This is a rework of a column I wrote in 1987 for PC Magazine. I thought it was worth revisiting as part of the Whatever Happened to… series.

Collecting History

As we enter the fourth decade of personal computing we have to realize that much of the its history is already lost. By this I mean that many of the collectible computers of yore are gone forever. This is our last chance to start a collection of early machines.

The premier machine to collect is the old Apple I which isn’t really a computer, but a hokey card that the computer hobbyist/maniac pieced together and then regretted owning. It’s worth about $1000 or more already.

The early days of microcomputerdom produced many interesting machines and tons of weird subsystems. I expect that like antique autos many of these things will never be seen again and only vaguely remembered by old-timers who will say, “Yeah, yeah! I remember THAT!”

We now have a last ditch opportunity to grab one or more of the old machines for our collection. Ideally it should be in working condition. My pick to click is the old SOL-20 computer (circa 1977), a machine that should have knocked Apple off the block except for one or two things. One: it wasn’t in color. Two: the company was poorly managed.

The best add-on for the SOL-20 was a Northstar 5 1/4-inch floppy. Northstar was the first company to use the 5 1/4-inch floppy for a small computer. The thing required hard sectored diskettes that had ten holes in them. The storage capacity of a Northstar disk was 70 kilobytes. A double density controller released a few years later provided 140 K!

The real collectors item, though, to go along with a SOL-20, is an old Helios 8-inch floppy add-on. I don’t know if any ever worked. If you can’t get a SOL, then look for the famous Exidy Sorcerer (circa 1978). It was SOL compatible.

Many old-timers think that the old Altairs (the original personal computer) and IMSAIs (the original clone) are high on the collectibles list. They were really card cages with a microprocessor (an 8080) and a so-called front panel. You had to toggle switches to get it to boot. Both are very collectible.

I’d recommend looking for some of the oddball machines of those days. The Digital Group computers (the original not-invented-here-“we do it our way”-and go broke micro firm), the Equinox with its octal front panel in a world of hexadecimal, and, above all, the Sphere. The Sphere was highly promoted with its 6800 microprocessor it started a fad of dead end 6800 machines. Even Altair made a short-lived 6800 machine. The 6800 machines were such duds that it allowed Motorola to design the 68000 without worrying about backward compatibility — something Intel wishes it did.

Nobody should overlook a vintage Osborne 1, an Apple III, a John Deere (yes!), the old IMSAI VDP-80 and VDP-40’s, the IBM 5100 (the world’s slowest BASIC computer also ran APL from ROM), a Polymorphic (preferably with the three floppy drives), a Southwest Technical Products Computer, the original Heath machines, or any other pre-1980 machine. Also look for an old Jupiter. The company made so few of these that they shipped them to reviewers wire wrapped and unsoldered. One gullible reviewer thought this was the greatest thing he’d ever seen because of the “space age” wire wrapped connections.

When I reminisce about old dead machines and wonder which are the most collectible I have to fall back on the peculiar Byte-8 — a machine made by the Byte Computer Stores. Known for its mediocre power supply the machine sold poorly and was only on the market for six months or so. I think it’s the ultimate collectible. I think the more recent Computerland Computer may find the same fate. I don’t think any were sold. I had a review copy of a Computerland machine and they demanded I return it even when I offered to buy it.

That’s what you learn from old machines. While this business hasn’t been around long — history is already repeating itself. It’s a short cycle and people have short memories. Now’s the time to buy.

Whatever Happened to… Archive