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Welcome to old-computers.com, the most popular website for old computers.
Have a trip down memory lane re-discovering your old computer, console or software you used to have.
There are actually 1253 systems in the museum.
SHOW ME A RANDOM SYSTEM !
 LATEST ADDITIONS
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 TERAK CORPORATION 8510 Data Processor
The Terak 8510 is a complete stand-alone micro-computer based on DEC's LSI-11 chipset (16-bit !), in other words, it si a PDP-11 compatible. It was one of the first high-end microcomputers and among the first desktop personal computers to offer a bitmap graphics display.
It was capable of running a stripped version of UNIX version 6. It was the first personal machine on which the UCSD p-System was widely used. Various universities in the USA used it in the late 1970s through mid-1980s to teac...
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 TOSHIBA Visicom 100
This beautiful but obscure Japanese system was released in january 1978. It's basically a clone of the RCA Studio gaming system, one of the first videogame console of all time (released in january 1977).
Made by Toshiba, this beauty was also based on the RCA 1802 micro-processor, and its video counterpart, the CDP 1861. However the main difference with the Studio II is that the Visicom 100 offers colour display thanks additional hardware.
Another nice difference, is that unlike the Studio ...
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 BIT CORPORATION Dina 2-in1 / Bit 7200 / Chuang Zao Zhe 50
The Dina, also known in Taiwan as the Chuang Zao Zhe 50, is a video game console originally manufactured by Bit Corporation, later sold in the United States by Telegames as the Telegames Personal Arcade.It is a clone of both the ColecoVision and Sega SG-1000 consoles, with one cartridge slot for each platform, and came bundled with the game Meteoric Shower, which was built into the system. Telegames never advertised its compatibility with the SG-1000.
The Dina's controllers are modeled after ...
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 OHIO SCIENTIFIC Challenger
In 1977 computing industry is changing fast. Ohio Scientific Instruments who were making a lot of expansion boards for their 400 single-board computer, called "Superboard", realize that it would be nice to sell all this hardware, all assembled, in a single case, ready to plug and use.
That's what is a Challenger computer, more a concept than a single system. Indeed under the name Challenger came different configurations based around the Superboard system:
- Challenger 65-1k: 6502A CPU, ser...
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 WANG LABORATORIES Wang 2200
The Wang 2200 appeared in May 1973, and was Wang Laboratories' first minicomputer that could perform data processing in a common computer language: BASIC. It had a cathode ray tube (CRT) built-in its case and also an integrated computer-controlled cassette tape storage unit. 65,000 systems were shipped in its lifetime and it found wide use in small and medium-size businesses worldwide.
There has been quite several diffent models of the 2200:
- 2200A : first models released in 1973
- 2200B :...
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 MATTEL ELECTRONICS Keyboard Component
Sometime before the failed Aquarius home computer scheme was hatched by Mattel, the Intellivision team had attempted to expand Intellivision into the growing home computer market by turning it into a full fledged computer dubbed as the "Intellivision Keyboard Component", much in the same way Coleco was soon to do with their Adam computer.
The unit featured a built-in cassette tape drive for loading and saving data. The Keyboard Component would plug into the cartridge slot on the Intellivision...
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 RCA Fred 2
This Fred 2 computer is a prototype designed by Joseph Weisbecker, engineer at RCA. He already imagined several early computer designs before this Fred 2 model, such as the System 00 or the original Fred concept.
Fred is rather a concept imagined by Joseph Weisbecker for educational computer able to play games. This concept emerged in several hardware versions through time. The first models could be dates as early as 1970 or 1971 !
Unlike the System 00 which used only small-scale digital T...
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 BANDAI TV Jack 5000
The TV Jack 5000 from Bandai released in 1978 is one of the first cartridge based system from Japan.
It's the equivalent of european and american systems like the Hanimex SD-050, Acetronic Color TV Game, Prinztronic Micro 5500, SHG Blackpoint, Binatone Cablestar, Radofin telesports, etc. There have been tons of systems like these.
The TV Jack 5000, like all these systems, use cartridges based on General Instruments chipsets which offers different games on each chip. That's why all these sy...
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 OLIVETTI A5
Olivetti introduced a mainframe about 1960 which was called ELEA, then in 1965 the Programma 101 - which was probably the world's first real desktop computer. Then a little later they introduced the Audiotronic range of "office computers". The first was the A770, which was replaced by the A7. The A5 was the desktop version.
The Olivetti Audit 5 or A5 was largely an electro mechanical computer. It printed via a golf ball typewritter mechanism at the astonishing speed of 16 character per second...
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RANDOM SYSTEMS
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 OLIVETTI M20
In 1972, Olivetti established in the U.S.A. (Cupertino), the Advanced Technology Centre (ATC), a research centre specialized in new technologies and office automation equipment design. During ten years the centre designed Olivetti typewriters, calculators, photocopiers, etc.... In 1980, the first Olivetti computer took form in Cupertino, and the M-20 computer was launched in March 1982. More than 50,000 units are estimated to have been shipped in the first year.
The M20 was one of the very...
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 MGT (MILES GORDON TECHNOLOGY) Sam Coupé
In the last quarter of 1989 M.G.T. launched the Sam Coupé. M.G.T. was already known in the ZX Spectrum world for a range of hardware that they sold. The Sam was their pride and joy, and unfortunately to be their downfall.
This was a time when the 16-bit machines, the Atari ST and the Amiga, were really being to take off. Sales in computers such as the Spectrum was in rapid decline. The Sam was aim...
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 ICE-FELIX HC-85
In 1985, despite of the severe limitations of the political system, the Romanian computer company ICE-Felix, located in Bucharest, started to design and produce Sinclair Spectrum compatible computers.
The company was founded in 1970 and became the main computer equipments manufacturer in Romania. Several mini and microcomputers were developed, based initially on the French C.I.I. company licence.
The HC-85 was the first manufactured model. It was primarily intended for the Romanian school...
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 MITS Altair 680
The Altair 680 appeared about one year after the successful Altair 8800 was launched. With this model, MITS attempted to offer a new system based on the well known Motorola 6800 processor and then cover a large market share in small computer business.
The computer was available in kit or assembled form, It was smaller than the 8800 but kept the same design of front panel and switches. It featured 1 KB of RAM (4 times the 8800 RAM) and 1 KB of ROM with support f...
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 ATARI 1400 XL
The Atari 1400 XL has the same characteristics as the Atari 800/600 XL machines exept for some new features: a new custom chip called "FREDDY" which replaces the old discrete semiconductors & TTL chips of the 600/800 XL to manage the memory. It has a speech synthesizer chip (Votrax SC-01) and a built-in modem (Bell 103 compatible, 300 baud).
Thus it was conceived as an enhanced version of the Atari 600XL and 800XL computers and was to be software and hardware c...
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 BINATONE TV Master MK 8 (model n° 01 / 4823)
This pong is one of the many Binatone systems. As its name indicates, it offers 8 games. In order to understand how this system fits into the Binatone pong range, here is simplified list of the systems :
TV Master MK IV
TV Master 4 plus 2
TV Master MK 6
TV Master MK 8
TV Master MK 10
Colour TV Game
Colour TV Game 4 plus 2
Colour TV Game MK 6
Colour TV Game MK 10
The first serie, TV Master systems, are all black & white pongs, whereas later Colour TV games have colour display. Th...
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 TRIUMPH ADLER TA-1000
Little is known about this early computer from german company Triumph Adler. Hopefully, Rudolf L. Schörger who worked there at the time, sent us some very precious information (in German):
"1973 begann bei Triumph-Adler die Serienproduktion der TA 1000.
Ich war damals im Prüffeld tätig. Nur mit einem Oszillografen ausgerüstet, mußte ich defekte CPUs reparieren. Das ging nur deshalb, weil an die TA1000 ein Testtablau anschließbar war. Mit diesem konnten auf der Hardwar...
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 DICK SMITH Cat
The Cat was a rebadged version of the Laser 3000, made in Hong-Kong.
It was partially compatible with the Apple II computer in its basic version, but quite fully compatible when the Apple II emulator cartridge was inserted.
It ran Apple DOS 3.3 operating system or CP/M 2.2 with an optional Z80 card.
Thanks to Murray Moffatt for information and pictures....
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LATEST COMMENTS
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ACORN COMPUTER ABC 310
I recently had the opportunity to collect and own and large collection of BBC equipment which included a number of 2nd processors including a working 80286 Issue 0 board also a 30Mb acorn hard drive unit full of master 512 type files and applications
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ACORN COMPUTER ABC 310
I recently had the opportunity to collect and own and large collection of BBC equipment which included a number of 2nd processors including a working 80286 Issue 0 board also a 30Mb acorn hard drive unit full of master 512 type files and applications
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ACORN COMPUTER ABC 310
I recently had the opportunity to collect and own and large collection of BBC equipment which included a number of 2nd processors including a working 80286 Issue 0 board also a 30Mb acorn hard drive unit full of master 512 type files and applications
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ABS COMPUTER ORB
"...it was one of the first, if not the first, multi-user user microprocessor systems".
I had an Alpha Micro AM-100 in my living room in 1978. A multi-user system, it was based on the WD16 microprocessor chipset from Western Digital (clone of a PDP-11, IIRC).
But ... wow, I''d love to have an Orb!
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DATAPOINT CORPORATION Datapoint 2200
My dad worked as technician for Datapoint in Germany from 1980 until 1998. He died in 2004. Last winter when I visited my mum I ve found an old 2200 (16k version), 6600 and 6640 in their basement. My plan is to "refurbish" them... Is anybody here who can give me technical advise if I have any questions? That would be great! $)
(in return, i would provide nice photos of the computer''s inner workings)
You can mail contact me by mail: effes@freenet.de
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NCR Decision Mate V
In the early 1980’s, I was an administrator at SOITA at Miami University in Ohio. SOITA was a non-profit, technology service agency to 200 school districts in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. We started offering computer hardware and software discount purchasing to our member schools. We sold an average of about 3 million dollars worth of computer hardware (mostly Apple) annually in the 1980s. NCR, headquartered in Dayton, wanted to explore the school computer market. They contacted us and donated 10 Decision Mate 5 units so we could try them out. They also donated several machines to schools around Dayton. I remember doing a few activities on the machine (I took one home) but found it difficult to operate for someone that had no computer background. In the meantime, we purchased several Apple IIe’s and were able to utilize inexpensive but high quality educational software from the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) and AppleWorks. All of this software was on 5.25 floppy disks. AppleWorks was an easy to learn utility program that gave us word processing, database and spread sheet capabilities. So the easy to use Apple IIe became the machine of choice for our schools driven by high quality and easy to use software. MECC was also a non-profit like SOITA and gave SOITA generous duplication rights to their educational software under a licensing agreement. SOITA duplicated $ distributed tens of thousands of MECC 5.25 disks to our member schools. MECC developed new educational programs every year that kept their products (like Oregon Trail and Number Munchers) very popular. Unfortunately for NCR, they were late to the school computer marketplace. There was no easy way to use high quality educational software for their DM 5. Eventually for schools, NCR ran into the classic situation for their DM 5 “they couldn’t give them away.†IBM, Commodore, Radio Shack and Atari had small footprints in the educational computing marketplace at this time. Their platforms were mostly easy to use and some software did exist (some through MECC). Eventually, after a decade, IBM $ Microsoft became strong rivals to Apple (and the Macintosh Computer) in the school market. MECC dissolved as a state supported non-profit and became a private company. NCR ceased to show interest in the educational marketplace after this failed experience. Their manufacturing and headquarters in Dayton eventually shut down with the HQ moving to Atlanta. SOITA eventually was no longer able to sell discounted hardware or software through group purchasing (Apple and MECC eliminated their volume purchasing structures) and concentrated their activities on teacher training.
I was disappointed after reviewing Steve Jobs’s autobiography that he did not give much (if any) credit to the educational community for the early success of Apple. Once children started learning computer skills on an Apple II or Mac computer at school, they took that knowledge home and drove home purchases to Apple. I am guessing our early computer experiences in Ohio were similar to others throughout the country. So, in my opinion, the education marketplace was primarily responsible for Apple’s success. The software drove the hardware purchasing. This story could have been rewritten for any computer platform (including NCR) had high quality, easy to use software been available.
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NCR Decision Mate V
In the early 1980’s, I was an administrator at SOITA at Miami University in Ohio. SOITA was a non-profit, technology service agency to 200 school districts in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. We started offering computer hardware and software discount purchasing to our member schools. We sold an average of about 3 million dollars worth of computer hardware (mostly Apple) annually in the 1980s. NCR, headquartered in Dayton, wanted to explore the school computer market. They contacted us and donated 10 Decision Mate 5 units so we could try them out. They also donated several machines to schools around Dayton. I remember doing a few activities on the machine (I took one home) but found it difficult to operate for someone that had no computer background. In the meantime, we purchased several Apple IIe’s and were able to utilize inexpensive but high quality educational software from the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) and AppleWorks. All of this software was on 5.25 floppy disks. AppleWorks was an easy to learn utility program that gave us word processing, database and spread sheet capabilities. So the easy to use Apple IIe became the machine of choice for our schools driven by high quality and easy to use software. MECC was also a non-profit like SOITA and gave SOITA generous duplication rights to their educational software under a licensing agreement. SOITA duplicated $ distributed tens of thousands of MECC 5.25 disks to our member schools. MECC developed new educational programs every year that kept their products (like Oregon Trail and Number Munchers) very popular. Unfortunately for NCR, they were late to the school computer marketplace. There was no easy way to use high quality educational software for their DM 5. Eventually for schools, NCR ran into the classic situation for their DM 5 “they couldn’t give them away.†IBM, Commodore, Radio Shack and Atari had small footprints in the educational computing marketplace at this time. Their platforms were mostly easy to use and some software did exist (some through MECC). Eventually, after a decade, IBM $ Microsoft became strong rivals to Apple (and the Macintosh Computer) in the school market. MECC dissolved as a state supported non-profit and became a private company. NCR ceased to show interest in the educational marketplace after this failed experience. Their manufacturing and headquarters in Dayton eventually shut down with the HQ moving to Atlanta. SOITA eventually was no longer able to sell discounted hardware or software through group purchasing (Apple and MECC eliminated their volume purchasing structures) and concentrated their activities on teacher training.
I was disappointed after reviewing Steve Jobs’s autobiography that he did not give much (if any) credit to the educational community for the early success of Apple. Once children started learning computer skills on an Apple II or Mac computer at school, they took that knowledge home and drove home purchases to Apple. I am guessing our early computer experiences in Ohio were similar to others throughout the country. So, in my opinion, the education marketplace was primarily responsible for Apple’s success. The software drove the hardware purchasing. This story could have been rewritten for any computer platform (including NCR) had high quality, easy to use software been available.
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RANDOM SOFTWARE TITLES
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 game - maze - puzzle
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application - database
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game - ball and paddle - sport - squash
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game - pinball
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game - 2d - beat 'em up - mortal kombat
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game - beat 'em up - scrolling
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game - 3d - shoot them up
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game - 3d (real) - shoot them up - space - vector graphics
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game - shoot them up
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game - shoot them up
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game - mind games - shanghai
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game - shooting gallery
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game - platform
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game - shoot them up - space
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game - ball and paddle - hockey - sport
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RANDOM ADVERTS
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