Your favorite vintage non-palmtop computer?

It doesn't fit on your palm but it's still old enough to be called "vintage"? Then it probably belongs in here...
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Floopy
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Re: Your favorite vintage non-palmtop computer?

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True, my only question is: when are you going to ever use a 16GB CF card inside a DOS machine. To me it feels a bit like overkill ;)
Kyodai
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Re: Your favorite vintage non-palmtop computer?

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Well to me the biggest advantage is that you can use literally ANY IDE drive. And no more puzzling with the few obscure types or variables that are normally "supported" on older machines. Also makes it easy to prepare an HDD with an operating system from another computer.

In the long run - if you already have the perfect HDD (or at least one that works) for your vintage baby then not much use for XTIDE. For me it was the rescue for some machines were i just couldn't get any HDD that works with them.
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Floopy
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Re: Your favorite vintage non-palmtop computer?

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Kyodai wrote:you can use literally ANY IDE drive
You do have a point seeing how old IDE drives for some reason are extremely expensive. Despite being 30+ years old :!:
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Re: Your favorite vintage non-palmtop computer?

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Floopy wrote:
Kyodai wrote:you can use literally ANY IDE drive
You do have a point seeing how old IDE drives for some reason are extremely expensive. Despite being 30+ years old :!:

Yeah -especially some smaller and really old ones like in the range between 40 and 200 MB can be ridiculously expensive because they are so rare these days. And even if they still work properly there's always the risk of sudden death. :?
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Floopy
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Re: Your favorite vintage non-palmtop computer?

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They're very loud too. I know it's not too old but my Imac G3 makes a tantrum of clicking and hissing when it powers up. I feel like the disc is going to spin its self too pieces. I opened a 3 platter drive once and powered it up for fun I thought it was going to fragment itself into little pieces :P
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Re: Your favorite vintage non-palmtop computer?

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Hmmmm, if they start making weird noises then that's usually the beginning of the end... :oops:

Never had an imac, but i had some ibook G3 and G4. At least these used rather inexpensive 2,5" IDE drives that were rather cheap to replace. Ah the horror of re-installing an old Mac OSX from 4 CD-ROMs... Then again it sure beats installing Windows 95 from ike 30 floppy disks...
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Floopy
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Re: Your favorite vintage non-palmtop computer?

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Yea....
When I first turned it on, some of the files would appear then disappear. Sadly the CD-ROM drive is dying and 96% of disc won't read and I don't see the point in paying 30$ for a new CD drive. I do like the look of the Clamshells, but they are horribly slow and expensive.
Honestly the Apple II is the only apple product I really like. Too bad I can't find one :evil:
As for MAC OSX I have no clue how to work with anything Apple that includes their software and the way they put computers together.
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Re: Your favorite vintage non-palmtop computer?

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Well the iMac G3 is only worth fixing if you seriously plan to use it.

Personally i really still like the old G3/G4 12 inch iBooks. Back in the days they were really neat laptops - rather small and light, pretty nice screen, a lovely design (I do like simple designs!) and halfway durable (Not really a toughbook, but they can take a few bumps). RAM and wifi card were rather easy to replace (unlike the HDD). And the neat battery indicator on the battery itself is also nice. Every notebook battery should have that.

You can Buy an Apple II on ebay - but collectors prices are nuts these days - especially considering that these are not really "rare". If you get one from an estate or thriftshop sale for like the price of 2 pizzas then get one, but please don't pay a fortune for one.

How apple "puts computers together" is a whole different story - i always hated how you got to disassemble the iBook just to get to the HDD - the goofs that made that concept should be forced to dis- and re-assemble a hundred iBooks as a proper punishment.
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Floopy
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Re: Your favorite vintage non-palmtop computer?

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Kyodai wrote:Well the iMac G3 is only worth fixing if you seriously plan to use it.
It isn't, only nostalgia was calling me to see if I could get it working. It was given too me.
Kyodai wrote: You can Buy an Apple II on ebay - but collectors prices are nuts these days - especially considering that these are not really "rare". If you get one from an estate or thriftshop sale for like the price of 2 pizzas then get one, but please don't pay a fortune for one.
That's what I'm hoping, I'm always hunting for one. My local had one last year, but they were asking 200$ for an untested unit with a floppy drive. I think it never sold, or some scalper picked it up.Either way I think its ridiculous that people ask so much for old tech. just because it's old doesn't mean it's gold. They also were selling electric typewriters in one of the worst conditions I've ever seen for 50$. I guess they must look at Ebay prices and use them. Then there is the fact that you can buy a brand new copy of doom for 50cents :lol:
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Re: Your favorite vintage non-palmtop computer?

Post by Kyodai »

Well if a unit is rare and historically important then i got no problem with high prices. But for the Apple II i think one should take into account that Over 6 million units were sold (if you count all Variations like II Plus, IIC and so on). So even if 90% of these went to the trash (unlikely) that still leaves us with much more than a half million units around.

The reason for the Apple II prices is just the company logo on them. Somewhere in the mid 90s when apple was at the bottom of it's success, nearly bankrupt these Apple II were worth a slice of pizza. But with iPhone, iWatch, iPod and co the interest in the brand attracted so many goofs that originally had nothing to do with these computers and just became fanboys that prices raised continuously.

Your best bet is to buy them from people who are not collectors and have no idea about "collector value" (realistic or not). So usually you can make bargains on flea markets, garage sales, craigs list, thrift shops or estate sales.
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