Home Computer Museum barn find - WOW!

[Les Bird]

Anyone hear about this incredible vintage computer find? Wow.. what a collection! I saw at least one H8 there, a few H19s and some Zenith systems along with pretty much every  vintage computer in existence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8TiqdUZLXo

Les

[Steven Hirsch]

Amazing.

[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

My wife and I have been discussing trip options for Europe. Now I have something to seek out in the Netherlands….

 

Thanks for sharing!

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[Les Bird]

Glenn, that museum looks really fantastic. If I ever make it to the Netherlands I'll definitely make a point to visit it. They don't seem to be big on Heathkit stuff though. I noticed when they were filming their walkthrough of the barn they passed right over the Heath stuff. I wonder if they even have any in their museum.

Also, back in the 80s it was such a free-for-all for companies making home computers. Just about every manufacturer wanted a piece of the action so developed their own system and their own OS. What a time to be alive. And when you look at that collection it's just astonishing at how many different systems there were back then. I fondly remember spending some time at the Radio Shack stores (within walking distance) playing around with their TRS80 Model 1 and 3. My neighbor got a TI99/4a so I got to play around with that for a bit. A friend of mine in high school got an Atari 400 so I played with that for a bit. My dad brought home a Timex ZX80 once so I got some hands on with that. My first job out of high school was programming on a Zilog MCZ-1 which ran the RIO operating system which is a super rare computer, mostly a business machine. I worked at a mom and pop computer store selling Commodore Amiga's, 64's and 128's. Had a lot of time to play around on those systems and I bought an Amiga 1000 for myself and still have it.

Now-a-days there are basically 2 systems - Apple and PC - and then there's the hobby side where you can get RPi's etc.

Les

[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

Ok so our age difference is showing 😊  I graduated from high school in ’76 and we didn’t have access to time sharing or mini computers so my introduction to computers (and Heathkit) was a heath analog computer and chart recorder, which I discovered in a back room of the physics classroom.  I was also an avid reader of popular electronics and built their logic simulator (it used RTL chips – I still have it!).

 

So the microcomputer scene mostly evolved while I was in college. I stuck to my studies, eventually getting a B.S. M. Eng. and Ph.D. in Computer & Systems engineering. Had a great career but I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I’d met up with, say, a young Bill Gates or Steve Jobs and said the heck with college… well ya never know.

 

But I still found ways to marry my career and the PC evolution. You’re right it was quite a time to live through – which is why I feel it’s so important to preserve its history.  The best analogy I can think of is the early days of automobiles, where there were all kinds of cars and companies in the game. Like all industries eventually consolidation leads to a few key players.

 

Thanks for sharing your story!

 

• Glenn

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[Douglas Miller]

Interesting how much difference location can make. I graduated the same year, but had 3 years of timeshare BASIC under my belt, plus FORTRAN and COBOL on the district's mainframe, and having pretty much mastered a Wang 600. I was too impatient for college and got a 2-year degree and went to work in someone's garage in the Seattle "Magnolia" neighborhood. No vast riches as were found in other people's garage, but good experience.

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[Berg Steiger]

I had just turned 10 when the Altair arrived and within a few years had the fortune of discovering 2 people nearby with computers - one had an Apple ][, the other was a electrical engineer who had a gamut of the early SBCs (KIM-1, AIM-1, SYM-1, H8, TRS-80, CoCo). Used them when I could without taking up too much of his time. A teacher in high school put together an H-89 (CP/M) and the LSI-11-based Heath system (RT-11 on dual 8” floppies, woohoo!). Got my intro to UNIX early, Research Version 6 on a PDP-11 that he got running as well (multiple terminals for classes). Eventually my family purchased an Ohio Scientific 4P, which I need to get running again…have the full SAMS manual for it...
I went into mathematics in college but was in the IT world for a while (the 90’s, db admin/developer for a semiconductor fab) and so was in UNIX workstation-land. These were excellent so I as I saw the PC hegemony arriving I decided to preserve part of workstation history - my collection is of NeXT, SGI and Sun Microsystems, bought in the years 2001-2006 [minus the SPARCstation IPC & 20 that I used for work-at-home in the 90’s and still have running).

Cheers,
Michael Doyle
Charlottesville, Virginia

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[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

Welcome Michael. Wondering if you still have any interest in the H8/H89/H11 world? Any plans to restore an old Heathkit system?

- Glenn

-----Original Message-----
From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Berg Steiger
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2023 12:21 PM
To: se...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [sebhc] Home Computer Museum barn find - WOW!

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[Berg Steiger]

Hello Glenn (& all you SEHBC’ers)!

Thank you for the welcome. I have been reading the list for some months - y’all are an extremely active, knowledgeable and creative group!

I shall have to be content with continuing to follow the group's activities online - I have my plate full with work, raising a 15 year-old, and keeping myself in shape for the outdoor activities I also love, in addition to trying to keep the bevy of machines I already have running (nearly 40 with the PPC Macintoshes that I also use daily - nary a Windows box to be seen, except a work laptop). Not to mention total lack of room for another machine - the basement computing cave is very much full. I’m lucky I’ve got one at all...

I really should look for an 8-bit group/forum to find anyone else who has an Ohio Scientific machine running. I suppose VCF would be a good place to start. Ah, the hours I spent coding in MS BASIC-in-ROM with the 64x64 character screen (lots of PEEKs & POKEs) and saving to cassette tape... Alas the tapes all drowned in Hurricane Katrina, along with (the lower) half of my parent’s house; fortunately I had the computer and manuals stored in my home, far far away from a coastline…

Cheers,
Michael

[glenn.f...@gmail.com]

any pictures of your colossal "cave" of equipment?

Several members of our group also suffered loss of their collections to Katrina....

-----Original Message-----
From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Berg Steiger
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2023 2:27 PM
To: se...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [sebhc] Home Computer Museum barn find - WOW!

Hello Glenn (& all you SEHBC’ers)!

Thank you for the welcome. I have been reading the list for some months - y’all are an extremely active, knowledgeable and creative group!

I shall have to be content with continuing to follow the group's activities online - I have my plate full with work, raising a 15 year-old, and keeping myself in shape for the outdoor activities I also love, in addition to trying to keep the bevy of machines I already have running (nearly 40 with the PPC Macintoshes that I also use daily - nary a Windows box to be seen, except a work laptop). Not to mention total lack of room for another machine - the basement computing cave is very much full. I’m lucky I’ve got one at all...

I really should look for an 8-bit group/forum to find anyone else who has an Ohio Scientific machine running. I suppose VCF would be a good place to start. Ah, the hours I spent coding in MS BASIC-in-ROM with the 64x64 character screen (lots of PEEKs & POKEs) and saving to cassette tape... Alas the tapes all drowned in Hurricane Katrina, along with (the lower) half of my parent’s house; fortunately I had the computer and manuals stored in my home, far far away from a coastline…

Cheers,
Michael

> On Mar 22, 2023, at 2:06 PM, <glenn.f...@gmail.com> <glenn.f...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Welcome Michael. Wondering if you still have any interest in the H8/H89/H11 world? Any plans to restore an old Heathkit system?
>
> - Glenn
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Berg Steiger
> Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2023 12:21 PM
> To: se...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: [sebhc] Home Computer Museum barn find - WOW!
>
> I had just turned 10 when the Altair arrived and within a few years had the fortune of discovering 2 people nearby with computers - one had an Apple ][, the other was a electrical engineer who had a gamut of the early SBCs (KIM-1, AIM-1, SYM-1, H8, TRS-80, CoCo). Used them when I could without taking up too much of his time. A teacher in high school put together an H-89 (CP/M) and the LSI-11-based Heath system (RT-11 on dual 8” floppies, woohoo!). Got my intro to UNIX early, Research Version 6 on a PDP-11 that he got running as well (multiple terminals for classes). Eventually my family purchased an Ohio Scientific 4P, which I need to get running again…have the full SAMS manual for it...
> I went into mathematics in college but was in the IT world for a while (the 90’s, db admin/developer for a semiconductor fab) and so was in UNIX workstation-land. These were excellent so I as I saw the PC hegemony arriving I decided to preserve part of workstation history - my collection is of NeXT, SGI and Sun Microsystems, bought in the years 2001-2006 [minus the SPARCstation IPC & 20 that I used for work-at-home in the 90’s and still have running).
>
> Cheers,
> Michael Doyle
> Charlottesville, Virginia
>

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