February 2018 - vcf-midatlantic

eBay Damage
by Chris Fala 26 Feb '18

26 Feb '18

I have WAY too many horribly sad stories about shipping damage. I have tried to suggest to sellers to pack carefully. Sometimes they do OK, sometimes they fail miserably, and sometimes they get angry and offended that I dare tell them how to do anything. I wish there was a fool-proof solution (other than local pickup which isn't always an option). On Feb 24, 2018, at 1:49 PM, John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: And I need to vent a little further. This was in good shape before the seller didn't pack it properly :(. Anyway, thanks for listening fellow retro enthusiasts :) John On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 1:46 PM, John Heritage <john.heritage(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Folks, > > I'm still on the lookout for an Atari 810 drive to match my Atari 800 > computers. There are two types -- one with a 'barn door' that opens up, > and another with the middle flip lid. I want the middle flip lid type. > > I just ordered one on Ebay and of course the guy packaged it horribly, so > the case became heavily damaged so now I have deal with returning it. :(. > > Anyway, It doesn't have to work perfectly I just something for > nostalgia/collection sake. > > I have cash and 1050 drives to trade if appropriate. > > Thank you! > John >

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Museum upgrade :)
by Evan Koblentz 25 Feb '18

25 Feb '18

Sent the museum report just now and forgot to mention something important! Jeff B. got us a very nice new chair for the staff PC in the museum workshop. $200 chair which he found on sale for $60. We dumped the old blue one.

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Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 25 Feb '18

25 Feb '18

Super busy day. Pete was our docent. Moderate number of visistors today. Tony spent a couple of more hours working on Apple IIs. Chris L., his s/o Kim, and Brian C. were surprise visitors. Adam, me, Pete's son Alex, and a new volunteer Laura did warehouse projects. Here's what we got done in the warehouse: - Put all three of the old but still useful long display cases in one spot - Organized and consolidated the OS/2 collection - Put aside seven of our luggables for sale at VCF East (three Compaq, three Kaypro, one Osborne) - Moved the rack of IBM 1130 punch cards to be with the other punch cards + create space in the IBM aisle - Moved two AS/400s from the unsorted area into the IBM aisle - Sorted (and put duplicates aside to sell) of Atari, Coleco, Intellivision, and Odyssey cartridges - Started working on a plan for what to do next time we're here

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OT: How to store old ICs?
by John Heritage 25 Feb '18

25 Feb '18

Hi folks, A "noob" question -- I have some old ICs -- custom chips, RAM, etc.. that I'd like to properly store. Is storing these in antistatic foam and in a (3D printed) plastic drawer of some kind OK? should i be buying/using IC Chip tubes instead? What's the best way to get reasonably priced supplies for safely storing vintage chips? Thanks! John

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Museum Report 2018-02-24 February 24, 2018
by Jeffrey Brace 24 Feb '18

24 Feb '18

Tony was at the museum from about 1pm to 4pm. Surprisingly Bill Dromgoole was already here! I arrived around 3pm stayed until 5pm. Dromgoole worked on the Univac some more. Did some memory testing. He took out a fan is going to work on it at home to repair. He will be back next weekend for the workshop. Tony did docenting and worked on repairing VCF apple machines. I talked with them and VCF member visitors Don Caselli and Nick Lordi. There was an InfoAge talk given with about 100 people in attendance. It was Alice Bowman NASA operations manager. About a dozen visitors throughout the course of the day. Evan, Adam, and Pete will be at VCF tomorrow. == Jeff Brace

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Be a docent at the next workshop mar 3 and/or 4, 2018
by Jeffrey Brace 24 Feb '18

24 Feb '18

For those attending next weekends workshop we have a signup list. We just want one hour per person to share the load and have lots of fun! Signup here: < https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uJklCb5HcA1c1uKQFVCSLcHhxzhKTiFQhfu… >

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OT: Looking for Atari 810 Drive
by John Heritage 24 Feb '18

24 Feb '18

Hi Folks, I'm still on the lookout for an Atari 810 drive to match my Atari 800 computers. There are two types -- one with a 'barn door' that opens up, and another with the middle flip lid. I want the middle flip lid type. I just ordered one on Ebay and of course the guy packaged it horribly, so the case became heavily damaged so now I have deal with returning it. :(. Anyway, It doesn't have to work perfectly I just something for nostalgia/collection sake. I have cash and 1050 drives to trade if appropriate. Thank you! John

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Another Microcomputer?
by Peter Cetinski 24 Feb '18

24 Feb '18

Just throwing this out there based on Evan’s other thread about the NeXT. And I am sure this will come as no surprise to many of you. If there is room for another microcomputer in the museum, after the NeXT, I would like to nominate the TRS-80 8” business machine, ie. Model II/12/16/16B/6000. This was a significant machine in the small to medium business microcomputer market during the first half of the 80s. For awhile, the Model 16B running XENIX was the most popular Unix based workstation on the market. The Model II was reviewed as superior to the IBM PC when the 5150 was released in 1981. The MC68000 subsystem introduced in the Model 16 made for a very fascinating dual CPU microcomputer architecture. There are a lot of Apples currently on display but only one TRS-80 on display. :) I would certainly volunteer to help restore one of the museum’s 8” TRS-80s machines for display. I know a few others on this list who have experience with these machines that would also help, I’m sure. Thanks Pete

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Broken / Parts Model M?
by Jason Perkins 24 Feb '18

24 Feb '18

I'm looking for some IBM Model M keycaps so I can change the layout of a 122 key terminal board. Specifically, the main enter, function, bracket, backslash, escape, numlock, and left shift. A broken M with those caps still on it might be the easiest way to get all those parts, if someone has a parts board I would be interested in that too. Thanks! -- Jason Perkins 313 355 0085

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NeXT cube
by Evan Koblentz 23 Feb '18

23 Feb '18

Soon we're going to have space for one or two more microcomputers in the museum. I would like one of those to be a NeXT cube. It's the computer Tim Berners-Lee used to develop his program called "Worldwide Web". But VCF does not have a NeXT cube. We have two slabs. They're awesome but it is not the same. :) Does anyone have a cube they can donate?

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