[Coco] Anyone else collect other old computers/game consoles beside the Coco?

[Joel Ewy]

On 08/26/2011 06:24 PM, Mark Marlette wrote:
> Joel,
>
> Where/who did you get your TC-9 from. Not many made. Curtis said at one time, just don't recall ATM.
>
I bought it straight from Frank Hogg in the early '90s.  I bought the 
boards only, and put them in my own case, with a couple of 720K floppy 
drives.  Unfortunately, the Disto SC II apparently wasn't compatible 
with it, and the only hard drive adapters I had were the SCSI(SASI) 
interfaces on the attached 4-in-1 board.  I really liked the performance 
of the SC II as a no-halt controller on the CoCo 3 and was disappointed 
that I'd have to go back to halt mode with the TC-9.  And mine never 
seemed to be all that stable.  (I remember you mentioning that there are 
some fixes for that -- I'd be interested in knowing more.)  So the TC-9 
didn't end up being used much, though I was hoping it would be a bridge 
to a K-bus '68K system, as it was supposed to be.

That never materialized.  When I had saved my pennies for the jump to 
'68K, FHL wasn't shipping the TC70, so I called  David Graham, inquiring 
about getting an MM/1.  He said he had CPU boards made up, but didn't 
have anybody to stuff the I/O boards.  I told him I could do that for 
him, so I became a subcontractor.  He shipped me a batch of I/O and RAM 
boards, and I ordered parts, and assembled them and shipped them to him, 
or occasionally directly to a customer.  Unfortunately, there was a 
problem with the SCSI circuit on the Version 3 I/O board, making it 
essentially useless.  Supposedly Kevin Pease was working on it, but 
months went by, and then years.  I later traded an old Universal Device 
Programmer to Ray Patterson (who did service work for the MM/1) for a 
Version 2 I/O board that did work.  We sold a few 8M RAM/backplane 
boards, but that was pretty much the end of new sales of the MM/1.  
Demand was probably dropping off anyway.

I only met David Graham once, at a CoCoFest somewhere between 1997 and 
1999.  Shortly thereafter his email bounced and he disappeared from the 
OS-9 scene.  I still have a stack of bare I/O boards, and some memory 
boards as well.  I also have parts to build probably 10 I/O boards and 
at least a few 8M RAM/backplane boards.  The boards themselves still 
belong to Blackhawk, I guess, but I paid for the parts.  If anyone who 
has an MM/1 is interested in upgrading to 9M, let me know.  I can set 
you up with a memory board.  And if David Graham wants to get back in 
touch with me, I'll give him a cut for each board I sell.  :-)

So yeah, I paid dearly for my MM/1.  But it was a fun little computer to 
play with.  I even contributed to an open source JPEG viewer for the 
MM/1 by adding Joel Hegberg's clipboard library to it so you could copy 
the slowly decoded and color quantized JPEG files and paste them into a 
utility that could save them as a native CLUT .IFF that loaded much 
faster.  What I'd really love to see now is a DriveWire client for 
OS-9/68K...

JCE

> If you don't want to say that is OK.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mark
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Joel Ewy"<jcewy at swbell.net>
> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts"<coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 6:20:26 PM
> Subject: Re: [Coco] Anyone else collect other old computers/game consoles beside the Coco?
>
> On 08/26/2011 05:29 PM, Michael Needham wrote:
>> Hi All:
>>
>> I collect Tandy Coco naturally, but I also own a TRS-80 Model 4 with 128K
>> expansion in perfect condition!
>> ...
>>
>> It is a cool hobby, however, it used to be that running a BBS was the 2nd
>> most expensive hobby (in the US at least) only under Model AIrplanes.  I
>> think vintage computing collecting can be as expensive as model airplanes.
>>
> I've gotten almost all my vintage computers for free or very little,
> except for the ones I got back before they were 'vintage', which is why
> I don't have anything _really_ rare or desirable (with the possible
> exception of the TC-9 and MM/1).  About 6 or 7 years ago there was a
> cool computer surplus store in Wichita where I picked up some goodies.
> Mac IIci boxes were $5.  I picked up an Amiga 500 with a monitor and
> hard drive for something like $35 to $50.  And that's also where I found
> my Model 4 and 4K silver CoCo for next to nothing.  Their dumpster was
> interesting as well.  Some day I'll see what's needed to revive the
> Apple //e I pulled out of there.  Alas, like all good things that place
> is gone.  I got two batches of classic computers from thrift stores in
> exchange for helping them price their computer stuff.  I said "these are
> the ones people are likely to actually use, but I wouldn't mind having
> those over there..."
>
> But a lot of it has come out of people's closets after I've helped them
> work on their modern PCs, and during conversation mentioned that I
> collect antique computers.  Many people are loath to chuck them in the
> landfill but have no further use for them and are happy to see them go
> to a good home.
>
> JCE
>
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>