I was watching this episode of The Computer Chronicles
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ95IclntIY) which is the 1989 Holiday
Buyer's Guide.

Let's say you wake up on Christmas Day in 1989 and you can have any
computer that you want that it available at that time. What do you choose?
A shiny new 486? The latest Mac? A new Amiga? ...or maybe something more
exotic?

On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 11:12:23 -0000 (UTC)
Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:

> I was watching this episode of The Computer Chronicles
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ95IclntIY) which is the 1989 Holiday
> Buyer's Guide.
>
> Let's say you wake up on Christmas Day in 1989 and you can have any
> computer that you want that it available at that time. What do you choose?
> A shiny new 486? The latest Mac? A new Amiga? ...or maybe something more
> exotic?

Welcome to the NG.

I want a portable!
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/f3gAAOSwjJZga3FY/s-l300.jpg

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

On 2022-11-15, Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:
> I was watching this episode of The Computer Chronicles
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ95IclntIY) which is the 1989 Holiday
> Buyer's Guide.
>
> Let's say you wake up on Christmas Day in 1989 and you can have any
> computer that you want that it available at that time. What do you choose?
> A shiny new 486? The latest Mac? A new Amiga? ...or maybe something more
> exotic?

Nice question. Do you mean the me of the present, or me as i was in
1989? On the exotic front, i'd consider the MSX2+

https://www.msx.org/wiki/Panasonic_FS-A1WSX

On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:01:36 -0000 (UTC), Ben Collver wrote:

> Nice question. Do you mean the me of the present, or me as i was in
> 1989? On the exotic front, i'd consider the MSX2+
>
> https://www.msx.org/wiki/Panasonic_FS-A1WSX

Present you, it just happens to be in the year 1989. No price limits, it
just has to exist that year.

Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> writes:
>On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:01:36 -0000 (UTC), Ben Collver wrote:
>
>> Nice question. Do you mean the me of the present, or me as i was in
>> 1989? On the exotic front, i'd consider the MSX2+
>>
>> https://www.msx.org/wiki/Panasonic_FS-A1WSX
>
>Present you, it just happens to be in the year 1989. No price limits, it
>just has to exist that year.

At that time, I would have loved to have a VAX-11/730.

On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 11:12:23 -0000 (UTC), Jason Evans wrote:

> A shiny new 486? The latest Mac? A new Amiga? ...or maybe something
> more exotic?

I'm thinking about a fully maxed-out SparcStation 1. That would have been
insanely powerful for the time.

On 2022-11-15, Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> wrote:
> On 2022-11-15, Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:
>> I was watching this episode of The Computer Chronicles
>> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ95IclntIY) which is the 1989 Holiday
>> Buyer's Guide.
>>
>> Let's say you wake up on Christmas Day in 1989 and you can have any
>> computer that you want that it available at that time. What do you choose?
>> A shiny new 486? The latest Mac? A new Amiga? ...or maybe something more
>> exotic?
>
> Nice question. Do you mean the me of the present, or me as i was in
> 1989? On the exotic front, i'd consider the MSX2+
>
> https://www.msx.org/wiki/Panasonic_FS-A1WSX

That was the one, made by several companies, but with the same OS..Nice
keyboard?.. I have one regret, buying a spectrum instead of a C64.
The Amiga was whole generation ahead of the MSX.

--
greymausg@mail.com

Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the stench of an Influencer.
Where is our money gone, Dude?

Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:
> I was watching this episode of The Computer Chronicles
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ95IclntIY) which is the 1989 Holiday
> Buyer's Guide.
>
> Let's say you wake up on Christmas Day in 1989 and you can have any
> computer that you want that it available at that time. What do you choose?
> A shiny new 486? The latest Mac? A new Amiga? ...or maybe something more
> exotic?

Back then, I was a grad student with access to many different computers.
My favourite was a Sun 4/110 workstation, mostly because it was Unix (SunOS)
and had a nice windowing system (SunView) for the time.

Rob Komar

On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 11:12:23 -0000 (UTC), Jason Evans
<jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:
>I was watching this episode of The Computer Chronicles
>(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ95IclntIY) which is the 1989 Holiday
>Buyer's Guide.
>
>Let's say you wake up on Christmas Day in 1989 and you can have any
>computer that you want that it available at that time. What do you choose?
>A shiny new 486? The latest Mac? A new Amiga? ...or maybe something more
>exotic?

I received a new Amiga A1000, monitor, and the box the computer came
in. The box had some software and a couple of books.

Unfortunately the printer, I live in the US, printed the British pound
symbol instead of the $ sign. Weird printer... cellophane with wax as
the print medium. The printer melted the wax into the standard paper,
tracter feed 8.5x11.
--
Jim

On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:45:55 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
wrote:
>Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> writes:
>>On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:01:36 -0000 (UTC), Ben Collver wrote:
>>
>>> Nice question. Do you mean the me of the present, or me as i was in
>>> 1989? On the exotic front, i'd consider the MSX2+
>>>
>>> https://www.msx.org/wiki/Panasonic_FS-A1WSX
>>
>>Present you, it just happens to be in the year 1989. No price limits, it
>>just has to exist that year.
>
>At that time, I would have loved to have a VAX-11/730.

That is what I did my VAX Pascal homework on... hated it.
We had Dec VT102 vacuum tube terminals and a 132 column green bar
printer.
--
Jim

Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> schrieb:
> I was watching this episode of The Computer Chronicles
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ95IclntIY) which is the 1989 Holiday
> Buyer's Guide.
>
> Let's say you wake up on Christmas Day in 1989 and you can have any
> computer that you want that it available at that time. What do you choose?
> A shiny new 486? The latest Mac? A new Amiga? ...or maybe something more
> exotic?

I'd try to get one of the early RISC workstaions. Probably a
SPARCStation 1 or an IRIS 4D (too early for an Indigo, which has
a much higher cooless factor).

On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 11:12:23 -0000 (UTC)
Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:

> Let's say you wake up on Christmas Day in 1989 and you can have any
> computer that you want that it available at that time. What do you
> choose? A shiny new 486? The latest Mac? A new Amiga? ...or maybe
> something more exotic?

A maxed out Motorola 88K box with 64Mb of RAM, several drives and a
couple of X Terminals.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/

Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
>On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 11:12:23 -0000 (UTC)
>Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:
>
>> Let's say you wake up on Christmas Day in 1989 and you can have any
>> computer that you want that it available at that time. What do you
>> choose? A shiny new 486? The latest Mac? A new Amiga? ...or maybe
>> something more exotic?
>
> A maxed out Motorola 88K box with 64Mb of RAM, several drives and a
>couple of X Terminals.

I actually had one of those in 1990 as my home workstation, with an NCD-16.

Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
> Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> writes:
>> On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:01:36 -0000 (UTC), Ben Collver wrote:
>>
>>> Nice question. Do you mean the me of the present, or me as i was in
>>> 1989? On the exotic front, i'd consider the MSX2+
>>>
>>> https://www.msx.org/wiki/Panasonic_FS-A1WSX
>>
>> Present you, it just happens to be in the year 1989. No price limits, it
>> just has to exist that year.
>
> At that time, I would have loved to have a VAX-11/730.
>

+1

Nice little machine - loved it!

--
Pete

On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 17:39:26 GMT
scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote:

> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
> >On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 11:12:23 -0000 (UTC)
> >Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Let's say you wake up on Christmas Day in 1989 and you can have any
> >> computer that you want that it available at that time. What do you
> >> choose? A shiny new 486? The latest Mac? A new Amiga? ...or maybe
> >> something more exotic?
> >
> > A maxed out Motorola 88K box with 64Mb of RAM, several drives
> > and a
> >couple of X Terminals.
>
> I actually had one of those in 1990 as my home workstation, with an
> NCD-16.

Wow jealous - that was the same time I was setting up to use twenty
of them at the Inland Revenue in a clustered application - specced slightly
above standard each one had two SCSI controllers - with fifteen 1GB drives
and a QIC tape spread among the four busses - as well as two network ports.
When the Motorola rep caught on that these were for a distributed database
application that would be essentially single user (it sucked in data and
printed reports) he gibbered a bit.

We got the 19 inch NCDs - despite the procurement officer declaring
that we would have them over his dead body - we called our fixer and they
were delivered to our office the next day *and* he sent a memo complaining
about the lack of the promised dead body.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/

Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
>On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 17:39:26 GMT
>scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote:
>
>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
>> >On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 11:12:23 -0000 (UTC)
>> >Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Let's say you wake up on Christmas Day in 1989 and you can have any
>> >> computer that you want that it available at that time. What do you
>> >> choose? A shiny new 486? The latest Mac? A new Amiga? ...or maybe
>> >> something more exotic?
>> >
>> > A maxed out Motorola 88K box with 64Mb of RAM, several drives
>> > and a
>> >couple of X Terminals.
>>
>> I actually had one of those in 1990 as my home workstation, with an
>> NCD-16.
>
> Wow jealous - that was the same time I was setting up to use twenty
>of them at the Inland Revenue in a clustered application - specced slightly
>above standard each one had two SCSI controllers - with fifteen 1GB drives
>and a QIC tape spread among the four busses - as well as two network ports.
>When the Motorola rep caught on that these were for a distributed database
>application that would be essentially single user (it sucked in data and
>printed reports) he gibbered a bit.

We had been using the Moto MVME 88k boxes at Convergent/Burroughs/Unisys
as our primary servers until our own 88k boxes (Unisys S/8400) arrived;
I then took it home and used it there (with a 56kbaud Modem, IIRC). I
used it until 1997 when I left to go to SGI (who provisioned 128k ISDN
for me and I bought a custom-built 2 socket Pentium Pro "Providence" box as an
replacement for the moto box and brought home a spare indy for SGI OS work).

> We got the 19 inch NCDs - despite the procurement officer declaring
>that we would have them over his dead body - we called our fixer and they
>were delivered to our office the next day *and* he sent a memo complaining
>about the lack of the promised dead body.

We had a bunch of NCD-16 (b&W) and two -17c's that we used for OS development
on the 88k S/8400 systems[*] (and later the P6-based OPUS[**] boxes).

[*] Most of which were sold in Japan.
[**] https://techmonitor.ai/technology/opus_is_its_most_important_product_since_unisys_was_created

I eventually dropped off an NCD-16 and an NCD-17c at the computer
history museum during a vintage fair five years ago.

On 2022-11-15 19:28, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 17:39:26 GMT
> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) wrote:
>
>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
>>> On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 11:12:23 -0000 (UTC)
>>> Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Let's say you wake up on Christmas Day in 1989 and you can have any
>>>> computer that you want that it available at that time. What do you
>>>> choose? A shiny new 486? The latest Mac? A new Amiga? ...or maybe
>>>> something more exotic?
>>>
>>> A maxed out Motorola 88K box with 64Mb of RAM, several drives
>>> and a
>>> couple of X Terminals.
>>
>> I actually had one of those in 1990 as my home workstation, with an
>> NCD-16.
>
> Wow jealous - that was the same time I was setting up to use twenty
> of them at the Inland Revenue in a clustered application - specced slightly
> above standard each one had two SCSI controllers - with fifteen 1GB drives
> and a QIC tape spread among the four busses - as well as two network ports.
> When the Motorola rep caught on that these were for a distributed database
> application that would be essentially single user (it sucked in data and
> printed reports) he gibbered a bit.
>
> We got the 19 inch NCDs - despite the procurement officer declaring
> that we would have them over his dead body - we called our fixer and they
> were delivered to our office the next day *and* he sent a memo complaining
> about the lack of the promised dead body.
>

I had to google NCD.

https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/NCD_NCD19

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 20:15:05 +0100
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

> On 2022-11-15 19:28, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> > On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 17:39:26 GMT

> > We got the 19 inch NCDs - despite the procurement officer
> > declaring that we would have them over his dead body - we called our
> > fixer and they were delivered to our office the next day *and* he sent
> > a memo complaining about the lack of the promised dead body.
> >
>
> I had to google NCD.

I expect they didn't last long past that era.

> https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/NCD_NCD19

That's the bunny - ye gods the price! No wonder he didn't want us
to have them.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/

On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:45:55 GMT, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
> Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> writes:
>>On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:01:36 -0000 (UTC), Ben Collver wrote:
>>
>>> Nice question. Do you mean the me of the present, or me as i was in
>>> 1989? On the exotic front, i'd consider the MSX2+
>>>
>>> https://www.msx.org/wiki/Panasonic_FS-A1WSX
>>
>>Present you, it just happens to be in the year 1989. No price limits, it
>>just has to exist that year.
>
> At that time, I would have loved to have a VAX-11/730.

Wasn't the 11/730 a bit long in the tooth by Christmas 1989?

--
Andy Leighton => andyl@azaal.plus.com
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
- Douglas Adams

Andy Leighton <andyl@azaal.plus.com> writes:
>On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:45:55 GMT, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
>> Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> writes:
>>>On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:01:36 -0000 (UTC), Ben Collver wrote:
>>>
>>>> Nice question. Do you mean the me of the present, or me as i was in
>>>> 1989? On the exotic front, i'd consider the MSX2+
>>>>
>>>> https://www.msx.org/wiki/Panasonic_FS-A1WSX
>>>
>>>Present you, it just happens to be in the year 1989. No price limits, it
>>>just has to exist that year.
>>
>> At that time, I would have loved to have a VAX-11/730.
>
>Wasn't the 11/730 a bit long in the tooth by Christmas 1989?

Yes, but still viable.

On 2022-11-15 20:41, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 20:15:05 +0100
> "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 2022-11-15 19:28, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>> On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 17:39:26 GMT
>
>>> We got the 19 inch NCDs - despite the procurement officer
>>> declaring that we would have them over his dead body - we called our
>>> fixer and they were delivered to our office the next day *and* he sent
>>> a memo complaining about the lack of the promised dead body.
>>>
>>
>> I had to google NCD.
>
> I expect they didn't last long past that era.

I saw something similar in 1998, in colour. We also used Windows
computers with software to work as X terminal, I don't remember the
name. It's no the tip of my tongue, but doesn't roll.

Memory is the second thing to get lost with age.

>
>> https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/NCD_NCD19
>
> That's the bunny - ye gods the price! No wonder he didn't want us
> to have them.

Uau, yes.

>

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:45:55 +0000, Scott Lurndal wrote:

> Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> writes:
>>On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:01:36 -0000 (UTC), Ben Collver wrote:
>>
>>> Nice question. Do you mean the me of the present, or me as i was in
>>> 1989? On the exotic front, i'd consider the MSX2+
>>>
>>> https://www.msx.org/wiki/Panasonic_FS-A1WSX
>>
>>Present you, it just happens to be in the year 1989. No price limits, it
>>just has to exist that year.
>
> At that time, I would have loved to have a VAX-11/730.

That was about the time I got a VAXstation 3100 on my desk (through
devious means) and added it to the cluster.

I now possess one of my own!

--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 11:12:23 -0000 (UTC), Jason Evans wrote:
>
> I was watching this episode of The Computer Chronicles
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ95IclntIY) which is the 1989 Holiday
> Buyer's Guide.

Probably the last episode of the first season. So the last good
episode. For me it sucked when it went into the second season 1990. Just
like flipping a switch from the cool 1980s to the boring 1990s.

> Let's say you wake up on Christmas Day in 1989 and you can have any
> computer that you want that it available at that time. What do you choose?
> A shiny new 486? The latest Mac? A new Amiga? ...or maybe something more
> exotic?

Had an Amiga at the time. But if I had money I'd probably went for an
Acorn Archimedes <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes>.
--
Andreas

On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 10:38:50 -0600, D.J. wrote:
>
> I received a new Amiga A1000, monitor, and the box the computer came
> in. The box had some software and a couple of books.
>
> Unfortunately the printer, I live in the US, printed the British pound
> symbol instead of the $ sign. Weird printer... cellophane with wax as
> the print medium. The printer melted the wax into the standard paper,
> tracter feed 8.5x11.

What printer?

Reading some old manuals I came across the Epson RX80 (or FX?). It
allowed to use different font sets already in the early 1980s. You just
needed to know *how*.

Would be lame though if the retailer sold printers in the US set up for
the UK market.
--
Andreas

Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> schrieb:
> Jason Evans <jsevans@mailfence.com> writes:
>>On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:01:36 -0000 (UTC), Ben Collver wrote:
>>
>>> Nice question. Do you mean the me of the present, or me as i was in
>>> 1989? On the exotic front, i'd consider the MSX2+
>>>
>>> https://www.msx.org/wiki/Panasonic_FS-A1WSX
>>
>>Present you, it just happens to be in the year 1989. No price limits, it
>>just has to exist that year.
>
> At that time, I would have loved to have a VAX-11/730.

That was slower than the 11/780, at 0.3 VUPs. There were RISC
machines on the market which outperformed it by an order of
magnitude or more.

And, technically speaking, the VAX 11 line was discontinued in
1988, so it would not have been available in 1989, unless you
bought a used one :-)