Clearing out before I reach that final skip

Hardware
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As an oldie engineer I hate to see the glint in my XYL’s eyes when she thinks a skip would be good… so if any of you Retro’ers are interested in some older items and live in/near S Wales then read on.

  1. They are free, so not “advertising” in the usual sense but apologies if not appropriate for here.
  2. Items comprise 3 CRT computer screens ~ 1990’s, some early desk-top /laptop machines (various brands) , scanners, an unassembled micro kit, keyboards, some network cabling, couple of IBM boards - lots of TTL chips on them, and a few calculators.
  3. Happy to provide further details of any items if required so as not to waste your time. I gave all my retro computers to the Museum of Communications Foundation Trust in Burntisland, Scotland so if you are in that region do visit their website and exhibitions.

Otherwise its the skip and yet more electrical waste.
18-1-2024

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I did not know this existed and while it’s not near, it’s not too far either so I’ll pencil it in for a visit sometime later this year. Thanks.

https://museumofcommunication.org.uk/

-Gordon

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I’m in Swansea and always interested in stuff (to the other half’s despair… ;)) but I am not allowed to drive medical reasons so it’s always a bit tricky.

Calculators have never been my thing but they do ebay quite well sometimes.

Scanners might be funny. Wonder if I you could run a scanner off an NCR5380 on a Z80 box ?

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Hi,
Do you have any more details on the micro kit and calculators?

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Hi, Andrew, I’m gathering the few, but various, items to fill out the “what’s available” answer so may be a few days for that - stuff is distributed in drawers and boxes and the latter in our barns so not a simple look-see exercise. The 1st item I found is a PicKIT addon for programming 8-bit PROMs (never used so unknown qualities but s/w for up to Windows XP mentioned on package), calculators - so far a CBM scientific pocket calc and a Time calculator and memo taker - I know there are 2-3 others yet to surface. Hope that helps (a bit),

Thanks for asking, Phil P

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I might be interested in calculators!

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Hi EP,

One of the scanners is a hand-held Scanman 2000 plus connector for the old printer style connector on early PCs, worked well if you had a steady hand and produced a near-endless image (off several sources if you chose to continue a scan), the other one is a standard A4 desktop scanner, OneTouch 7800 - works well but produces a disused format file - I found a one-file at a time file reader on the web recently but slow if you don’t have the original OEM reader software for e.g. XP. I may still have their disc a CD Rom.

Re your query re Z80, etc - pass - but the scanner label says USB so good start, but drivers might be tricky if not running on MS XP et al.

Thanks for query, Phil P

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Trying to find an old scsi one with Linux or similar drivers. USB is a bit too new age 8)

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Ah, ok. I have a set of PicKits, and have stopped using PICS now as well.
Thanks.

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Cheers, Amenjet, Thanks for letting me know - maybe someone will see your note too and can make use of them
Phil P

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Just a note to say second scanner ScanMan 2000 found whilst searching, and also a unit that acts as a desk port distribution for the Toshiba Satellite laptop. Phil P

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Hi, Gordon, Great, they set up a new exhibition (theme) each year - 2023 was the 100 years of BBC topic, I believe this year it will be a celebration event again, the website will give details, entry is free ( I believe), and they also run a monthly Zoom/live lecture on a Saturday morning on diverse topics. If you get that far why not round out the day with a further short drive to the Secret Bunker - an NTK site from the Cold War period.

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