Old Computers

[John Sparkman]

I came across this website and thought I would share it with you.

Old Computers

This site is full of useful information and links. If your like me and still own one of the old systems you should find in very interesting.

 

[Lurker1]

Not bad for newer computers but if you want really old computers go here.

http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers/History/


I was the owner of a home computer (SWTP) that was so old that it became valuable again and I sold it on EBAY for what I had originally paid for it. Lets see you do that with a used PC now!

 

[john1]

I have some very old printers which i like
to play with sometimes.
Win will still work most of the dot matrix types.

I have one which i am having trouble with,
made by TELEX its quite old and uses
a roll of paper, its called a teleprinter.

John

 

[Lurker1]

Hi John

I see you have one of those new dot matrix printers. Not much to them. Interface, paper feed, carriage moter and print head. For a real challange try working on a Teletype, 95% mechanical and one moter runs everything.

 

[bigh47]

John-
75 baud flat out. Those Telex machines were amazing we used to have tins of paper punched tape. You fed them into the tape reader leave for few hours and come back to a picture of a Saturn 5 or Eifel Tower made up of letters, cool then. I don't think I am in contact with any of the old teleprinter repair men any more I'll ask at work. I'll let you know. Any body still got any other early stuff still working?

Howard

 

[john1]

Computer wise,
the oldest thing i have that still works
is an old Nascom built around an Intel Z 80
hand made from back when
most of them were hand made.

Uses a TV as a monitor.

John

 

[John Sparkman]

I just wanted to let you guys know that you can still find replacement parts out there for some of the old stuff. I had to replace the sound chip in my 64 last year. I just did a web search and there it was.
The only thing I haven't been able to find in a printer interface card (PIC) for my Epson Home Writer 10 that will alow me to uses it with my PC. It still works great with my C64 though.

 

[john1]

Use with your PC?
I take it you mean run it using windows, yes?

wont it run as 'Epson Compatible'

Thats in my list.

I run quite a few of the old dot matrix types as
Epson Compatible, there are two choices, 7 pin and 9 pin.
There is also Generic Text Only,
Which i use for an old AMD 3000 cos i cant find drivers.

Have you tried these ?

 

[Lurker1]

john1

His problem is that the Epson did not come witha standard parallel interface so it won't connect to a PC. If you are looking for parts a good place is EBAY under Vintage computers. Lots of C64 and other things always being sold there. If you are looking for repair advice on old printers etc. try the news group alt.folklore.computers

WARNING If your product is not at least 15 years old do not post to this group. It deals with OLD stuff back to mainframes ETC.

 

[john1]

Hi Lurker,

Do you mean that the HomeWriter10 didn't use a parallel
connection, or that it didn't use a standard parallel
connection, or that the plug fitting is non standard?

Or maybe that it just didnt come with it,
and they are hard to get now?

Im not familiar wth the HomeWriter10, but most Epson
stuff uses standard ASCII.

I suppose it could be intended to run from a serial
feed, if so then i would think a program could do that.


Hi John Sparkman,

Could i ask you a couple of things about your Epson?
It works OK from your Commodore64, yes?
I would have thought that a program could deliver
the signal in a suitable form for it.

Could you tell me a little more about it?

John

 

[John Sparkman]

Hi John1.

Yes the printer works great with my C64. The printer cable is different from the one on my PC. instead of a serial cable it uses something called a (PIC) Printer interface card. It has a round plug that connects to the computer and a card at the other end (about twice the size of a credit card) that plugs into a slot on the back of the printer.

I'll take a pic of the printer and post back tomorrow.

 

[john1]

Cheers John,

I'll check back tomorrow.
Have you just described how the Old Epson
is arranged with the commodore 64 ?

John

 

[John Sparkman]

Yes. What I described was how the printer hook up to my C64. The manual says that the printer can be used for different types of computers depending on the printer interface card that is used.

See attachments

 

[john1]

Hi John,

Well the picture isnt clear enough at this end to be sure,
but i would say that 'round plug' is what we call a DIN
plug in England.

DIN plugs were, and still are mostly for use on audio stuff.
Mainly tape recorders, but they crop up on lots of things.

I would imagine that your Commodore could use a tape cassette
to record stuff, they usually use a Minature Jack plug or a
Sub-minature Jack plug for the connection to the tape machine
and a DIN plug like that one to connect to the computer.

Many years ago someone told me about a printer which would
print out a printed page from a cassette recorder. This
puzzled me for many years and i couldnt find out more about
it. No one seemed to know of such an arrangement.

I am now wondering if you send the printers signals to the
tape cassette instead of the printer, would you hear them on
the playback?

Would the printer operate from the tape cassette ?

The little box on the lead which goes into the printer
could be to convert serial from the C64 into parallel
for the printer. But im only guessing.

Personal computers from around that time were starting to fit
separate ports just for printers, but not all manufacturers
were doing this.

Maybe Epson offered this add-on as an option. Ive never seen
one before, maybe it would run a printer from a cassette ?

Do you know what this box does ?

Regards, John

 

[John Sparkman]

My C64 came with a tape drive but the connection was a little different though. The plug was indead round but it has more pins in it.
I never used the tape drive though. I always used two 5 1/2 " floppy drives that were hooked up with the same cable used for the tape drive. All you had to do was hook the two drives up in seires and use one for the program you were running and the other to save your work to. You could also load programs from either drive, it all depended on what you typed to load the program. For example if you typed "LOAD (*),8,1" the computer would load from the frist drive in the seires and if you tryped "LOAD (*),9,1" it would load from the second drive.

As far as the printer cable goes I'll just have to contact EPSON and see what they have to say. I'll also check with E-Bay and see what's there. I know EPSON made a printer interface card for the IBM compatables of the time.

By the way, I bought my C64 in 1989. It was used and I got tons of programs and game, two disk drives, two joy sticks for games, a tape drive, a small color TV to use as a monitor, and printer all for $200.00. I had to replace the sound chip in it though and that was very hard to find. It all still works like new to this day and I still use it from time to time to play a few games on.

John