The private computer museum of Max Burnet has every bit of computing nostalgia imaginable, ranging from the first UNIX PDP-7, a classic DEC PDP-8, the original IBM PC, a string of old Apple’s including the Apple Lisa, a Spectrum Sinclair (doh!) ZX81, Bill Gates’ personal favorite the MITS Altair 8800, a DEC VT100 terminal, and a range of IBM mainframe consoles from the 1960s and 1970s. If you have never seen what this old stuff looks like, this slideshow offers a snapshot of the past. And if you thought PCs became fashionable with the Apple iMac, then you haven’t seen the lime green or powder blue consoles of some of DEC’s machines from the 1970s.
Do you mean a Sinclair ZX81?
The article actually refers to it as “Spectrum ZX81”. Lets hope that’s just a screw up in the article and not what the museum calls it.
On the “A variety of early memory technologies” page I”m curious as to what the Fujitsu thing is. Does anyone know?
This would be an ideal place for me to visit on a vacation considering how geeky I am.
We have several non-profits in France collecting those things, making them available to public… and also a arrogant so-called “first museum of computers” in Paris, La Défense, while the other non-profit were there way before, and there are many others real ones in europe…
http://www.silicium.org/
http://www.wda-fr.org/
http://mo5.com/
http://aconit.org/
What I would do for a day wandering around in that place!
Very impressive collection, much “standard stuff”, but interesting highlights, too. Without wanting to be braggy (I hope it’s the correct translation), I find it nice to see that I’ve got some of this stuff around here, too. 🙂 Unfortunately, my collection does not include important “standard stuff” such as PDPs or VAXen (but at least a DEC VT101), most stuff is from the GDR (robotron), along with Atari, Amiga, CBM, IBM and other stuff everybody usually knows. My personal favourite of the CIO slideshow is the IBM console. If it wasn’t a stupid idea, I’d like to wire one up to a normal PC. 🙂
Anyone remembers 20 MB Bernoulli disks? Or disks for the Schneider Joyce? Or even PDs?
I like these kind of articles on OSNews that remind us about how all the stuff we take granted began in the past. Knowing about what stuff programmers and operators did with 256 kB RAM makes us think about the (non-financial) value of the machines we’re glad to be able to use today.
I was kind of shocked not to see a few of Atari or more of Commodore’s computers there. He has a C-64, but most of his stuff from that era were Apples.
The whole time I was looking at the slides, I couldn’t help but think, “Wow, if you took all of those computers, somehow clustered them together, it still wouldn’t even be as fast as my quad core CPU is…. but then after putting Vista on my quad core, the cluster would easily out perform it
”
It’s sad really, that when you look at the software that was made for the 8-bit and 16-bit era computers, and how the programmers just squeezed every bit of performance out of them, that we now are in the state of affairs, where the computers are so fast and have so many resources, that the software just isn’t as optimized as it could / should be, so we really don’t see any difference in the speed that things run.
Honestly, the first reaction I had when I went from a 16Mhz Atari Mega STe to a Pentium 75Mhz with Windows 95 was “It unzips things fast.” Everything else seemed way slower.
Modern Operating Systems are so bulky and complex these days that I tend to spend more time playing around with settings than I do actually using applications. Of course, I’m weird like that, and like to explore the way the OS works, which is probably why I like reading OSNews so much
But there is a part of me that longs for the day of the slim OS that is just there to run the Applications, instead of needing the time to set it up and keep it working. Windows is horrible in this regard. Linux is a bit better, but then I still always tend to switch Distributions all too often, looking for that perfect mix. Although for the first time ever, I think Fedora 10 is going to keep me away from a Debian based distro! But that is for a different topic….
Too bad DEC went away, they made some cool stuff….
It goes back further than that. I moved from a 64k (well, 60K + 4k bank-switched) Apple ][+ running an 8 bit 6502 at 1Mhz to a 10MHz NEC V20, which was an 8088 clone, with 640k. The Apple was instant-on. The MS-DOS box had to POST and boot. Once up, the MS-DOS box was, for the most part, faster. But not much faster. 16 bit vs 8 bit, 10x the clock, over 10x the memory… and not much faster. I think I’ve actually spent *more* time waiting on each successive generation of machines I have owned since then. I guess that’s just progress…
Edited 2008-11-25 01:45 UTC
I think you’re mentioning a common observation (by those who are not spoiled by advertisement and OS “politics” already). But optimization and better programming habits seem to hinder economical growth (as well as environmental pollution by tons of “outdated” hardware).
http://osnews.com/thread?338143
Hehe, understandable. 🙂
Only the low-ressource-market and the embedded systems seem to follow this idea today…
Yes, as well as Sun or SGI.
Anyone remembers 20 MB Bernoulli disks?
I don’t “remember” them, but I did come across an Iomega Bernoulli dual drive – the thing weighs about 30 lbs.
http://www.computerhistory.org/
…do we win?
Heck, there is one in Croatia as well: http://www.peekpoke.hr – I am one of the founders, so make sure you stop by.
Edited 2008-11-25 14:09 UTC
I remember building up an Altair S-100 clone back in high-school.
The 4K memory board needed 32 1Kx1 memory chips that cost $4 each (I remember scraping up the cash). It used 3 5V regulators.
Now you can get 1G for $15. :\
But can you get the same fun for this price? A “geeky” question, I know… computer hardware isn’t that funny, interesting and understandable (!) anymore.
Since computers are mass ware, I don’t find them that interesting as I found them, let’s say, 20 years ago. Today I’m only interested in how computers get abused and damaged by oh so clever users. 🙂
Hi,
The article claims Max Burnet has the “first UNIX PDP-7”, I don’t think so !, there is no PDP7 in the gallery of photos with the article either. From the PDP7 service list here – http://www.soemtron.org/pdp7.html – only one PDP7 was shipped to Australia, to the Australian Atomic Energy Commission at Lucas Heights, serial #47 shipped in 1966, the machine was still operational in 1972 (see the last link under “misc” on the url above).
Unix was developed by Ken Thompson on a “scavenged” PDP7 at Bell Labs in the US. Four machines were shipped to Bell Labs, serial numbers 3, 34, 44 and 149, one of these is the “scavenged” PDP7 on which UNIX was developed. It’s a pity the press don’t do their research first.
All credit goes to Max Burnet for amassing his collection including another DEC nicety – a A DEC PDP-8/e.
Just a sidenote:
Many thanks for this link. I had an intersting read about the Soemtron ETR series calculation machines. I still have some of them around somewhere, as well as a Soemtron K6314 = robotron K6314 dotmatrix printer for A3 tractor paper which is called “Endlospapier” – endless paper – for some ununderstandable reason… 🙂
Back on topic.
The book “The magic garden explained” by Goodheart and Cox mentions a PDP 11/40 and 11/70 as well as an Interdata 7/32, c. 1.1.5 pp 6 cont.
that remind us about how all the stuff we take granted began in the past
Oh you got that right! Too bad many even today in Silicon Valley just dont get it.
It’s sad really, that when you look at the software that was made for the 8-bit and 16-bit era computers, and how the programmers just squeezed every bit of performance out of them,
Not only is this true with PC Software, but also true with large ERP systems of today compared to gold old days of Mainframe computing. In general there isnt much of a difference between McCormick and Dodge Accounting System vs say Oracle v11i. However Oracle of today is much more bulky and clunky. Not as user friendly as much older software. I have found more modern software to be dreadful. Shocking when you compare 30+ year old code vs today.
Bad example. The systems you mentioned were pupose-built to do an single task: accounting. Oracle is a general-purpose system for any kind of database imaginable, from an accounting system to an address book to a library catalog system to a web forum. A powerful general-purpose system, even a well-designed one, will always use more resources than a purpose-built system.
Hi,
Nice article.
This is the right time for every one to consider any platform ERP solutions like open source http://www.open-source-erp-site.com“> .
so osnews is exploring the future _and_ the past of computing.. i enjoyed the photos of the past! never seen a pdp or an ibm 360 that close. and those 8″ floppies are hilarious!