17397View attachment 17398View attachment 17399View attachment 17400

I haven't fixed one but in 1988 I had a portable IBM looking like this from work I used to take home for after-hour works.

 

[frase]

What's the oldest computer you have fixed in your business?
I got an 1981 Osborne 1 in with a bad power supply. The Rifa branded caps let the smoke out while the customer turned it on for the first time in over 30 years!

I replaced all the power supply capacitors with modern equivalents and we're back up and running, ready for service once again!
It's not everyday you get to boot up CPM 2.2 with 60K of RAM

View attachment 17393View attachment 17394View attachment 17395View attachment 17396View attachment 17397View attachment 17398View attachment 17399View attachment 17400

Well done, great to see a vintage system bought back to life.

 

[carmen617]

Wow, blast from the past! My first job out of college was in sales at a computer store - we sold the Osborne and the Kaypro, the original Apple II and the Lisa, the original IBM PC, and I still have a mug from Compaq thanking me for contributing to the most successful first year in corporate history. The original Compaq luggable was the same form factor, but much more refined and better quality. I remember the first demo of the product, when the Compaq rep showed us that we could just bang on a certain corner of the case and it would release for servicing.

 

[sapphirescales]

That's older than anything I've ever worked on. It's almost 10 years older than I am! I wouldn't even know where to start.

 

[Philippe]

What's the oldest computer you have fixed in your business?

Not in my business, but for my leisure: a few IBM 5150, 5160 most from 1983.
Yesterday, I hacked into MS Flight Simulator 2.10A (from 1984)

 

[Markverhyden]

I had an original Compaq luggable in the early/mid 90's.

 

[phaZed]

My dad still has a Compaq luggable with the Red/orange plasma LCD display. Just keeping it for the vintage-ness.

 

[Diggs]

My dad still has a Compaq luggable with the Red/orange plasma LCD display. Just keeping it for the vintage-ness.

Which is why I still keep my Vic 20 (circa 1981) around along with all its expandables.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Making me miss my mom's old Panasonic Executive Partner. Probably @Markverhyden's "luggable" machine. That's a museum piece!

 

[frase]

Oldest system I have serviced is my C64, that Osbourne would be worth a bit now.

 

[britechguy]

Oldest system I have serviced is my C64, that Osbourne would be worth a bit now.View attachment 17424

What would be interesting is to see what it sells for, or if it sells . . . [I know only too well that some sellers presume a valuation that the market simply does not.]

 

[phaZed]

What would be interesting is to see what it sells for, or if it sells . . . [I know only too well that some sellers presume a valuation that the market simply does not.]

Ya, here in the states they look fairly available for between $150-300.

 

[britechguy]

Ya, here in the states they look fairly available for between $150-300.

Those of us involved in theater also know of more antique computer equipment (among many, many other things) that reside in our props storage or those of other companies.

What's interesting is to see this stuff effectively fall into the "period piece" category, even after you lived through its "the latest and greatest thing" era!

 

[frase]

Ya, here in the states they look fairly available for between $150-300.

True, around $AUS 500

 

[HCHTech]

What always amazes me looking back to those years is how in the heck individuals or businesses for that matter even afforded computers. Some back of the napkin math shows that the retail price of the Osborne 1 from 1981 adjusted to 2025 dollars would be about $6,500.

 

[Sky-Knight]

What always amazes me looking back to those years is how in the heck individuals or businesses for that matter even afforded computers. Some back of the napkin math shows that the retail price of the Osborne 1 from 1981 adjusted to 2025 dollars would be about $6,500.

The fact is they can easily afford it now, they simply choose not to.

 

[Diggs]

I suppose it's noteworthy that in the mid-80s I was hired to manage and make sense of an IBM System 23 Datamaster for a small import and distribution company. They had moved from the west coast to the Midwest and the people that knew how to run it didn't make the move. It ran BRADS (Business Report And Development System) written in BASIC if I remember right. It handled all of their financials. It also had a very rare 2-bay 8" external floppy drive with it so there were four 8" drives online at any given time. This was IBMs smallest and least expensive computer before the PC.

 

[Markverhyden]

What would be interesting is to see what it sells for, or if it sells . . . [I know only too well that some sellers presume a valuation that the market simply does not.]

There are people that look for old stuff. A few years ago i got hit pretty hard with a case of computer nostalgia. Want to see about getting a VT-100 to use a serial console on a linux box. Kind of like emulate how I used it back in the day for documents, emails, etc, late 70's - early 80's, on a VAX 11/70 as well as a MicroVAX. Well over $700. Even the VT-2xx and VT3xx were nearly $500.

 

[britechguy]

@Markverhyden

We're both showing our ages when any waxing nostalgic for DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) and its once vaunted place in the computing world are being discussed.

I was led into computing on a PDP-10 using punch cards. "Fast" for us in the computer lab was once we got to the point that we could use terminals at 300 BAUD (or I think it was 300 BAUD, that detail is what popped out first, so . . .).