He restored the Apollo computer and he's there like he's on a budget. They should have let him pick whatever he wanted and have it all shipped wherever.
@@bobroberts2371 I'm looking forward to when the liquidation of Computer Reset starts back up again. Hasn't been open since July, as far as i know. Been too hot to allow people in the warehouse. Too risky.
I'm a retired electronic tech, spent 20 years in the Navy working on stuff that makes some of your toys look new by comparison, I wish i could hang out with you and tinker with the stuff you got. I think some things I worked on were from the same era of that AGC you fixed up. had a message processing computer with 64k of Ferrite core memory, paper tape reader/puncher, and my favorite was a tt-624 line printer that looked as if it was printing an entire line at once. for a serial line printer it was pretty fast. Look forward to future restorations :)
I'm a big fan of your channel and all of your HP equipment. Back in the day, I used the 5420 and 5423 DSA, 5451 DSA (B and C), 3582 DSA, 9825, 9826, 9836, 85, Series 200 and Series 300 computers, plotters, printers, etc, etc, etc. Programming in HPL and Basic and Pascal brings back some old memories. I remember the 9825 back in the late 70's having 23K of memory, when the popular Radio Shack TRS80 had 1K or 4K of memory. I though 23K was more than anyone would ever need. It's great to see that old equipment again.
C'est mieux que le matin de noël ! J'ai 44 ans et ai vu quelque uns de ces systèmes en (fin de) service il y a très longtemps. J'ai hâte de voir vos futurs vidéos.
Re: That Shuttle... way back when I was in elementary school, they held an essay contest to name it. Although the essay I wrote was not selected, the name I picked (and I presume a bunch of other people also picked) was selected as the winner - Endeavour. And, well, she came home to me (I live in California)... and in one piece, too. I will admit that I always get just a little emotional whenever I'm in town and stop by to see her. I'd pat her on the nose and say "thanks", but, ya know... fragile thermal tiles.
A tractor shop down the road from where I live still runs an HP 3000 timesharing system from the late '80s. I believe it has two PA-7100 processors and a pair of Eagle disks. It is used for the part inventory system.
Glad to see you salvaging some of that old HP gear. I like the early ‘80s desktop gear like the 85 and 87 for its simplicity. I understands what he’s say8ing about the hassle of selling on eBay. It’s getting harder and harder to find stuff there. I’d like to find an I/O ROM for my 87 for less than $60, but I don’t see those anymore. I’ve got one, but I’ve got three 87s, so I have to keep swapping it out for HPIB. Interesting disk drive test gear with an analog gauge. Looking forward to you future videos.
I’m always astonished at the quantity and quality of equipment HP produced back in the day. Seeing you unpack your haul brings back great memories of liquidation auctions in the 80s where test gear went cheap.
I envy you your HP1000 kit. The HP1000, specifically the 2113 with 7906 and RTE4B, was the machine I cut my teeth on, I was new to computing, and I can remember the feeling of excitement as I saw the possibilities. It laid the foundation of the rest of my working life. Oddly, I can still remember the boot settings for my machine: S-reg 15,12,9,6,1, store, preset, ipl, preset, run. Happy days. Thank you, Marc, for bringing the memories back.
And 102007 on the tri-octal display to tell you it had "happy halted" I am led to believe that particular instruction as well as the rest of the instruction set is still in all Intel CPUs to this day :)
Thanks, some very old memories, I started in ~1970 with a 2116A and ASR35. The paper tape reader came later. I remember the HP rep came with a second D/A card so we could play Space Wars on a Tek 454 oscilloscope. The later 1.5 mb disk seemed huge. We turned it off over Christmas and when we tried to turn it on we found we had to replace a tiny light bulb for the optical tracking guide that had become too dim to work. Used most the equipment you found over many years, finally ending with the HP-UX machines.
Glad you saved some of the keyboards for the terminals. The first computer I got to touch and operate was an HP 2114A in my junior high school days. It came with a high speed paper tape reader, mark sense card reader, and an ASR-33 teletype for typing commands and printing program listings. A few years later I was able to use an HP 9830A. I still have or three of the cassette tapes that I used with that machine which contain some programs I wrote. It could be interesting to try and decode the data on the tapes and extract the programs.
Thank you for keeping those HP hardware. Actually I became involved in computers back 1979 on a HP2000 Basic Access System at the computer centre of the Natural Sciences Faculty of the University of Puerto Rico and during that time I purchased some programmable calculators like the HP-25C, the HP-55 and the HP-41C (I ordered it from HP) and HP became my inspiration to learn myself computers and later as a MIS Computer Operator at Bourns PR, Inc. from 1985 through 1992 using a HP3000 Series III and later a Micro HP3000 Series 37 as a print and email server when ops went remote. I try to keep some hardware given to me when the company laid me off but only kept an HP-85B and a HP9100B calculator. My best working days were during those times and HP is on my heart as the best company and computers anywhere. It makes me glad that are people with such love and commitment to preserve all those systems and instruments for future generations.
Heavens that's one decent warehouse ! I'm so happy you were able to visit (while they still had doors open) and pick up so many essentials! The volt meter is very satisfying. As a huge fan of line printers and, off course HP, I really look forward to see what you make out of that 2631 unit =)
So much hardware... so many different model numbers. Amazing you, and Ed, have such a good memory of all the different ones out there. Not to mention a good idea of all the parts you need for the various machines. Wish you all the best on new projects!
Hi Marc...i really feel your passion for everything when you talk with Ed. Is amazing that places like that still be around. Is a shame is gonna be close soon, but that's the natural cycle. I'm a huge fan of your channel and all your restoration projects. Im currently stuying networking and your videos are really instructive to me, besides im a little bit similar to you collecting old vintage technologies. Btw at 11.11 on Ed's desk he have an old maybe 486 or Pentium 1 desktop computer. I know that housing because my first computer used the same one. Thanks for your task of collecting lovely old technology. Greetings from Miami.
I remember using an HP 2100 system that ran an automatic calibration station during my stint in the Air Force as a cal tech. Around that same time I built my first computer, a Northstar Horizon system.
Oh man! You lucky guy! This brings back old memories. I learned programming on an 9820 and am searching for a vintage one ever since. Good to see these old beasts get a good retirement home.
In 1977, when I was working for Measurex in Longueuil Québec, I dropped off the mechanism of a KSR 35 at the home of the gentleman who did all our Teletype repairs. He lived in the East side of Montréal, in Saint Leonard.. His basement shop was filled with Teletypes of all types. Most were chattering away being tested. He had rooms full of spare parts and some cannabilized ttys. Of course that was 45 years ago, but some of that treasure-trove of Teletype hardware might still be floating around in Montréal. While Measurex mostly used UP computers, I do recall seeing an Interdata computer come into our depot after a fire in a paper mill.
Absolutely love the old hardware. Got the bug for this hobby back in college when I found some old DEC boards in the garbage. Bought and Restored an old VAX because I wanted the VT100 terminals. Still have some old HP scopes and a Logic Analyzer. And a pile of tubes for my old Tek 525 if you ever need any. Would love to help in one of your restorations if you ever need a hand on the east coast. Keep up the great content! Absolutely loved the AGC restore!
Sad to hear Ed is shutting down. He was a joy to deal with when I bought my 4678 from him. Please, this wonderful gear needs to be saved. Also Marc, you need to do an extensive tour of your entire HP collection. I love computing equipment from that era!
Maybe it can be a featured post on VCFED forum or Hackaday or Reddit vintage computing pages inviting people to come and get what they want. Seems more of a case people not knowing about rather than not wanting the stuff.
That's the idea. Please feel free to re-post. But beware, although the stuff is far more reasonable than on eBay, it's not free. Ed has real world expenses to pay.
Seeing that “disc” (yes, HP called them discs) drive tester was a real thrill. I haven’t seen one of those for almost 40 years when I tested 7906 disc drives with them on the production line. Cool video! I have used almost all of that hardware. Some trivia. The 79xx drives had big problems for a while with contamination from spindle motor lubricant. It would mess up the servo signal written on one of the disc surfaces. It took some time to figure out the cause and solution. We called it “walking servo code”. It gave us fits as we had to frequently rewrite the servo code.. There is a special interface board for the 7906 drive that writes the servo code on the lower non-remove able disc. I hope you have one of those. You may need it. It is only installed when writing the servo signal.
A quick update. The walking servo code was caused by contamination from a brush that swept across the lower disc during spin up. I think the brush was removed in later models. Be aware of this if you restore the 7906. I think it works just fine without the brush.
@77leelg thanks so much for the tips! I have the servo writing platter, but sadly not the interface board. Can you ping me via email (address on the About tab at ruclips.net/user/curiousmarc ) , I’d love to get in touch with you.
When I first started my first job was to commission two HP 9000/825s 'Firefox' minicomputers in 1998. These were HP's first systems with 32-bit PA-RISC 1.0 processors implemented in NMOS-III NS-1, running HP-UX and were installed in the local hospital - not as early as your haul but great memories.
CuriousMarc, do whatever you can to preserve the technical heritage, you seem to be in a sweetspot of opportunity. Eventually everything fades into obscurity, but not today. Thank you for your efforts.
yea and here inlies the problem, people like this have a million dollars worth of inventory, and can have it 100% cataloged by a few interns in less than a year given most internships last the summer and xmass break, but no call my non long distance phone number and ask me for a specific part number, and if you make me hardly THINK for only 1 second slam down the phone and wholesale the remaining lot to a recycler for 800 bucks Its not amazing, its a old fart with a hoarder condition, and 90% of what he has will go direct to landfill cause he never kept a ledger. Its just a sad old man shuffling around a warehouse full of junk on the floor
@@osgeld - Show me on the interface card where somebody hurt you. You sounded so unpleasant with your description of that person, I sincerely hope that you never get attacked like that about something that interests you.
Quite the contrary. Ed knows exactly what he has and where it is. When I asked him for an obscure ROM by number, he located it in less than two minutes!
5 1/4 . The USAF keeps some important ‘things’ on them. They figure no one can read them anymore. I’ve heard they are having problems keeping their readers up. Anyway, your dangerous lol. I remember that disk drive. OMG I’m old.
I would love to get my hands on an old HP-150 touch terminal. One of the first machines I learned how to service as an industrial technician. Ed is a legend. I am happy to see that he is passing on his legacy...
I proudly retain as a memento an 8" double-sided floppy drive alignment disk. To use it requires a test jig to power up the drive and send the head to some specific tracks. Then with an oscilloscope connected somewhere in the drive electronics you can see alignment signals and manually adjust the motor/heads to hit the middle of the selected track. I last used it in the early to mid eighties.
Compared to the 8bit fans I use to watch... Like commodore 64, apple 1 etc... This stuff is even more ancient and amazing. Wow 120mb in 1978... What does anyone need this much space for? This would be like having a harddisk for like 10 petabytes these days. Jeebus.
I wonder how many people this video brought back memories too ? I used to work for the British government over forty years ago. We were told that we had to use PDP equipment, but seeing all those interface cards, floppies, large disks and that damn rattling loud printer (complete with mandatory sexy woman) almost made me want to cry. I can now go and put a microcontroller on a breadboard, and after some short coding get the thing programmed and producing results. All at 5 volts.
The mixed emotions of joy and sorrow when you left that magical place must have been overwhelming, Marc. All that history right there, doesn't deserve to be scrapped. The question is though: are you going to hire a truck to get the rest and make a part II? :)
Oh my - seeing those 8" Dysan floppy disks took me back aways. One of our earliest CNC machines and they were the most reliable disk we could use with it and it was my job to make sure we always had backups, until we had the all new 3.5" 1.4mb replacement drives and I didn't have to lug home a suitcase every evening.
wonderful video! you should purchased everything even the building for a HP vintage museum outlet? thanks a lot...:) these old computers bring back thoughts of yesterday.
I believe the mid-'60s Dymec digital voltmeter I tore down once was made to interface to a 2116. I have a drawer full of good general-purpose germanium transistors from that unit. I bought an old Heathkit IT-18 transistor checker just to test them. It also had a handful of Nuvistors in it but I don't think I have them anymore.
Dymec was the business division responsible for making integrated measurement test systems made out of HP and third party products. They had purchased the Union Carbide DSI 100 computer design that would become the HP 2116. Therefore it would make a lot of sense that they'd be the first one to make a digital voltmeter to interface with the 2116.
I used almost all of this stuff back in the day building Automated Test Equipment (ATE), and I'm still building, programming, and supporting ATEs in support of that dying relic, American manufacturing.
Fantastic, I recognize many of these from my early career in the 1980s back at Bellcore. We had several of the 98xx series lab computers for lab automation in our fiber optics lab.
@@CuriousMarc The HP 85 was what HP came up with from Steve Wozniak's ideas after he left HP. It will never sell said the HP executives of the personal computer :)
I would need to ask the original HP engineers (and hopefully Woz if I get a chance) to confirm. My own understanding is different. Steve Woznyak was working on the HP 264x terminals in Silicon Valley. These were Intel 8008 then 8080 8-bit microprocessor based, quite advanced machines, very modular, multi-cards with a very nice bus architecture, and quite expensive, but only programmed in ROM for implementing terminals. That inspired him to propose his single board microcomputer, an idea that got indeed turned down by HP. So you could argue that the later HP 2647, which runs a version of Microsoft BASIC in ROM, is as close as HP got to that early personal microcomputers. The HP 85 was developed independently by the Corvallis division in Oregon, essentially the calculator guys. The 85 is really a programmable calculator on amphetamines. And all with Corvallis’ unique own chips and completely unusual architecture. The story I hear is that it annoyed the computer division greatly, that they made a competitive product to their 9825 then 9826 computers lines at a fraction of the price...
For many years in the UK our nerds used to build life size Daleks... it's awfully kind of Mr Lucas to give American nerds their own robot construction projects. I was hardly able to contain myself over all that lovely HP kit when you just happened to drop in on Gemini, Apollo 15 and Endeavour.......... WOW! WOAH! I haven't seen a Dysan logo in years and years and years and that was ONLY on 5 1/4.... These are 8".
This is amazing to see - the Computer Reset of HP gear. I wonder if there’s anything like this over here in the UK - I’ve been looking for an 80 series computer or 9800 series calculator for a while now but eBay prices are insane.
It must be really hard to refrain yourself and having to choose what you'll bring back. Must be why you didn't rent a truck before going, or otherwise you'd have taken everything ;)
If you ever get those 8 inch floppy drives working and can read data with them to save on MS DOS formatted 3.5" floppies, you should think about reaching out to the programmer of GORF 2 to recover their source code for the prototype game which they have on 8 inch floppies but no way to read them.
5:10, that gold panel is strange! Radhard shielding for aerospace maybe? Gotta say this place looked fascinating - I'm wondering if he had any rope-memory from the 1960s that he might have thrown out (I'd love to find some of that).
So much stuff in there for my HP 9000 /300 Series. I would absolutely love to get a HPIB Floppy drive, and some A/D and GPIO Cards for my unit. Impossible to find stuff it seems now
I grew up in the age of 5 1/4... I only ever had one 8" drive and could never get it working... I don't know what it is but there's something so much more "real grown-ups computer" about sliding an 8" disk into the drive.
Hello Marc... I always see those blankets with the Zickzack pattern... Are these just normal blankets or are they special like antistatic or so? Any special material?
Those seem to be so-called moving blankets, used to protect furniture when it’s moved. Moving (as in: to live in a different place) is such a common activity in the US that there is a whole area of retail that deals with moving supplies. You don’t just buy “boxes”, you buy “moving boxes” (boxes, yes, but boxes labeled clearly for this very purpose and sold at suitable markup because moving supply purchases are usually under time constraints so price flexibility goes out the window - you can gouge the customers). The moving blankets are made often from recycled cotton fiber material, and there are many variants of them. Some look very nice - almost like things you could actually sleep on. Those might have non-recycled material on the outside, and an inner recycled layer. The stitching on them may look almost quilt-like and that’s likely what you refer to. Some look like one took a pile of cotton garbage and ran a steamroller over it, cut it into large rectangles and sold for approximately the going price of platinum scrap :/ I’d like to think that such consumer-oriented moving supplies are a very North American phenomenon, although it’s hard for me to know for sure - I don’t think I knew anyone who has moved an entire house full of stuff back in Europe when I still lived there (or at least they didn’t move when I was in touch with them).
Are those Shugart Associates Double Sided, Double Density drives? My Xerox 860ips used a pair of those as well as my 8000 server and 820 PC. The 820 PC has a 8" HD, with a whopping 10 mb of storage.
8" floppies were before my time, but the reason I know the name Shugart is because the Tandy 1000 line used the Shugart 34-pin bus for their floppies all the way until that line died out after the RSX, and I've had to do some research on that standard to make adapter cables so standard PC floppies would work with them.
Very interesting to see what's all in the warehouse. Could you show in one of your videos how you mount a new drive? Not electrical, but in the OS. I still remember on the Xenix system I used for a while that I manually had to mount/unmount the floppy. BTW: during the video I thought, "I have to subscribe to this channel", but I already was subscribed ;-)
I have to be careful not to collect that nice HP stuff as well! What a nice machines... I have a few old computers but no HP. Most parts I buy from Ebay because here in the Netherlands there is very little supply of these old parts. I've never seen piles of parts here like I've seen on several youtube films in the US. I'm even redesigning some DEC boards because I can't find them here... The advantage of that is that other people can build them too :-) Where do you keep all the stuff? Is that at a museum or is it an your home?
I can't watch this. Please make sure everything here is saved and rescued and taken care of....... don't trow anything away! Lots of people in EU would like to have/buy the things if it was possible.
You call that a full car? You didn't even have anything in the front passenger seat. FULL is when you have to lean forward, and can't use the handbrake because of the stuff in the way. But seriously, I am so envious.
I personally hope everything in that warehouse finds a home and doesn't meet obliteration.
He restored the Apollo computer and he's there like he's on a budget. They should have let him pick whatever he wanted and have it all shipped wherever.
@@bobroberts2371 I'm looking forward to when the liquidation of Computer Reset starts back up again. Hasn't been open since July, as far as i know. Been too hot to allow people in the warehouse. Too risky.
@@525Lines The problem is storage space!
I'm a retired electronic tech, spent 20 years in the Navy working on stuff that makes some of your toys look new by comparison, I wish i could hang out with you and tinker with the stuff you got. I think some things I worked on were from the same era of that AGC you fixed up. had a message processing computer with 64k of Ferrite core memory, paper tape reader/puncher, and my favorite was a tt-624 line printer that looked as if it was printing an entire line at once. for a serial line printer it was pretty fast. Look forward to future restorations :)
It's just like Computer Reset. Each time I see a computer "warehouse" video like this, I feel like a kid in a candy store.
I'm a big fan of your channel and all of your HP equipment. Back in the day, I used the 5420 and 5423 DSA, 5451 DSA (B and C), 3582 DSA, 9825, 9826, 9836, 85, Series 200 and Series 300 computers, plotters, printers, etc, etc, etc. Programming in HPL and Basic and Pascal brings back some old memories.
I remember the 9825 back in the late 70's having 23K of memory, when the popular Radio Shack TRS80 had 1K or 4K of memory. I though 23K was more than anyone would ever need.
It's great to see that old equipment again.
Considering the looks I get when I bring home some rescued gear, I wonder what Marc's family make of it all - but then I don't run a 'tube channel.
I get the looks too ;-)
@Pablo wedgburg Marc also has a larger house than most of us, so... it has room in which to go AND it's in good working order for the most part.
C'est mieux que le matin de noël ! J'ai 44 ans et ai vu quelque uns de ces systèmes en (fin de) service il y a très longtemps. J'ai hâte de voir vos futurs vidéos.
I very much appreciate the efforts you and others do to preserve these absolute works of art (and some works of horror!). Thank you.
Re: That Shuttle... way back when I was in elementary school, they held an essay contest to name it. Although the essay I wrote was not selected, the name I picked (and I presume a bunch of other people also picked) was selected as the winner - Endeavour. And, well, she came home to me (I live in California)... and in one piece, too. I will admit that I always get just a little emotional whenever I'm in town and stop by to see her. I'd pat her on the nose and say "thanks", but, ya know... fragile thermal tiles.
A tractor shop down the road from where I live still runs an HP 3000 timesharing system from the late '80s. I believe it has two PA-7100 processors and a pair of Eagle disks. It is used for the part inventory system.
Amazed that you didn't rent a truck, of course, you might have taken everything in sight too :)
Some of my friends and local collectors did, and took a lot of the stuff in their rented truck before I showed up. And afterwards too ;-)
@@CuriousMarc You might want to get the trailer hitch installed on your truck, just in case :)
Glad to see you salvaging some of that old HP gear. I like the early ‘80s desktop gear like the 85 and 87 for its simplicity. I understands what he’s say8ing about the hassle of selling on eBay. It’s getting harder and harder to find stuff there. I’d like to find an I/O ROM for my 87 for less than $60, but I don’t see those anymore. I’ve got one, but I’ve got three 87s, so I have to keep swapping it out for HPIB. Interesting disk drive test gear with an analog gauge. Looking forward to you future videos.
I’m always astonished at the quantity and quality of equipment HP produced back in the day. Seeing you unpack your haul brings back great memories of liquidation auctions in the 80s where test gear went cheap.
I envy you your HP1000 kit. The HP1000, specifically the 2113 with 7906 and RTE4B, was the machine I cut my teeth on, I was new to computing, and I can remember the feeling of excitement as I saw the possibilities. It laid the foundation of the rest of my working life. Oddly, I can still remember the boot settings for my machine: S-reg 15,12,9,6,1, store, preset, ipl, preset, run. Happy days. Thank you, Marc, for bringing the memories back.
And 102007 on the tri-octal display to tell you it had "happy halted"
I am led to believe that particular instruction as well as the rest of the instruction set is still in all Intel CPUs to this day :)
Leaving passengers behind so there's more room for loot.
Smart thinking 😉
The only good thing about being a grown up is that you can make yourself a merry little Christmas whenever you want.
Those boards are so gorgeous, you can tell they were made with passion (heart).
Wish they still made electronics like that, it's a shame.
Thanks Marc!
Thanks, some very old memories, I started in ~1970 with a 2116A and ASR35. The paper tape reader came later. I remember the HP rep came with a second D/A card so we could play Space Wars on a Tek 454 oscilloscope. The later 1.5 mb disk seemed huge. We turned it off over Christmas and when we tried to turn it on we found we had to replace a tiny light bulb for the optical tracking guide that had become too dim to work. Used most the equipment you found over many years, finally ending with the HP-UX machines.
Glad you saved some of the keyboards for the terminals. The first computer I got to touch and operate was an HP 2114A in my junior high school days. It came with a high speed paper tape reader, mark sense card reader, and an ASR-33 teletype for typing commands and printing program listings. A few years later I was able to use an HP 9830A. I still have or three of the cassette tapes that I used with that machine which contain some programs I wrote. It could be interesting to try and decode the data on the tapes and extract the programs.
Thank you for keeping those HP hardware. Actually I became involved in computers back 1979 on a HP2000 Basic Access System at the computer centre of the Natural Sciences Faculty of the University of Puerto Rico and during that time I purchased some programmable calculators like the HP-25C, the HP-55 and the HP-41C (I ordered it from HP) and HP became my inspiration to learn myself computers and later as a MIS Computer Operator at Bourns PR, Inc. from 1985 through 1992 using a HP3000 Series III and later a Micro HP3000 Series 37 as a print and email server when ops went remote. I try to keep some hardware given to me when the company laid me off but only kept an HP-85B and a HP9100B calculator. My best working days were during those times and HP is on my heart as the best company and computers anywhere. It makes me glad that are people with such love and commitment to preserve all those systems and instruments for future generations.
Heavens that's one decent warehouse ! I'm so happy you were able to visit (while they still had doors open) and pick up so many essentials!
The volt meter is very satisfying. As a huge fan of line printers and, off course HP, I really look forward to see what you make out of that 2631 unit =)
I don’t understand half the things on this channel but I love every single video.
So much hardware... so many different model numbers. Amazing you, and Ed, have such a good memory of all the different ones out there. Not to mention a good idea of all the parts you need for the various machines. Wish you all the best on new projects!
Well Done Marc, love all of your videos, enthusiasm and knowledge, great work.
Spent many years at H-P medical. Truly appreciate your videos and trip down memory lane that it prompts!
Hi Marc...i really feel your passion for everything when you talk with Ed. Is amazing that places like that still be around. Is a shame is gonna be close soon, but that's the natural cycle. I'm a huge fan of your channel and all your restoration projects. Im currently stuying networking and your videos are really instructive to me, besides im a little bit similar to you collecting old vintage technologies. Btw at 11.11 on Ed's desk he have an old maybe 486 or Pentium 1 desktop computer. I know that housing because my first computer used the same one. Thanks for your task of collecting lovely old technology. Greetings from Miami.
I remember using an HP 2100 system that ran an automatic calibration station during my stint in the Air Force as a cal tech. Around that same time I built my first computer, a Northstar Horizon system.
Oh man! You lucky guy! This brings back old memories. I learned programming on an 9820 and am searching for a vintage one ever since. Good to see these old beasts get a good retirement home.
In 1977, when I was working for Measurex in Longueuil Québec, I dropped off the mechanism of a KSR 35 at the home of the gentleman who did all our Teletype repairs. He lived in the East side of Montréal, in Saint Leonard.. His basement shop was filled with Teletypes of all types. Most were chattering away being tested. He had rooms full of spare parts and some cannabilized ttys. Of course that was 45 years ago, but some of that treasure-trove of Teletype hardware might still be floating around in Montréal. While Measurex mostly used UP computers, I do recall seeing an Interdata computer come into our depot after a fire in a paper mill.
Absolutely love the old hardware. Got the bug for this hobby back in college when I found some old DEC boards in the garbage. Bought and Restored an old VAX because I wanted the VT100 terminals. Still have some old HP scopes and a Logic Analyzer. And a pile of tubes for my old Tek 525 if you ever need any. Would love to help in one of your restorations if you ever need a hand on the east coast. Keep up the great content! Absolutely loved the AGC restore!
Sad to hear Ed is shutting down. He was a joy to deal with when I bought my 4678 from him. Please, this wonderful gear needs to be saved. Also Marc, you need to do an extensive tour of your entire HP collection. I love computing equipment from that era!
HP85... what a long time ago. Anyway all wonderful equipment from a wonderful era.
You didn't buy enough! I could still see from one side to the other of your car! :-)
Maybe it can be a featured post on VCFED forum or Hackaday or Reddit vintage computing pages inviting people to come and get what they want. Seems more of a case people not knowing about rather than not wanting the stuff.
I hope this video helps with exposure. Sad for all that stuff to end up in a dumpster
That's the idea. Please feel free to re-post. But beware, although the stuff is far more reasonable than on eBay, it's not free. Ed has real world expenses to pay.
Seeing that “disc” (yes, HP called them discs) drive tester was a real thrill. I haven’t seen one of those for almost 40 years when I tested 7906 disc drives with them on the production line. Cool video! I have used almost all of that hardware. Some trivia. The 79xx drives had big problems for a while with contamination from spindle motor lubricant. It would mess up the servo signal written on one of the disc surfaces. It took some time to figure out the cause and solution. We called it “walking servo code”. It gave us fits as we had to frequently rewrite the servo code.. There is a special interface board for the 7906 drive that writes the servo code on the lower non-remove able disc. I hope you have one of those. You may need it. It is only installed when writing the servo signal.
A quick update. The walking servo code was caused by contamination from a brush that swept across the lower disc during spin up. I think the brush was removed in later models. Be aware of this if you restore the 7906. I think it works just fine without the brush.
@77leelg thanks so much for the tips! I have the servo writing platter, but sadly not the interface board. Can you ping me via email (address on the About tab at ruclips.net/user/curiousmarc ) , I’d love to get in touch with you.
When I first started my first job was to commission two HP 9000/825s 'Firefox' minicomputers in 1998. These were HP's first systems with 32-bit PA-RISC 1.0 processors implemented in NMOS-III NS-1, running HP-UX and were installed in the local hospital - not as early as your haul but great memories.
Marc's 18-wheeler and moving team will be showing up monday to pick up the rest of the vintage HP stuff.... ;)
CuriousMarc, do whatever you can to preserve the technical heritage, you seem to be in a sweetspot of opportunity.
Eventually everything fades into obscurity, but not today.
Thank you for your efforts.
I have one of those Voltmeters and it's still an amazing piece of kit. So sad that all of these places with vintage equipment are disappearing.
WOW - this fellow has a gold mine (or had one) for people like you. Amazing.
yea and here inlies the problem, people like this have a million dollars worth of inventory, and can have it 100% cataloged by a few interns in less than a year given most internships last the summer and xmass break, but no call my non long distance phone number and ask me for a specific part number, and if you make me hardly THINK for only 1 second slam down the phone and wholesale the remaining lot to a recycler for 800 bucks
Its not amazing, its a old fart with a hoarder condition, and 90% of what he has will go direct to landfill cause he never kept a ledger. Its just a sad old man shuffling around a warehouse full of junk on the floor
@@osgeld - Show me on the interface card where somebody hurt you.
You sounded so unpleasant with your description of that person, I sincerely hope that you never get attacked like that about something that interests you.
Quite the contrary. Ed knows exactly what he has and where it is. When I asked him for an obscure ROM by number, he located it in less than two minutes!
5 1/4 . The USAF keeps some important ‘things’ on them. They figure no one can read them anymore. I’ve heard they are having problems keeping their readers up. Anyway, your dangerous lol. I remember that disk drive. OMG I’m old.
Yeah, they said that nobody could read the Apollo AGC cartridges either. Well, guess what?
I would love to get my hands on an old HP-150 touch terminal. One of the first machines I learned how to service as an industrial technician. Ed is a legend. I am happy to see that he is passing on his legacy...
I'm so jealous of you. I
wish I could go to places like that to do some picking... Love the videos please keep them coming!
I proudly retain as a memento an 8" double-sided floppy drive alignment disk. To use it requires a test jig to power up the drive and send the head to some specific tracks. Then with an oscilloscope connected somewhere in the drive electronics you can see alignment signals and manually adjust the motor/heads to hit the middle of the selected track. I last used it in the early to mid eighties.
Compared to the 8bit fans I use to watch... Like commodore 64, apple 1 etc... This stuff is even more ancient and amazing.
Wow 120mb in 1978... What does anyone need this much space for?
This would be like having a harddisk for like 10 petabytes these days. Jeebus.
Desperately looking forward to more videos featuring all this good stuff.
great travel log. Thanks for posting.
I wonder how many people this video brought back memories too ? I used to work for the British government over forty years ago. We were told that we had to use PDP equipment, but seeing all those interface cards, floppies, large disks and that damn rattling loud printer (complete with mandatory sexy woman) almost made me want to cry.
I can now go and put a microcontroller on a breadboard, and after some short coding get the thing programmed and producing results. All at 5 volts.
I worked with this stuff up until 1998 !
I love the old Samsonite briefcase you snagged! Especially since it's full of specialized HP test gear.
Nice to see y'a on wsj Marc :)
I have worked on and repaired all of that equipment and now feel very very old :)
Those HP Lab machines literally make my heart flutter, lol. I wish I didn't live all the way on the east coast!
The mixed emotions of joy and sorrow when you left that magical place must have been overwhelming, Marc.
All that history right there, doesn't deserve to be scrapped.
The question is though: are you going to hire a truck to get the rest and make a part II? :)
Oh my - seeing those 8" Dysan floppy disks took me back aways. One of our earliest CNC machines and they were the most reliable disk we could use with it and it was my job to make sure we always had backups, until we had the all new 3.5" 1.4mb replacement drives and I didn't have to lug home a suitcase every evening.
wonderful video! you should purchased everything even the building for a HP vintage museum outlet? thanks a lot...:) these old computers bring back thoughts of yesterday.
I believe the mid-'60s Dymec digital voltmeter I tore down once was made to interface to a 2116. I have a drawer full of good general-purpose germanium transistors from that unit. I bought an old Heathkit IT-18 transistor checker just to test them. It also had a handful of Nuvistors in it but I don't think I have them anymore.
Dymec was the business division responsible for making integrated measurement test systems made out of HP and third party products. They had purchased the Union Carbide DSI 100 computer design that would become the HP 2116. Therefore it would make a lot of sense that they'd be the first one to make a digital voltmeter to interface with the 2116.
I used almost all of this stuff back in the day building Automated Test Equipment (ATE), and I'm still building, programming, and supporting ATEs in support of that dying relic, American manufacturing.
OMG, Marc, you're like a kid in a candy store in this video! I'll take one of those, NO, two, okay three! Love this video!
Ebaying this stuff could be source of employment and income for at least 6 people for decades!
Fantastic, I recognize many of these from my early career in the 1980s back at Bellcore. We had several of the 98xx series lab computers for lab automation in our fiber optics lab.
Hehe. Same here. The optical lab is when I first met the HP 85's too. Fantastic scientific and test lab machines.
@@CuriousMarc The HP 85 was what HP came up with from Steve Wozniak's ideas after he left HP. It will never sell said the HP executives of the personal computer :)
I would need to ask the original HP engineers (and hopefully Woz if I get a chance) to confirm. My own understanding is different. Steve Woznyak was working on the HP 264x terminals in Silicon Valley. These were Intel 8008 then 8080 8-bit microprocessor based, quite advanced machines, very modular, multi-cards with a very nice bus architecture, and quite expensive, but only programmed in ROM for implementing terminals. That inspired him to propose his single board microcomputer, an idea that got indeed turned down by HP. So you could argue that the later HP 2647, which runs a version of Microsoft BASIC in ROM, is as close as HP got to that early personal microcomputers.
The HP 85 was developed independently by the Corvallis division in Oregon, essentially the calculator guys. The 85 is really a programmable calculator on amphetamines. And all with Corvallis’ unique own chips and completely unusual architecture. The story I hear is that it annoyed the computer division greatly, that they made a competitive product to their 9825 then 9826 computers lines at a fraction of the price...
@@CuriousMarc I used to have the opener for the 264X terminals on my key ring :)
@andrew allen - now that’s commitment!
For many years in the UK our nerds used to build life size Daleks... it's awfully kind of Mr Lucas to give American nerds their own robot construction projects.
I was hardly able to contain myself over all that lovely HP kit when you just happened to drop in on Gemini, Apollo 15 and Endeavour.......... WOW!
WOAH! I haven't seen a Dysan logo in years and years and years and that was ONLY on 5 1/4.... These are 8".
This is amazing to see - the Computer Reset of HP gear. I wonder if there’s anything like this over here in the UK - I’ve been looking for an 80 series computer or 9800 series calculator for a while now but eBay prices are insane.
Nice memories: The HP1000, the computer i learned to program assembler on.
The only old computer I have is a Apple IIe and I really like the simple nature of everything
The store owner seems like a cheerful guy.
Them computer parts are fantastic 🙂👍
It must be really hard to refrain yourself and having to choose what you'll bring back. Must be why you didn't rent a truck before going, or otherwise you'd have taken everything ;)
If you ever get those 8 inch floppy drives working and can read data with them to save on MS DOS formatted 3.5" floppies, you should think about reaching out to the programmer of GORF 2 to recover their source code for the prototype game which they have on 8 inch floppies but no way to read them.
5:10, that gold panel is strange! Radhard shielding for aerospace maybe? Gotta say this place looked fascinating - I'm wondering if he had any rope-memory from the 1960s that he might have thrown out (I'd love to find some of that).
Looks like you needed a bigger car and a fuller wallet :)
So much stuff in there for my HP 9000 /300 Series. I would absolutely love to get a HPIB Floppy drive, and some A/D and GPIO Cards for my unit. Impossible to find stuff it seems now
Give Ed a call, quick!
I hope this video helps the remaining equipment find a home!
I wish I had one of everything, since it has so many things.
God I loved this one. Memory lane, ty:)
WOW I thought I was bad! Luckily I have run out of room at my place for such things but it doesn't look like you have.
I bet Chyrosran22 would be extremely interested in covering the HP terminals keyboards in depth since that’s kind of his thing!
I've never seen so many 8" floppy disk drives in one place. I've only got half a dozen myself
I grew up in the age of 5 1/4... I only ever had one 8" drive and could never get it working... I don't know what it is but there's something so much more "real grown-ups computer" about sliding an 8" disk into the drive.
I need one of those terminal keyboards so badly!
i'm always looking out for an old terminal. Would love to get one.
Hello Marc... I always see those blankets with the Zickzack pattern... Are these just normal blankets or are they special like antistatic or so? Any special material?
Those seem to be so-called moving blankets, used to protect furniture when it’s moved. Moving (as in: to live in a different place) is such a common activity in the US that there is a whole area of retail that deals with moving supplies. You don’t just buy “boxes”, you buy “moving boxes” (boxes, yes, but boxes labeled clearly for this very purpose and sold at suitable markup because moving supply purchases are usually under time constraints so price flexibility goes out the window - you can gouge the customers). The moving blankets are made often from recycled cotton fiber material, and there are many variants of them. Some look very nice - almost like things you could actually sleep on. Those might have non-recycled material on the outside, and an inner recycled layer. The stitching on them may look almost quilt-like and that’s likely what you refer to. Some look like one took a pile of cotton garbage and ran a steamroller over it, cut it into large rectangles and sold for approximately the going price of platinum scrap :/
I’d like to think that such consumer-oriented moving supplies are a very North American phenomenon, although it’s hard for me to know for sure - I don’t think I knew anyone who has moved an entire house full of stuff back in Europe when I still lived there (or at least they didn’t move when I was in touch with them).
Oh neat, he has 7925 parts. Looks like I'll be giving Ed a call.
You settled on which system you will be attaching yours to yet?
I am not sure, probably one of the F's.
the old computer smell classic
Are those Shugart Associates Double Sided, Double Density drives? My Xerox 860ips used a pair of those as well as my 8000 server and 820 PC. The 820 PC has a 8" HD, with a whopping 10 mb of storage.
8" floppies were before my time, but the reason I know the name Shugart is because the Tandy 1000 line used the Shugart 34-pin bus for their floppies all the way until that line died out after the RSX, and I've had to do some research on that standard to make adapter cables so standard PC floppies would work with them.
Or are they the dreaded plastic Remex drives? ;)
Very interesting to see what's all in the warehouse. Could you show in one of your videos how you mount a new drive? Not electrical, but in the OS.
I still remember on the Xenix system I used for a while that I manually had to mount/unmount the floppy.
BTW: during the video I thought, "I have to subscribe to this channel", but I already was subscribed ;-)
I worked on a machine with the disk packs, they were heavy!
Oh man, I would've hired a truck on the way to LA!
Do the Chopers droids do any thing objectionable?
I have to be careful not to collect that nice HP stuff as well! What a nice machines... I have a few old computers but no HP. Most parts I buy from Ebay because here in the Netherlands there is very little supply of these old parts. I've never seen piles of parts here like I've seen on several youtube films in the US. I'm even redesigning some DEC boards because I can't find them here... The advantage of that is that other people can build them too :-) Where do you keep all the stuff? Is that at a museum or is it an your home?
Well I'm officially jealous haha
Too bad I'm almost 3,000 miles away.. why can't I find something like this nearby :(
11:58 The box says "Easy fold". You just would have to fold it to save space :).
I dont know what the hell he is talking about....but I like it...
Hope you stay healthy to be able to lift that stuff a few more years.
I would love to own one of those. do not have enough money though.
5:53 sorry, was there a computer in that photo? 🤩🤩😃
lol i was looking at her to not that over sizzed pc
Exactly. I didn't see one either.
[jaw drop emoji]
I can't watch this. Please make sure everything here is saved and rescued and taken care of....... don't trow anything away! Lots of people in EU would like to have/buy the things if it was possible.
Watching this i realize i got too little cool HP stuff at home
That free advertising for him
You call that a full car? You didn't even have anything in the front passenger seat. FULL is when you have to lean forward, and can't use the handbrake because of the stuff in the way.
But seriously, I am so envious.
👍👍