What's In The Retro Room and Server Room

What good is having a menagerie of classic and historically relevant computers (plus some really kick-$#% modern hardware) if you can't brag about it? So let's brag about it. Some of these machines are very special to me, so I've tried to talk a little about why I have them in my house and where I got them. (What was here in 2016? 2015? 2014? 2012?)

Note to creeps, burglars and freaks: this house is protected by an alarm system, hidden webcams recording off-site and my laser-sight .40 Glock pistol (loaded with hollow point). This is not a joke. I've chosen to show a couple of the cameras here to let you know I'm not kidding.

If you're more curious about a particular item, feel free to drop me an E-mail.


This panorama scrolls horizontally

  1. alex
    Beige-box clone AMD Am5x86/133 (P75), 40MB RAM
    MS-DOS 6.22
    DOS games machine
    Gift from a friend
  1. spindler
    Quadra 800, Motorola 68040 clockchipped to 40MHz, 136MB RAM
    Mac OS 7.6.1, Mac OS 8.1, A/UX 3.1.1
    Mac 68K workstation
    Gift from a friend
  1. jonathan
    Power Mac 7300, 800MHz PowerPC G4/7455, 1GB RAM
    OrangePC 620, K6-II @ 400MHz, 128MB RAM
    Mac OS 9.1, Windows 95, Windows 98
    Mac games machine, Windows games machine
    University surplus
  1. indy
    Silicon Graphics Indy, 150MHz MIPS R4400SC, 256MB RAM
    Irix 6.5.10
    Newport XL24 graphics, Indy Presenter board
    Low-end SGI workstation, software testing
    Private purchase (case is blue bag under far table corner)
  1. russell
    Macintosh IIci, 50MHz Daystar '030+FPU, 64MB RAM, 8•24•GC
    MacIvory III (8MW RAM)
    Mac OS 7.1 and Genera 8.3
    An incredibly expensive but compact Lisp Machine
    Purchased from DKS, but was a piece of crap, and I had to rehabilitate it at substantial additional expense
    Total bill: about US$6000
  1. dave
    Amiga 4000T (QuikPak), 56MHz Motorola 68060, 2MB fast/128MB chip RAM
    Hydra NIC, Picasso IV RTG
    AmigaOS 3.9
    WHDLoad games and AmigaOS experimentation
    Private purchase
  1. lucky (the new one)
    IBM ThinkPad 860 Power Series, 166MHz PowerPC 603, 96MB RAM
    AIX 4.1.5
    Portable AIX test rig
    Private purchase
    The original TP800 lucky had its SCSI fuse opened by a SCSI2SD and is being repaired
  1. scottie
    Tadpole-RDI Ultrabook IIi, 400MHz UltraSPARC IIi, 512MB RAM
    PGX24 graphics, all three (!) hard disk slots populated
    Solaris 10
    pkgsrc work, eventually
    Private purchase
  1. ruby
    Tadpole-RDI PrecisionBook, 160MHz PA-7300LC, 256MB RAM
    HP/UX 11i
    PA-RISC workstation
    Private purchase
  1. sparky
    Sun Ultra-3 laptop (rebadged Tadpole Viper), 1.2GHz UltraSPARC IIIi, 2GB RAM
    Solaris 10
    Sterilizing crotches and starting fires, Solaris development
    Private purchase
  1. purplehaze
    Silicon Graphics Indigo2, 175MHz MIPS R10000, 256MB RAM
    Solid Impact graphics, Irix 6.5.22
    Sex appeal
    Private purchase
  1. scubeydoo
    Power Mac G4 Cube, 450MHz PowerPC G4, 512MB RAM
    Mac OS X 10.4.11
    Looking sexy (still waiting for a CPU upgrade and parts)
    Estate sale
  1. jean
    BeBox, dual PowerPC 603/133 CPU, 256MB RAM
    BeOS R5
    BeOS workstation
    Private purchase
  1. reykjavik
    Solbourne S3000 "DX", 33MHz KAP SPARC, 56MB RAM (SBus expansion)
    Upgraded with S4100 CPU module and L2 cache
    OS/MP 4.1C (SunOS 4 based)
    SunOS workstation; console for ken
    Private purchase
  1. ken
    DEC VAXStation 3100 M76 SPX, 35.71MHz KA43-A "Rigel", 32MB RAM
    OpenVMS 6.2-Y2K
    VMS workstation
    Private purchase
  1. bruiser
    SAIC Galaxy 1100 (modified HP 9000/715), 80MHz PA-7100LC, 128MB RAM
    NeXTSTEP 3.3 and HP/UX 10.20 with TAC-4 overlay
    Portable NeXTSTEP workstation
    Private purchase
  1. bryce
    2007 Mac mini, Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz, 2GB RAM
    Mac OS X 10.6.8
    Temporarily retired pending repurposing
    Bought new
    On top on the monitor stand: USRobotics Pilot 1000, before it was Palm, just 'cuz
  1. bil
    Commodore 128DCR, 1MHz MOS 8502, 128K RAM
    1571 disk drive, RR-Net Ethernet, SD2IEC
    Commodore BASIC 2.0/7.0
    6502 development workstation
    Private purchase

In The Back Closet

Original OLPC XO-1 (x2; bought new from Give One Get One)

akane: Macintosh Portable (needs a recap)
barkley: Blueberry iBook G3 (WaMCom regression tester)

benji: Macintosh PowerBook 1400 with G3/466 (Classilla tester)
(my first laptop, repaired hand-me-down from bro-in-law)

bigbunny: General Magic DataRover 840 (Magic Cap)
gordon: Toshiba Satellite 486 Laptop (disk image workstation)
nathan: AT&T Globalist 620 P75 (Windows 95)
peanut: IBM PCjr, in case (plays King's Quest)
rintintin: Macintosh PowerBook 540 (68LC040)
spot: Newton eMate 300 (x2)
wally: PowerBook WallStreet G3 (PDQ), 292MHz G3 (Rhapsody test machine)
fiduo: PowerBook Duo 2300c/100 (PowerPC 603e) with mini-dock and working battery

Various portables: Atari Lynx (full kit), Atari Portfolio, Nintendo GameBoy, NEC TurboExpress, Treamcast (portable Sega Dreamcast with LCD display), three Commodore SX-64s


On The Corner

  1. woz
    Apple IIgs ROM 03 in Woz Limited Edition case, Transwarp GS 7MHz 65816, 2MB RAM
    GS/OS 6.0.1
    Apple II games machine
    School surplus

  2. jef
    Canon Cat, 5MHz Motorola 68000, 256K RAM
    Forth
    Gorgeous museum piece and homage to Jef Raskin
    Private purchase

  3. mystic
    Macintosh Colour Classic, LC575 Mystic board, Motorola 68LC040 @ 33MHz, 8MB RAM, Apple II card
    System 7.1
    Apple II card testing
    Private purchase

  4. sculley
    Newton MessagePad 2100, 162MHz StrongARM SA-110, 4MB RAM
    NewtonOS 2.1
    Newton experimentation
    Private purchase

The Consoles

  1. stella
    Atari 2600 VCS (Darth Vader), 1.19MHz 6507, 128 bytes RAM
    Are you kidding?
    Way too much Kaboom!
    Private purchase

  2. sadie
    Sega Dreamcast, 200MHz Hitachi SH4, 16MB RAM, Broadband Adaptor
    Dreamcast OS, Windows CE, Linux, NetBSD
    Way too much Crazy Taxi
    Bought new

  3. sylvia
    Sylvania GTE Intellivision Master Component, 0.895MHz GI CP1610, 1.4K RAM
    Cuttlecart installed
    EXEC
    Way too much Shark! Shark!
    Thrift shop purchase
    (The original Tandyvision I had as a kid is around here somewhere too)

  4. bally (aka, foie zgrass, ha ha ha!)
    under the TV cart
    Bally Astrocade, 1.789MHz Zilog Z80, 4K RAM
    Internal OS, BASIC
    Way too much Pinball and Gunfight
    Don't use it on the rug
    Private purchase

  5. iris
    Pedigree Burmese 2005 model year, 2-bit CPU, selective memory
    Internal OS (usually in nanosleep)
    Converts cat food to poop and air to purring sounds
    Christmas gift when she was four months old
    Worst cat ever
    (August 25, 2005 - June 16, 2023. We miss her. She wasn't a good cat, but the best ones never are.)

The Pong Machines (not shown here and not currently hooked up): Atari Ultra Pong Doubles, Magnavox Odyssey 3000, Commodore TV Games 2000K and 3000H

Under The Bench

These systems all share a KVM (except the laptop and KIM-1, of course).
  1. bruce
    Power Mac G5 Quad, 2x2.5GHz PowerPC 970MP (dual-core), 16GB RAM, Nvidia Quadro FX4500
    Mac OS X 10.4.11
    Mostly for Mac apps that don't work well under KVM in Linux
    btw, Intel sucks
    Bought new

  2. atomicdog
    15" Titanium PowerBook G4, 867MHz PowerPC G4/7455, 1GB RAM
    Mac OS 9.2.2
    Portable Mac OS 9 workstation as seen on the Leo Laporte Show!
    Private purchase

  3. neil
    Commodore KIM-1 (revision G), 1MHz MOS 6502, 1K RAM, RS-232 card
    KIM monitor as seen on the Leo Laporte Show!
    My Rev A KIM-1 is the oldest item in my collection. This unit was a weekend project that we forgot to give back to our high school math teacher. We asked some years later, but he never requested we return it, so it's still here.

  4. tim
    Raptor Talos II, 8-core SMT-4 (32 threads) 2.1/3.8GHz Sforza POWER9, 32GB RAM, AMD WX7100
    Fedora Linux
    My daily driver and the machine this was typed on
    Bought new (as configured, US$7300)

  5. harlan
    DEC AlphaPC 164LX, 600MHz Alpha 21164, 512MB RAM
    Tru64 5.1B, NetBSD v.mumble, OpenGenera 2.0/Genera 8.5
    General sexiness, occasional Lisp Machine emulation
    Dig the sexy case
    Close-up of the custom case stickers, which I designed off the Alpha logo
    Case bought new; board and CPU were private purchase
    Did I mention sex?

  6. bigred
    Silicon Graphics Fuel, 900MHz MIPS R16000, 4GB RAM
    Irix 6.5.30 with patches
    V12 graphics with DCD, M-Audio sound, SCSI, DAT, DVD-ROM
    High-end Irix workstation, software development
    Private purchase

  7. bryan
    Power Mac G4 MDD, 2x1.8GHz PowerPC G4/7447A, 2GB RAM
    Mac OS 9.2.2 (sees only 1.5GB)
    Classilla development, OS 9 workstation
    Bought new


In The Project Area

  1. stacy
    Atari STacy 2, 2MB RAM, defective 20MB Conner drive
    TOS 1.04
    Needs a SCSI2SD, and then I'll figure out something to do with it
    Private purchase
    Now dead because of a power supply accident
  1. tomy
    Tomy Tutor, 10.7MHz TMS 9995, 16K RAM
    Tomy OS
    This isn't my original Tomy Tutor I had as a child (though I do still have it); this particular unit is a "beater" I use for experiments. A "beater" Pyuuta, the Japanese variant, is in the hard case on the ground.
    Private purchase
  1. lightman
    IMSAI 8080, 2MHz 8080A, 8K RAM
    Being rehabilitated, but does some basic stuff, blinks lights, etc.
    Some additional option boards yet to be installed
    Does not currently speak or play a nice game of chess
    Private purchase
  1. tramielski
    Commodore PET 2001 (blue badge), 1MHz MOS 6502, 8K RAM
    BASIC 2.0
    Memorial to Jack Tramiel
    Private purchase
    Yes, he and his son Leonard autographed the manual

The Servers and The Network

  1. thule
    Macintosh IIci, 25MHz Motorola 68030, 128MB RAM
    NetBSD v.mumble
    Internal DNS, DHCP, netboot, powerfail services, AppleShare/AppleTalk
    University surplus

    On top: GSM terminal for SMS commands and alerts

  1. uppsala
    This is the system serving you this page
    IBM p520 Express, POWER6 4.2GHz (dual-core with SMT), 8GB RAM, SAS 15K RAID 5
    AIX 6 TL.mumble
    Web, gopher, E-mail, database
    Bought refurbished because IBM won't deign to make end user sales
    Yes, I've been an AIX sysadmin since 3.2.5
  1. oslo
    Power Mac G4, 450MHz PowerPC G4/7400, 2GB RAM
    Mac OS X 10.4.11
    File server, radio repeater, backup server (connected to FW800 RAID 5) and environmental monitor
    Private purchase

  1. Ghetto halon system, security camera, Philips hue lighting base station, monitor switchbox, phone autoanswer to GSM terminal and T1 router (PowerPC-based)

    On middle shelf, around oslo's RAID:

    dmc-12
    TimeMachines TM1000A GPS NTP time server
    SiRF GSC3e/LPx SoC (ARM7TDMI)
    Bought new

    backbay
    Apple Mac mini G4, 1.5GHz PowerPC G4 7447A, 1GB RAM
    NetBSD v.mumble
    Network bridge and management
    Dad wasn't using it, so I gave it something to do

    oulu
    Cobalt RaQ 2, 250MHz MIPS RM5231, 32MB RAM
    NetBSD v.mumble
    NFS server
    Private purchase (replaced RaQ 1 which blew its PSU)

  1. stockholm
    Apple Network Server 500, 200MHz PowerPC 604e, 512MB RAM
    AIX 4.1.5 with patches
    The original www.floodgap.com
    Now emergency backup for uppsala
    University surplus (but barely used when I got it)

    Behind stockholm: external 100Mbps switch, internal secured 100Mbps backbone, internal secured 10Mbps backbone (with 10b2 segment and LocalTalk segment); DMZ router

  1. homer
    Hewlett-Packard HP 9000/350, 25MHz Motorola 68020/68881, 16MB RAM
    HP-UX 8.0
    More HP-UX therapy
    Gift from a friend
    This is the only room large enough for it
  1. debi/sondrestrom
    Alpha Micro Eagle 300 (AM-3500-E300), 40MHz Motorola 68EC030, 16MB RAM, AM-75 console
    AMOS 2.3a
    Proudly powering ampm.floodgap.com
    Private purchase
  1. doug
    Alpha Micro Eagle 450 (AM-3500-E450), 33MHz Motorola ColdFire MCF5102, 72MB RAM, AM-65 console
    AMOS 2.3a
    Show piece and AMOS development
    Donated gift from a nice person

Waiting In The Server Room

You might be able to see some of these if you look carefully.

carl: Power Mac 7100, G3/400, 136MB, AppleShare file server if thule croaks (might be replaced by the Performa 6115CD I just got)
holmstock: Apple Network Server 700 (hardware double for stockholm)
elroy: Hewlett-Packard C8000 (9000/785), 1.1GHz PA-8900 (dual-core), 1GB RAM, HP/UX 11i
brinton: Workgroup Server 9150, System 7.6, 80MHz PowerPC 601, 112MB RAM
jay: Amiga 3000, 25MHz 68030, 2MB chip/8MB fast RAM, AmigaOS 2.0 (with A3070 tape drive if I ever get around to messing with Amix again)
godthaab: Macintosh Quadra 605 in LC III case, 25MHz 68040 (full), 36MB RAM, NetBSD.mumble (plus an identically configured LC475)
steve: Macintosh SE/30, System 6.0.8, 8MB RAM
andy: Macintosh IIsi, System 7.1, 36MB RAM
Mr. T: Macintosh Plus, System 6.0.8, 4MB RAM
big box o'Tandy Pocket Computers
Elektronica MK-85 (looks like a Soviet Tandy PC-4, programs like a PDP-11)
two Tomy Pyuuta Mk II systems and a number of Tomy Pyuutas
two Commodore MAX Machines, a VIC-20, B128 (CBM 610), PC 10-III, Plus/4 and 16

spare IBM PCjr in box
matching IBM HMC for uppsala
unnamed DEC Professional 380 with Venix/PRO (monitor on homer)
unnamed Solbourne S4100s in various states of disrepair
unnamed Alpha Micro 1000 with sidecar AM-1001 external disk
unnamed Texas Instruments CC-40, with printer, serial and prototype wafertape drive
unnamed Toshiba Libretto 70CT (Pentium MMX 120MHz, Windows 95)
unnamed Apple Performa 6100CD with Sonnet G3 upgrade
unnamed Power Macintosh 9600
unnamed Tandy Color Computer 3, floppy drive, multi-cart expander
unnamed Atari XEGS, 1050 floppy drive, keyboard, light gun, joysticks
Timex Sinclair 1000 and 2068
unnamed Apple III, may or may not work, may or may not have been dropped to find out if it works
various spare workstations and computers

Elsewhere In The House

christopher: strawberry iMac G3 with Sonnet HARMONi 600MHz card, Mac OS 9.2.2 and OS X Jaguar (in the guest/music room)
beethoven: Yamaha CX5M with SFG-05 interface (in the guest/music room)

dana: AlphaSmart Dana, PalmOS 4.1; note taking, what else? (in the commons)
luxo: iMac G4, 1GHz 7445 CPU, OS X Tiger; backup workstation (in the commons)
underdog: 12" iBook G4/1.33, OS X Tiger; DVD player and presentations
blackbird: Raptor Blackbird, 4-core SMT-4 (16-thread) POWER9, 16GB RAM, Fedora Linux; HTPC (in the home theatre)
macbook: 11" MacBook Air (2014 i7), 8GB RAM, macOS Mojave; daily laptop because it's the lightest and longest lasting one I have, not because I particularly like it

spartacus: Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh with G3 L2 upgrade (in my bedroom)
(beneath it: Apple Interactive Television Box)

In Storage

tma-01: PDP-11/44, in unknown condition, tape drives, RL02 disk drive

Drean Commodore 64 and 64C systems
prototype Shiner HE (Apple Network Server): in bad shape, but neat looking
several Amiga 500 systems that also multiply furiously
unnamed Atari Mega ST with hard disk
two boxed Tandy Color Computer 2 systems
unnamed DEC DECmate II (PDP-8)
crapload of dummy terminals, mostly Alpha Micro, DEC and Wyse
more spare systems than I can possibly enumerate

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