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

[Mark Marlette]

Joel,

VERY cool machine and history for sure.

I have the TC-9 schematics here somewhere and the mods I made to two TC-9s to stabilize the machine. Design flaws, IMHO. All neat though.

I'll take a look around, see what I can find and package up. Remind me if this gets too far out. Couple weeks?

I met David Graham as well at the fest but never purchased one then. Got one at one of the CoCoFest auctions. Carl Kreider was at this past years fest, now the AT306/WCP306 was a cool machine. We had some great conversations on that machine, Karl is truly at talented Engineer, hardware, software, he got it. Sigh....the memories!!!

I agree on the DW for OSK!

Thanks!!!

Mark
Cloud-9
http://www.cloud9tech.com

 
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joel Ewy" <jcewy at swbell.net>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 7:13:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] Anyone else collect other old computers/game consoles beside the Coco?

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
>
>
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