Old Computers

[floydraser]

After the discussion about old systems on the Windows 11 thread I thought someone may be interested in this Toshiba T2100CS laptop from around 1985 I believe.

After years in my attic it still fires up, tells me the cmos battery is dead but carries on. Got a lovely Targus case too.

[YnysMon]

I’m surprised it fired up. I did have a kindle, but it won’t switch on, probably because I only used it once in a blue moon, which probably knackered the battery. Having kindle on my tablet is handy, except when I want to use it outside when there’s too much reflection on the screen. Sigh…wish my kindle hadn’t died. 

[Bikertov]

Wow - that looks like Windows 3.1 or 3.11 for Workgroups ?

[floydraser]

6 minutes ago, Bikertov said:

Wow - that looks like Windows 3.1 or 3.11 for Workgroups ?

Sorry, forgot to put that in, it's Windows 3.1.

[HEM]

Modern stuff - try this for a bit of computing history:

Ferranti Atlas: Britain's first supercomputer

My father was one of the users of the Manchester Atlas (for Chemistry research) and as a school kid I was occasionally taken into the Atlas room at weekends without realising the significance of the whole thing.  Subsequently I studied Computer Science at Manchester with lectures from Tom, Dai, Simon & colleagues.  When the Manchester Atlas was decommisioned I saw how some large components were thrown over the parapet of the flat roof of the electrical engineering building into a skip below (I was watching from the 7th floor of the Chemistry building).

 

The final comment is somehow painful: "and now your washing machine has a more powerful computer in it than Atlas".

 

 

[grendel]

somewhere in my attic lies an old unix CAD workstation, this was in use at the time we purchased the first PC CAD version, on windows 3.1, and still remained the fastest CAD station all the way up to windows 2000, despite getting its files from a remote server over a 32 bit modem (54kb / s)

[HEM]

6 hours ago, grendel said:

somewhere in my attic lies an old unix CAD workstation....

Made by Sun Microsystems?

[grendel]

oh yes

[TheQ]

8 hours ago, HEM said:

Modern stuff - try this for a bit of computing history:

Ferranti Atlas: Britain's first supercomputer

My father was one of the users of the Manchester Atlas (for Chemistry research) and as a school kid I was occasionally taken into the Atlas room at weekends without realising the significance of the whole thing.  Subsequently I studied Computer Science at Manchester with lectures from Tom, Dai, Simon & colleagues.  When the Manchester Atlas was decommisioned I saw how some large components were thrown over the parapet of the flat roof of the electrical engineering building into a skip below (I was watching from the 7th floor of the Chemistry building).

 

The final comment is somehow painful: "and now your washing machine has a more powerful computer in it than Atlas".

 

 

Ferranti that's modern stuff, I used to live in Bletchley Park

 

The Bombe Computer.

[HEM]

4 hours ago, grendel said:

oh yes

I joined the German branch of Sun in April 1998 & stayed through the acquisition by Oracle until retirement age (just under 20 years), ending up in global remote hardware support.

Previously I'd had about 10 years as Sun system administrator.

My brother was Sun employee #10 in the UK.

[floydraser]

Sometime aproximately between 1974 and 1979 I had to photograph a big old computer which was being decomissioned from the nuclear industry (when we had one, don't get me started). I remember it taking up a whole room, something like an Argos store: with a counter, operatives behind, and then instead of rows of products, rows of wires, relays, valves etc. No tapes. I think it use punch cards. The man in charge also looked the part in his suit and sporting a huge handlebar moustache. My memory wants me to say it was called a Vulcan. I just wish I'd kept a copy of the pics.

[HEM]

Ferranti Mercury?  The prececessor to Atlas.

The Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell installed theirs in 1958.

[Bikertov]

A relative of mine worked in that sort of industry - one of their early Crays that he worked on was decommissioned and now sits in the Science Museum !

[OldBerkshireBoy]

Sometime in the 80s I can recall being sent to service two water booster pumps somewhere in London, they were Grundfos vertical pumps where every section had a seal, a bearing and an impellor and the water which started at the bottom with  low pressure left the top section with a vastly increased pressure.

They were a pain to work on as every mating face had to be spotless for the seal to work and being all pressed stainless steel there was sharp burrs everywhere waiting to slice a finger. When I saw them my heart sank as both pumps were in a sorry state leaking water everywhere but I thought what the hell I have all day.

Wrong! It turned out that they supplied water to a very large water cooled computer in a room behind the wall where I was working and to cut the story short there was a point where it would of overheated within five minutes if I hadnt completed the job! 

No tears but a lot of sweat and blood that day!

[SteveO]

That old Toshiba brings back memories. I used to have one very much like it at work, which I used mainly for data logging from thermocouples and humidity probes. I loved the little nipple in the middle of the keyboard which moved the cursor. It replaced an early Amstrad portable computer which was like a suitcase with a flip-up screen, bur which "died"  due to design and build quality issues.

[oldgregg]

A PPC640 (or 512) I would assume? They were basically a repackaged PC1512 / PC1640 and while not epic, they were an 'affordable' machine.

Amstrad PPC 512 - Wikipedia

Toshibas were excellent machines, I had one about 20 years ago and it had a wonderfully-engineered docking station with motorised load/unload and some full-sized PCI (or were they ISA?) slots. It felt like such a well-built machine and the touchpoints are great once you get used to them.

[oldgregg]

This was the only image I could find of the docking station...

Toshiba PA2710E Docking Station - Peripheral - Computing History

The laptop sits on top and is locked into place by a motorised mechanism. There's space in the base for a floppy drive and full-size CD drive.

The rear cover flips up (if unlocked with the key) to reveal the expansion slots below, with their backplates being visible in the cavity you can see to the right-hand rear of the dock.

Utterly bonkers and the most over-engineered dock I've ever seen. 

[Edit:] A quick google suggests the laptop was a Tecra 8000

[SteveO]

14 minutes ago, oldgregg said:

A PPC640 (or 512) I would assume? They were basically a repackaged PC1512 / PC1640 and while not epic, they were an 'affordable' machine.

Amstrad PPC 512 - Wikipedia

Toshibas were excellent machines, I had one about 20 years ago and it had a wonderfully-engineered docking station with motorised load/unload and some full-sized PCI (or were they ISA?) slots. It felt like such a well-built machine and the touchpoints are great once you get used to them.

That was the one. Can't recall the exact spec now but that's just how I remember the machine looking. We used a utility called Lap-Link to get the data out of it onto a desktop pc where we could analyse and plot it using Lotus 123 and, dare I recall, WYSIWYG.  Agree that the Toshiba machines were brilliant.  I do wish I'd hung on to my old tech. A work colleague of mine in the USA saved his old kit, going right back to the Timex/Sinclair ZX81, and had turned his office into a museum. A visit there brought back a lot of memories.

[oldgregg]

I remember Laplink well, and I recall making up a cable for it and using it to sync between my old Compaq Contura laptop and my desktop PC.

The transfer speed was absolutely terrible.

[SteveO]

1 minute ago, oldgregg said:

I remember Laplink well, and I recall making up a cable for it and using it to sync between my old Compaq Contura laptop and my desktop PC.

The transfer speed was absolutely terrible.

Yes, I remember it often being hours rather than minutes or seconds.

[Bikertov]

10 minutes ago, oldgregg said:

I remember Laplink well, and I recall making up a cable for it and using it to sync between my old Compaq Contura laptop and my desktop PC.

Aaah ... LapLink !

I remember it well, and having (and I think still have) a multi-ended red LapLink crossover cable, with dual 15 and 25 pin Serial connections either end.

Connection speeds would have been at the typical serial speeds of 9k6, 14k4 and 28k8 bps - or maybe slower at 2k4 or 4k8 even !

[floydraser]

As some of seem to be drooling, here's some more porn for you...

I took these pics ready for Ebay after Christmas. 

 

 

 

[Bikertov]

Wow - a  M  A  S  S  I  V  E  12MB of RAM.

Ooooh, what could be done with all that Extended memory ... Quick - get Sidekick loaded among other things !

I'm getting palpitations 

[floydraser]

But even now, plenty good enough and fast enough for writing which is what I got it for and the previous owner too. I also have a few floppy disks and USB drive for them so reasonably practical.

[grendel]

i used laplink to get the CAD files off the unix server to work on them with the first pc based CAD, that was around win 98 i seem to recall, and plotting took hours on an old pen plotter (during which time your pc was locked out of doing anything else.)