Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

[Don McKenzie]

Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

I mentioned this one coming up for auction, a week or two back:
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/rare-apple-i-computer-sells-for-216000-in-london-20101124-1861g.html

yes it sold, and for an interesting price.

I wonder if my piece of art is worth anything?
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/australias-first-pc.html

Cheers Don...

===================


--
Don McKenzie

Site Map: http://www.dontronics.com/sitemap
E-Mail Contact Page: http://www.dontronics.com/email
Web Camera Page: http://www.dontronics.com/webcam
No More Damn Spam: http://www.dontronics.com/spam

USB Isolator 1000VDC For Protecting Your PC OR Laptop
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/usb-iso-low-full-speed-usb-isolator.html

These products will reduce in price by 5% every month:
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/minus-5-every-month.html

 

[Paul E. Bennett]

Don McKenzie wrote:

Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

I mentioned this one coming up for auction, a week or two back:
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/rare-apple-i-computer-sells-
for-216000-in-london-20101124-1861g.html

yes it sold, and for an interesting price.

I wonder if my piece of art is worth anything?
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/australias-first-pc.html

Starting to make me wonder what my Mullard Magnetic Core Memory board is
worth now.

--
********************************************************************
Paul E. Bennett...............<email://Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk>
Forth based HIDECS Consultancy
Mob: +44 (0)7811-639972
Tel: +44 (0)1235-510979
Going Forth Safely ..... EBA. www.electric-boat-association.org.uk..
********************************************************************

 

[Trevor Wilson]

Don McKenzie wrote:

Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

I mentioned this one coming up for auction, a week or two back:
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/rare-apple-i-computer-sells-for-216000-in-london-20101124-1861g.html

yes it sold, and for an interesting price.

I wonder if my piece of art is worth anything?
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/australias-first-pc.html

Cheers Don...

**I wonder if my Dontronics 256k printer buffer (using second hand memory
chips) is now worth a fortune?


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

 

[Don McKenzie]

On 25-Nov-10 9:15 AM, Trevor Wilson wrote:

Don McKenzie wrote:
Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

I mentioned this one coming up for auction, a week or two back:
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/rare-apple-i-computer-sells-for-216000-in-london-20101124-1861g.html

yes it sold, and for an interesting price.

I wonder if my piece of art is worth anything?
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/australias-first-pc.html

Cheers Don...


**I wonder if my Dontronics 256k printer buffer (using second hand memory
chips) is now worth a fortune?

Don't see why not Trevor.

http://www.dontronics.com/z80.html (writeup and source code)
Produced from 1984 to 1993. Memory sizes from 64K to 4Mb (64Mb possible) with an 8 bit Z80 micro.
There was about 4000 sold, which I feel was pretty good for pre-internet days.

Cheers Don...

=======================


--
Don McKenzie

Site Map: http://www.dontronics.com/sitemap
E-Mail Contact Page: http://www.dontronics.com/email
Web Camera Page: http://www.dontronics.com/webcam
No More Damn Spam: http://www.dontronics.com/spam

USB Isolator 1000VDC For Protecting Your PC OR Laptop
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/usb-iso-low-full-speed-usb-isolator.html

These products will reduce in price by 5% every month:
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/minus-5-every-month.html

 

[Ben Pfaff]

Don McKenzie <5V@2.5A> writes:

On 25-Nov-10 9:15 AM, Trevor Wilson wrote:
**I wonder if my Dontronics 256k printer buffer (using second hand memory
chips) is now worth a fortune?

Don't see why not Trevor.

http://www.dontronics.com/z80.html (writeup and source code)
Produced from 1984 to 1993. Memory sizes from 64K to 4Mb (64Mb possible) with an 8 bit Z80 micro.

What was a standalone printer buffer good for?
--
Ben Pfaff
http://benpfaff.org

 

[Don McKenzie]

On 25-Nov-10 4:20 PM, Roland Hutchinson wrote:

On Wed, 24 Nov 2010 21:13:03 -0800, Ben Pfaff wrote:

Don McKenzie<5V@2.5A> writes:

On 25-Nov-10 9:15 AM, Trevor Wilson wrote:
**I wonder if my Dontronics 256k printer buffer (using second hand
memory chips) is now worth a fortune?

Don't see why not Trevor.

http://www.dontronics.com/z80.html (writeup and source code) Produced
from 1984 to 1993. Memory sizes from 64K to 4Mb (64Mb possible) with an
8 bit Z80 micro.

What was a standalone printer buffer good for?

Offloading background print spooling from a microcomputer CPU, especially
one running a non-multitasking OS.

Yes, we are talking about the days when a printer just had a micro, and no internal memory, or very little.

When you did a print, your computer stopped completely until the print had finished, as it was spending 100% of the time
chatting to the printer micro. When the print finished, you got access to your computer again.

An in line printer buffer allowed you to dump the contents to the buffer fairly quickly, and the buffer then chatted to
the printer, which enabled you to get on with your work on the computer.

That is the way things worked in the PC world in the 70s and 80s.

Cheers Don...

=================


--
Don McKenzie

Site Map: http://www.dontronics.com/sitemap
E-Mail Contact Page: http://www.dontronics.com/email
Web Camera Page: http://www.dontronics.com/webcam
No More Damn Spam: http://www.dontronics.com/spam

USB Isolator 1000VDC For Protecting Your PC OR Laptop
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/usb-iso-low-full-speed-usb-isolator.html

These products will reduce in price by 5% every month:
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/minus-5-every-month.html

 

[Roland Hutchinson]

On Wed, 24 Nov 2010 21:13:03 -0800, Ben Pfaff wrote:

Don McKenzie <5V@2.5A> writes:

On 25-Nov-10 9:15 AM, Trevor Wilson wrote:
**I wonder if my Dontronics 256k printer buffer (using second hand
memory chips) is now worth a fortune?

Don't see why not Trevor.

http://www.dontronics.com/z80.html (writeup and source code) Produced
from 1984 to 1993. Memory sizes from 64K to 4Mb (64Mb possible) with an
8 bit Z80 micro.

What was a standalone printer buffer good for?

Offloading background print spooling from a microcomputer CPU, especially
one running a non-multitasking OS.

--
Roland Hutchinson

He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
.... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )

 

[Trevor Wilson]

Don McKenzie wrote:

On 25-Nov-10 4:20 PM, Roland Hutchinson wrote:
On Wed, 24 Nov 2010 21:13:03 -0800, Ben Pfaff wrote:

Don McKenzie<5V@2.5A> writes:

On 25-Nov-10 9:15 AM, Trevor Wilson wrote:
**I wonder if my Dontronics 256k printer buffer (using second hand
memory chips) is now worth a fortune?

Don't see why not Trevor.

http://www.dontronics.com/z80.html (writeup and source code)
Produced from 1984 to 1993. Memory sizes from 64K to 4Mb (64Mb
possible) with an 8 bit Z80 micro.

What was a standalone printer buffer good for?

Offloading background print spooling from a microcomputer CPU,
especially one running a non-multitasking OS.

Yes, we are talking about the days when a printer just had a micro,
and no internal memory, or very little.
When you did a print, your computer stopped completely until the
print had finished, as it was spending 100% of the time chatting to
the printer micro. When the print finished, you got access to your
computer again.
An in line printer buffer allowed you to dump the contents to the
buffer fairly quickly, and the buffer then chatted to the printer,
which enabled you to get on with your work on the computer.
That is the way things worked in the PC world in the 70s and 80s.

**Indeed. Up until I could afford a '386 with 4MB RAM (which I could use as
a print spooler), I used the mighty Dontronics buffer with my various dot
matrix printers. That was how it was with DOS. It was pretty much impossible
to do two things at once. All that changed with OS/2, which had a brilliant
print spooler and put Windows 386 to shame. Pity IBM lacked the marketing
nouse and printer support (bloody thing wouldn't work with my HP Laserjet!!)
that Microsoft had back then.


--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au

 

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 19:49:38 +1100
"Trevor Wilson" <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:

Pity IBM lacked the marketing
nouse and printer support (bloody thing wouldn't work with my HP
Laserjet!!) that Microsoft had back then.

I think IBM had (and still have) marketing nounce - it's just that
they concentrate on a rather different market, instead of trying to get
millions of people to spend a few hundred each they prefer to get thousands
of people to spend a few million each.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/

 

[terryc]

Don McKenzie wrote:

http://www.dontronics.com/z80.html (writeup and source code)
Produced from 1984 to 1993. Memory sizes from 64K to 4Mb (64Mb possible)
with an 8 bit Z80 micro.
There was about 4000 sold, which I feel was pretty good for pre-internet
days.

Drat, nothing for a Z80 CTC chip. Still have a box load of these around.

 

[terryc]

Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 19:49:38 +1100
"Trevor Wilson" <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:

Pity IBM lacked the marketing
nouse and printer support (bloody thing wouldn't work with my HP
Laserjet!!) that Microsoft had back then.

I think IBM had (and still have) marketing nounce - it's just that
they concentrate on a rather different market, instead of trying to get
millions of people to spend a few hundred each they prefer to get thousands
of people to spend a few million each.

That is my 2c as well. If IBM had encouraged and supported home users of
OS/2, then there would have been millions of workers telling the boss
that MS Win was absolute crap compared to OS/2.

 

[Rod Speed]

terryc wrote:

Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 19:49:38 +1100
"Trevor Wilson" <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:

Pity IBM lacked the marketing
nouse and printer support (bloody thing wouldn't work with my HP
Laserjet!!) that Microsoft had back then.

I think IBM had (and still have) marketing nounce - it's just that
they concentrate on a rather different market, instead of trying to
get millions of people to spend a few hundred each they prefer to
get thousands of people to spend a few million each.

That is my 2c as well. If IBM had encouraged and supported home users
of OS/2, then there would have been millions of workers telling the
boss that MS Win was absolute crap compared to OS/2.

Wouldnt have done a damned thing about the very fundamental problem,
hardly any of the apps that mattered bothered to support OS/2 properly
and none were stupid enough to ignore Win.

 

[Roland Hutchinson]

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 19:49:38 +1100, Trevor Wilson wrote:

Don McKenzie wrote:
On 25-Nov-10 4:20 PM, Roland Hutchinson wrote:
On Wed, 24 Nov 2010 21:13:03 -0800, Ben Pfaff wrote:

Don McKenzie<5V@2.5A> writes:

On 25-Nov-10 9:15 AM, Trevor Wilson wrote:
**I wonder if my Dontronics 256k printer buffer (using second hand
memory chips) is now worth a fortune?

Don't see why not Trevor.

http://www.dontronics.com/z80.html (writeup and source code)
Produced from 1984 to 1993. Memory sizes from 64K to 4Mb (64Mb
possible) with an 8 bit Z80 micro.

What was a standalone printer buffer good for?

Offloading background print spooling from a microcomputer CPU,
especially one running a non-multitasking OS.

Yes, we are talking about the days when a printer just had a micro, and
no internal memory, or very little. When you did a print, your computer
stopped completely until the print had finished, as it was spending
100% of the time chatting to the printer micro. When the print
finished, you got access to your computer again.
An in line printer buffer allowed you to dump the contents to the
buffer fairly quickly, and the buffer then chatted to the printer,
which enabled you to get on with your work on the computer. That is the
way things worked in the PC world in the 70s and 80s.

**Indeed. Up until I could afford a '386 with 4MB RAM (which I could use
as a print spooler), I used the mighty Dontronics buffer with my various
dot matrix printers. That was how it was with DOS. It was pretty much
impossible to do two things at once. All that changed with OS/2, which
had a brilliant print spooler and put Windows 386 to shame. Pity IBM
lacked the marketing nouse and printer support (bloody thing wouldn't
work with my HP Laserjet!!) that Microsoft had back then.

I spent a tidy sum for a daisywheel ("true letter quality") printer with
a built-in print buffer--basically a Brother that a third-party company
had rigged up and resold. About $800 in the early 80s--a couple of years
after the IBM-PC came out, and it was _highly_ affordable compared to
what the lowest daisywheel printer prices had been a year or two earlier
(as in twice the price for a reconditioned, though admittedly heavier-
duty one).

--
Roland Hutchinson

He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
.... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )

 

[Roland Hutchinson]

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 05:37:13 +1100, Rod Speed wrote:

terryc wrote:
Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 19:49:38 +1100
"Trevor Wilson" <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:

Pity IBM lacked the marketing
nouse and printer support (bloody thing wouldn't work with my HP
Laserjet!!) that Microsoft had back then.

I think IBM had (and still have) marketing nounce - it's just that
they concentrate on a rather different market, instead of trying to
get millions of people to spend a few hundred each they prefer to get
thousands of people to spend a few million each.

That is my 2c as well. If IBM had encouraged and supported home users
of OS/2, then there would have been millions of workers telling the
boss that MS Win was absolute crap compared to OS/2.

Wouldnt have done a damned thing about the very fundamental problem,
hardly any of the apps that mattered bothered to support OS/2 properly
and none were stupid enough to ignore Win.

WordPerfect was.

--
Roland Hutchinson

He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
.... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )

 

[Baron]

terryc Inscribed thus:

Don McKenzie wrote:

http://www.dontronics.com/z80.html (writeup and source code)
Produced from 1984 to 1993. Memory sizes from 64K to 4Mb (64Mb
possible) with an 8 bit Z80 micro.
There was about 4000 sold, which I feel was pretty good for
pre-internet days.

Drat, nothing for a Z80 CTC chip. Still have a box load of these
around.

Dragon... Anybody... mmm.

--
Best Regards:
Baron.

 

[Roland Hutchinson]

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 20:31:57 +0000, Roland Hutchinson wrote:

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 19:49:38 +1100, Trevor Wilson wrote:

Don McKenzie wrote:
On 25-Nov-10 4:20 PM, Roland Hutchinson wrote:
On Wed, 24 Nov 2010 21:13:03 -0800, Ben Pfaff wrote:

Don McKenzie<5V@2.5A> writes:

On 25-Nov-10 9:15 AM, Trevor Wilson wrote:
**I wonder if my Dontronics 256k printer buffer (using second hand
memory chips) is now worth a fortune?

Don't see why not Trevor.

http://www.dontronics.com/z80.html (writeup and source code)
Produced from 1984 to 1993. Memory sizes from 64K to 4Mb (64Mb
possible) with an 8 bit Z80 micro.

What was a standalone printer buffer good for?

Offloading background print spooling from a microcomputer CPU,
especially one running a non-multitasking OS.

Yes, we are talking about the days when a printer just had a micro,
and no internal memory, or very little. When you did a print, your
computer stopped completely until the print had finished, as it was
spending 100% of the time chatting to the printer micro. When the
print finished, you got access to your computer again. An in line
printer buffer allowed you to dump the contents to the buffer fairly
quickly, and the buffer then chatted to the printer, which enabled you
to get on with your work on the computer. That is the way things
worked in the PC world in the 70s and 80s.

**Indeed. Up until I could afford a '386 with 4MB RAM (which I could
use as a print spooler), I used the mighty Dontronics buffer with my
various dot matrix printers. That was how it was with DOS. It was
pretty much impossible to do two things at once. All that changed with
OS/2, which had a brilliant print spooler and put Windows 386 to shame.
Pity IBM lacked the marketing nouse and printer support (bloody thing
wouldn't work with my HP Laserjet!!) that Microsoft had back then.

I spent a tidy sum for a daisywheel ("true letter quality") printer with
a built-in print buffer--basically a Brother that a third-party company
had rigged up and resold. About $800 in the early 80s--a couple of
years after the IBM-PC came out, and it was _highly_ affordable compared
to what the lowest daisywheel printer prices had been a year or two
earlier (as in twice the price for a reconditioned, though admittedly
heavier- duty one).

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the Brother printer was basically a Brother
typewriter mechanism that they had lightly re-engineered into a printer.
It worked perfectly for years; I eventually gave it away after I got a
laser printer.

--
Roland Hutchinson

He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
.... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )

 

[Rod Speed]

Roland Hutchinson wrote

Rod Speed wrote
terryc wrote:
Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote
Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote

Pity IBM lacked the marketing nouse and printer support (bloody thing
wouldn't work with my HP Laserjet!!) that Microsoft had back then.

I think IBM had (and still have) marketing nounce - it's just that
they concentrate on a rather different market, instead of trying to
get millions of people to spend a few hundred each they prefer to
get thousands of people to spend a few million each.

That is my 2c as well. If IBM had encouraged and supported home
users of OS/2, then there would have been millions of workers
telling the boss that MS Win was absolute crap compared to OS/2.

Wouldnt have done a damned thing about the very fundamental problem,
hardly any of the apps that mattered bothered to support OS/2
properly and none were stupid enough to ignore Win.

WordPerfect was.

Was what ? It certainly wasnt stupid enough to ignore Win.

WordPervert was never gunna survive, it always had a completely fucked user interface.

 

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Fri, 26 Nov 2010 16:35:16 +1100
"Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> wrote:

WordPervert was never gunna survive, it always had a completely fucked
user interface.

Surprising then that it was so popular right up until Windows
became ubiquitous. I quite liked WordPerfect's interface.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/

 

[kreed]

On Nov 25, 8:15 am, "Trevor Wilson" <tre...@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:

Don McKenzie wrote:
Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

I mentioned this one coming up for auction, a week or two back:
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/rare-apple-i-computer-se...

yes it sold, and for an interesting price.

I wonder if my piece of art is worth anything?
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/australias-first-pc.html

Cheers Don...

**I wonder if my Dontronics 256k printer buffer (using second hand memory
chips) is now worth a fortune?

I hope its worth a lot, as I still have one I built circa 1990

--
Trevor Wilsonwww.rageaudio.com.au

 

[kreed]

On Nov 25, 3:13 pm, Ben Pfaff <b...@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:

Don McKenzie <5...@2.5A> writes:
On 25-Nov-10 9:15 AM, Trevor Wilson wrote:
**I wonder if my Dontronics 256k printer buffer (using second hand memory
chips) is now worth a fortune?

Don't see why not Trevor.

http://www.dontronics.com/z80.html(writeup and source code)
Produced from 1984 to 1993. Memory sizes from 64K to 4Mb (64Mb possible) with an 8 bit Z80 micro.

What was a standalone printer buffer good for?
--
Ben Pfaffhttp://benpfaff.org

it allowed you to buffer printer data, so you could use the PC for
something else. This would have been in the days of DOS when there was
no multitasking.

One example would be that I can clearly remember a colleague who was
frequently printing out something like cad, schematic, PDF or similar
files in 1991 on some sort of laser or very high quality printer. He
used a surplus XT computer (which ran about 4-8 MHZ) to buffer the
print file, send it to the printer etc.

To process and print these files took some 4 hours to do, and this way
the second PC (XT) could handle it all, leaving the main PC free to
perform other tasks.

I don't remember how much memory the XT machine had back then, but Im
fairly sure it was 640k (0.64MB).

The Dontronics printer buffer was a lifesaver in that it would connect
between the printer port on the PC and the printer, rapidly (by the
standards of back then) collect the data from the printer port by
"pretending" to be a printer, store this data it in its internal RAM
then slowly feed it out to the printer as the printer requested it.
It was also affordable to the average tech minded hobbyist of the time
at around $100 for the kit IIRC, where a second PC would be out of the
question as to affordability.

As printers back then also didnt have much (if any) in the way of
ram, and printed much more slowly than now, this meant that the print
job could proceed directly from the printer buffer without the PC
being held up performing this task. Nowadays printers have
substantial ram and Windows/Linux etc contain sufficient memory and
processor speed to handle all this in the background.

For example a dot matrix printer (most common type in use) could take
5-10 seconds to print a line of text, if you had many pages to print,
your program could be sitting tied up doing this function for a
significant time (and you couldn't use the machine) if you had to
print out a report of many pages without the printer buffer.

(It would be like now if you were printing a high res image onto A4
photo paper at the highest resolution and quality and the PC was
"locked" during this whole process for several minutes.)

Daisy wheel ones were probably faster, but limited to alphanumeric
characters only (like mechanical typewriters).
None of this gear was in any way cheap to buy.



It is a very different world now.

I think our PBUFF had around 1mb in it. It used computer ram sticks,
of a type you don't see anymore, they had pins on them, like a very
long single sided DIP package, but it was a PCB with RAM IC's on it.
(much like now). SIMM or DIMM (Cant remember).