Rare Apple I computer sells for $216,000 in London

[Joe Thompson]

I think our PBUFF had around 1mb in it. It used computer ram sticks,
of a type you don't see anymore, they had pins on them, like a very
long single sided DIP package, but it was a PCB with RAM IC's on it.
(much like now). SIMM or DIMM (Cant remember).

Sounds like SIMMs (DIMMs are current tech). Somewhere I have a bunch of
smaller (256K) SIMMs from an old Mac. I used one as a keychain till the
ICs fell off; I plan to use the others after getting them coated in
Lucite or something similar. -- Joe

 

[Rod Speed]

Mr.Magoo wrote

Don McKenzie wrote

Hmmmm.. wonder what I could get for my Vic20..

Nothing like that, essentially because hordes more of those were made.

 

[Rod Speed]

Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote

Surprising then that it was so popular right up until Windows became ubiquitous.

Nope, we saw the same thing with the DOS UI.

I quite liked WordPerfect's interface.

The absolute vast bulk of the users didnt, which is why it sank beneath the waves.

 

[Walter Bushell]

WordPerfect was.

If IBM could have read the writing on the Mall . . . .

IBM certainly had enough power to encourage developers. I mean Apple did
that for the Macintosh at the time the Macintosh was nothing compared to
the IBM empire.

Different market, different mindset.

 

[Walter Bushell]

Surprising then that it was so popular right up until Windows
became ubiquitous. I quite liked WordPerfect's interface.

I have head many laments about WordPerfect's demise.

 

[Joe Thompson]

IBM certainly had enough power to encourage developers. I mean Apple did
that for the Macintosh at the time the Macintosh was nothing compared to
the IBM empire.

Different market, different mindset.

More an issue of different market *share*, I think. IBM was used to
calling the shots for the entire market, and so expected (pretty
logically, to be honest) that the market would cater to their dominance.
Apple never had that kind of dominance in the PC market (and still
doesn't), so their relationship with developers was much more hands-on.

But look at how Apple deals with iPhone app developers. They *are* the
big dog in smartphones, they know it, and they act like it. -- Joe

 

[Don McKenzie]

A SIPP of some sort. As the Wikipedia article points out, these were
replaced by SIMMs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIPP_memory

At times, we used the same memory as the XT PC of the day, which was 30 pad SIMM Modules:
http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/memx_2131_284704826

We sometimes soldered pins onto them, so we could insert them into a 30 pin socket:
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/simmstick-female-header-pins.html

Or simply plug them straight into a suitable socket:
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/sim-sockx2.html

However most users simply plugged DIP version DRAMs straight into the PBUFF board, which was designed to accept them.

The SIMMs were just a later alternative to use old XT DRAMs, and-or to build up the memory capacity of the original
buffer board.

DRAM could be 1, 2, 4, or 8 DIP chips, or 30 pin Simm modules. I think I had 11 memory sizes. So by using a combination
of DIPs and-or SIMMs, you could use your surplus memory chips for somethig useful.

Cheers Don...

=================


--
Don McKenzie

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[Don McKenzie]

On 27-Nov-10 7:44 AM, Don McKenzie wrote:

Just adding to that, these were fairly rarely used, but I found a picture of the SIPP package.

Cheers Don...



--
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[Don McKenzie]

On 27-Nov-10 7:44 AM, Don McKenzie wrote:

Just adding to that, these were fairly rarely used, but I found a picture of the SIPP package.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SIPP.jpg

Cheers Don...


--
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[SG1]

Hmmmm.. wonder what I could get for my Vic20..

20 years solitary??????

 

[Rod Speed]

Walter Bushell wrote

If IBM could have read the writing on the Mall . . . .

They wouldnt have pissed all that money against the wall on OS/2 etc.

IBM certainly had enough power to encourage developers.

Nope. The very fundamental problem was always that while ever the absolute
vast bulk of PC came with Win installed, nothing IBM did could ever change that.

I mean Apple did that for the Macintosh at the time the
Macintosh was nothing compared to the IBM empire.

Yes, because it had a much better user interface than DOS PCs hand.

Different market, different mindset.

That wasnt why OS/2 never flew.

The other very fundamental reason OS/2 never took off in the mass
market was because it did a pretty hopeless job of running the older
stuff that so many wanted to continue to use at least for a while.

Hardly anyone was interested in changing all the apps they used.

Thats why Win left it for dead, even tho it was an inferiour product.

 

[Rod Speed]

Walter Bushell wrote

I have head many laments about WordPerfect's demise.

I heard many laments about the demise of punched cards too.

I had to physically remove the last of the card punches to stop the dinosaurs continuing to use them.

 

[Rod Speed]

Joe Thompson wrote

More an issue of different market *share*, I think. IBM was used
to calling the shots for the entire market, and so expected (pretty
logically, to be honest) that the market would cater to their
dominance. Apple never had that kind of dominance in the PC market
(and still doesn't), so their relationship with developers was much
more hands-on.

But look at how Apple deals with iPhone app developers. They
*are* the big dog in smartphones, they know it, and they act like it.

And they lose quite a few sales with that approach too.

Its only just got multitasking. Same thing happened with the Mac too.

The iphone is a very interesting commentary on what marketing can do,
but the sales they lose is too.

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Walter Bushell wrote


They wouldnt have pissed all that money against the wall on OS/2 etc.


Nope. The very fundamental problem was always that while ever the absolute
vast bulk of PC came with Win installed, nothing IBM did could ever change that.

Sure they could. At the time, they could have provided the same sort of
encouragement to the clone manufacturers to preload OS/2 that MS did for
Windows.

Yes, because it had a much better user interface than DOS PCs hand.


That wasnt why OS/2 never flew.

The other very fundamental reason OS/2 never took off in the mass
market was because it did a pretty hopeless job of running the older
stuff that so many wanted to continue to use at least for a while.

I don't remember it that way -- my recollection was that it did as well
on those as Windows did.

 

[Don McKenzie]

Might have been that type, as I remember that it plugged into a row of
turned pin headers along the edge of the PBUFF board.

I had forgotten my own work. Too many years. Yes the later version boards had a row of 30 pins for the SIMM-SIPP type
DRAM memory modules.

I just checked the schematic at:
http://www.dontronics.com/pdf/pbuff_k.pdf

Quoting from my page at:
http://www.dontronics.com/z80.html

"The current Rev. K board has additional provision to
install an alternative 256K/1Mb/4Mb SIPP/SIMM type MEMORY MODULE. That
means, you can either install standard 16 or 18 pin by 1 bit Drams, or a
MEMORY MODULE. Both 8 byte and 9 byte type MODULES can be used. The software
ignores the ninth byte.

PBUFF Supports a mixture of 64K/256K/1Mb/4Mb DIP/SIMM/SIPP DRAMs in 10
memory sizes up to 4Mb. Supports 64K, 128K, 256K, 320K, 512K, 1024K, 1088K,
1280K, 2048K, and 4096K (4Mb)."

Cheers Don...

===========================

--
Don McKenzie

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These products will reduce in price by 5% every month:
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[Roland Hutchinson]

Sure they could. At the time, they could have provided the same sort of
encouragement to the clone manufacturers to preload OS/2 that MS did for
Windows.


I don't remember it that way -- my recollection was that it did as well
on those as Windows did.

"A better DOS than DOS and a better Windows than Windows"

--
Roland Hutchinson

He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
.... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )

 

[Roland Hutchinson]

dinosaurs continuing to use them.
Why in the world would you want to do that?

Opens us a niche or two for the mammals, innit.

--
Roland Hutchinson

He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
.... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )

 

[Rod Speed]

Joe Pfeiffer wrote

Sure they could.
Nope.

At the time, they could have provided the same sort of encouragement
to the clone manufacturers to preload OS/2 that MS did for Windows.

Nope, because not enough of the apps had native OS/2
versions for that to be viable and they never did either.

I don't remember it that way -- my recollection was that it did as
well on those as Windows did.

Nope, its support for DOS apps was pathetic.

 

[Rod Speed]

Roland Hutchinson wrote

Joe Pfeiffer wrote

"A better DOS than DOS and a better Windows than Windows"

Just a glib slogan. The reality was that the support for DOS apps was pathetic.

In spades with the apps that dealt with the hardware directly, like the comms apps that universally did that.

Yes, the approach OS/2 took to not allowing dos apps to do anything they liked with the hardware
was certainly the way to go stability wise, but it had the massive downside that there were hordes
of dos apps like that that just didnt work on OS/2 and the authors just werent interested in doing
OS/2 versions of their apps while ever OS/2 only ever had a tiny subset of the market.

That was the chicken and egg situation that even an IBM couldnt do a damned thing about.

 

[Rod Speed]

jmfbahciv wrote

Rod Speed wrote

Why in the world would you want to do that?

Because the support for the hardware ended up being a complete pain in the arse.

With teletypes in spades.

We eventually ended up with the ludicrous situation where a very senior support
person had to do all the teletype maintenance because they were so fucking hard
to work on compared with what replaced them. Even he hated the damned things.

The cost of 029 card punches etc was utterly obscene compared with what
replaced them essentially because they were complex mechanical devices.

Some other operations had to get blank cards from me because we were the
last operation that bothered to have punched cards etc.