Classic Computer Colloquium Cologne – 15th November at Auction Team Breker

My friends at Auction Team Breker (www.breker.com) will host their 2nd Classic Computer Colloquium (CCC) on november 15th. Breker is very well known for their world-record prices for working original Apple 1 computers.

I have the pleasure to help them when it comes up to vintage computers. Breker will auction on saturday 16th november another very very sweet Apple 1 and some other vintage computing stuff. On the friday before there is a public preview on the auction items.

The first CCC was held this may. Here are some impressions:

The next event is on friday, 15th november starting at 4PM in Cologne/Germany (Breker facilities). The event is free and there is absolutely no obligation to buy anything.

We will fire up several machines, discuss and have some fun. These are the vintage computers we have a look at:

• Original working Apple 1
• Apple Lisa 1 + 2
• Apple Macintosh Prototype – Twiggymac
• Apple III
• MITS Altair 8800
• IMSAI 8080
• SOL 20 Terminal Computer
• Commodore PET 2001 – Blue PET
• NeXT Cube

Besides the Apple 1 my personal highlight is the Macintosh Prototype. Only 2 working examples are known to exist and this is the ultra-rare version with a working Twiggy Drive. The MAC OS is still BETA with funny messages from the “Boss”: an error message for example comes with a pictogramm of Steve Jobs argueing “Steve sez…”

Here is a video of this incredible machine:

These machines are auctioned then on saturday 16th november at 10AM. Here is the online catalogue all items can be found also here at LiveAuctioneers.com where bidding is also possible online.

Let me know if you want to come on friday – it’s free. You can also attend the auction itself on saturday.

More than 1000 followers on YouTube – thank you!

A lot of time passed since my last post. There would have been many news but I was either too busy or too lazy to update my blog. One thing that makes me very proud is the development of my YouTube Channel. Until today I have more than 1075 followers and nearly 600k views.

Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/alker33

My newest videos:

20th Anniversary Macintosh – TAM or also known as Spartacus

Steve Jobs NeXT Cube

Kaypro Robie – “Darth Vader’s lunchbox”

Media coverage on vintage computing

The last months I was interviewed by 2 Austrian Newspapers about vintage computing, my thoughts and the increasing value of vintage computer stuff. Especially since the passing of Steve Jobs more and more people are interested in discovering the history of computing. Here are the links:

http://www.wirtschaftsblatt.at/archiv/503202/index.do

Here is a scan of the original article in the newspaper

Also Kurier (www.kurier.at) made an interview but I could not find the newspaper version – but the article is still online.

http://kurier.at/wirtschaft/finanzierung/4484852-neue-werte-in-alten-pcs.php

PDF: Neue Werte in alten PCs – KURIER.at

I believe that collecting vintage computers is something that affects more and more people in the future. Some consider valueable vintage computers also as a kind of investment which I’d agree. Evan Koblentz points it out in this article which is worth reading:

http://www.minyanville.com/special-features/articles/old-computer-apple-computer-values-old/2/17/2011/id/32477

My new office / computer movings

Wow.. it’s been exactly 1 year now since my last post – this has to change 😉

In the last months I was very busy: I started my own software company and time was very short. I recently moved to a bigger office and of course there are some vintage computers in my new office. Below are some pics of my new office.

End of 2011 I also moved parts of my vintage computer collection. I had to move around 250 machines to the house of my brother. Here is a pic of a van full with Commodore machines:

Even my 2 daughters helped me with the packaging.. or at least with the boxes

Eva is curious about the PET 2001

My Apple Lisa Collection

Inspired by a post at Googles Lisa List (http://groups.google.com/group/lisalist) there was a guy posting a photo of 16 Apple Lisas he recently sold. Here is the pic the rumor was about: http://www.flickr.com/photos/48978576@N08/5581196468/

Terry Stewart (aka Tezza) from New Zealand who recently restored 2 Apple Lisa (nice repair blog – have a look here) postet a comment into Erik’s Vintage Computer Forums.

When I saw that I remembered my own Apple Lisa collection and that I shoot some photos last autumn when my wife was in a good mood and allowed me to do so.
On the photos my little daughter Lisa (16 months) plays with her older sisters 😉

Here are the pics:

I also shot a video that I uploaded to youtube:

The Apple Lisa is my absolute favourite #1 vintage computer: it set milestones in 1983 and was the first successful GUI machine which was operated with a mouse. There were earlier GUI machines like the Xerox Alto or Xerox Star but they were not really available to the public.

I got my first Apple Lisa in 2005. Since then I collected over 35 machines from all over the world. I repair, sell and/or trade them for other vintage computers. Most Lisas suffer from bad power supplies, bad keyboard, faulty cpu/memory/mother- and I/O boards. The diskette drive is often stucked and also the graphic board is sometimes bad. It is also rather difficult to get an old hard disk back to work. The Lisa used 2 different hard disks: the first models (Lisa 1 and 2/5) used the external Apple Profile disks (with whooping 5MB storage capacity – later 10MB). The later Lisa 2/10 and Macintosh XL used the interal “Widget” drive. These hard disks were built to work for a period of about 5 years – so every hard drive that is working 25 years after is a great find.

 

500 Computers in old-computers.com list reached!

Old-Computers.com has a very nice inventory listing system that makes it easy for collectors to show what they have. Today I reached 500 machines on my online list. My inventory list can be seen here.

I love this list because when you click on the inventory site on a computer you directly get informations on that particular machine. Machines that I’m willing to trade or sell are marked – actually I have more than 110 machines to sell/trade.

There are not all of my machines on this inventory; at this time (March 2011) I suppose I have around 600 different vintage computers… more to come 😉

More than 40k views on youtube!

These days I reached more than 40.000 views on my youtube channel “alker33” – many thanks to all who are interested in vintage computing!

Here is the link to my channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/alker33

Apple Lisa 1 demo – the mother of GUI

Thanks to John Wodall from www.vintagemicros.com I could copy the rare LOS (Lisa Office System) version 1.0 disks. This video is a result of my work:

John sent me the rare LOS 1 Boot and System Disk on Twiggy media. I made some copies of LOS 1.0 for him and for me. The problem was that only 2 from 10 Twiggy disks were still working. I replaced the magnetic surface inside the Twiggy disks with a normal 1,2MB HD diskette and could finally format and copy all Twiggy disks.

In the video I show the booting off the profile with installed LOS 1.0. Then I copy the LOS 1.0 boot disk, start again from the LOS 1 diskette and format and install the 5MB Profile external hard disk with Lisa Office System 1.

I did not know that you need 2 working Twiggy drives in a Lisa 1 so that you can successfully install LOS 1 on a Profile. The disk 2 (system) has to be placed in Twiggy drive 2… I made a mistake in the video 😉

The Apple Lisa 1 is a very very rare machine: it is believed that only 20 machines survived. When Apple released the Lisa 1 in 1983 it came with the hardly working Twiggy drives – an Apple own development. These 5 1/4 inch diskette drives used a special kind of diskettes – the Twiggy diskette or Fileware diskettes. They had 2 read holes and were physically different from the original 5 1/4 inch diskettes. Apple replaced the Twiggy drives very soon with the 400k Sony 3,5 inch drive – a free upgrade to all Lisa 1 owners was offered and nearly everybody took this upgrade. So there are very very few original Lisa 1’s left…

I’m very glad that my machine survived.. and both Twiggy drives were working. Some weeks earlier I repaired my Twiggy drives; one drive was missing a cable and the read/write heads were polluted; also one drive was missing the small felt hat that presses the diskette surface to the read/write head.

This was the video after I repaired the drives (shot at 2 o’clock in the morning as I was so happy to have 2 working Twiggy drives 😉

 

 

 

 

 

Interview with me (2009 – german)

Here is an interview with me I gave in 2009 the German Commodore Magazine – http://www.cevi-aktuell.de.vu/

This was an online magazine which has been replaced by the Return Magazine http://www.return-magazin.de/

Here is the interview (in german): Interview_RB_cevi-aktuell_062009

 

 

 

alker33 – vintage computing

Hello and welcome to my vintage computing blog!

My name is Rudi, I’m from Austria/Europe and I collect vintage computers. I collected so far more than 500 different machines from all over the world. I also do troubleshooting, repairing and actively use my machines. Another part is to sell and trade vintage computers worldwide.

With this blog I want to documentate parts of my work.

This is a (partial) list of the systems I have:

http://www.old-computers.com/club/collectors/ordis.asp?c=4804

here is my youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/alker33

my ebay account:

http://search.ebay.at/_W0QQsassZalker33