I woke up groggy and cranky this morning, thinking about all the trouble I had setting up Windows 95 on one of my machines last night. The main problem with Windows 95 is that it’s just not cool. No matter how you slice it, it reeks of squareness. “What I really need,” I thought, “is a totally cool way to run my computer.” But after some hard thinking I realized that such a computing product doesn’t exist. I sat down for breakfast, resigned to the fact that I would be stuck with Windows 95 forever. I didn’t get five minutes into a bagel when the doorbell rung. It was David, my friendly neighborhood postman with a package for me. “What ever could be inside?” I wondered, as I tore into the box with excited impatience. I pushed aside the layers of bubble wrap to reveal…

“Oh boy.” I thought with disappointment, “Another archaic copy of OS/2 for my collection. Whee.” I was about to set the box down on a shelf and forget about it when my eyes meandered over to the upper left corner of the box cover. “Whoa! What’s this…?”

“Holy mother of goat cheese!” I screamed, nearly dropping the box from my hands. It was as if IBM had been looking into the future and totally reading my mind all those years ago when they released OS/2 Warp, the apparent mother of all operating systems. I flipped the box over onto its back to read more: “The new 32-bit, multitasking, multimedia, Internet-accessed, crash-protected, Windows friendly, totally cool way to run your computer.” Now that was what I needed to hear. No more Windows 95 crap for me. I rushed to install the system on my machine and experienced the pure operational bliss that is OS/2 Warp Version 3. It was a Christmas Miracle.

While I’m working on some more in-depth articles for VC&G, I thought I’d show you guys something you might find slightly amusing. The house I live in has a small shelf built into the wall, high up in a vaulted ceiling area. For years I’ve wanted to put some cool computer stuff up there, but my old roommate didn’t like the idea. Then the other day a friend of mine suggested it again, and I seized the opportunity. I lined up most of my compact Macs up on the shelf, so now they’re proudly on display — if you tilt your neck up, anyway (Click on the picture above for a bigger image of the shelf). This also freed up a bit of shelf space which I can now devote to new computer acquisitions.

Pictured on the shelf (from left to right) are a Mac Classic II, a Mac Classic, a Mac SE, a Mac SE/30, a Mac SE FDHD, and four Mac Pluses. Two of the Macs have tape over the disk drive slots because I had them in the attic and didn’t want fiberglass dust to get in there. Not pictured: a Mac Color Classic that wouldn’t quite fit, and a Mac SE, a 128k, and a few more Pluses that are in off-site storage. Luckily, I have lots of room on the shelf to add more.

A Proprietary Mystery

All I knew about this box before I bought it was that it was an airline reservation terminal at some point, and that it cost $2. So I went for it, not only because it looks cool, but also hoping that it might be a standard RS-232 serial terminal. Well, so far, no such luck. This thing is pretty weird. I’m not sure what system it was designed to hook up to, but it appears non-standard. It has four connectors in the back: a DB-9, a DB-25, a DB-15, and a female BNC jack (see picture below), labeled J1 through J4 on the chassis. The DB-25 is used for the keyboard. When I initially power it on, all the red LEDs on the keyboard light up and the main unit emits a steady beep that never stops. I guess it’s not happy that it’s lost its master — whatever mainframe that drove it back in the day (the other very obvious possibility is that it’s broken in some way). I can’t get anything on the built-in green CRT, not even a cursor of some type. I hooked the DB-9 port up to a modem to see if it might come alive with a serial input, but no luck. Same behavior.

Upon cracking it open, I found some curious stuff. The thing that surprised me most at first glace was that there is no logic on the main board inside the base unit at all– only power supply stuff. And of course, all the video circuitry is in the top “monitor” portion of the box. Also, the the DB-9 and the DB-15 connectors are both wire-wrapped (Exactly how old is this thing?!) to the DB-25 connector, and the DB-25 connector has a few pins connected to wires going to both the monitor section and the power supply. Much to my surprise, the DB-9 doesn’t have the usual pins for RS-232 connected to anything (2, 3, and 5, if I recall correctly). In fact, only pins 1 and 6 are wrapped. All the posts on the back of the DB-15 are wrapped and connected to the DB-25. As a result, I would have to guess that this is the main data connector. I also noticed that the BNC jack goes directly to the monitor section; I suspect it’s a direct composite video input, which is not too uncommon on terminals at the time. Maybe I can use it as a green screen monitor, if nothing else…not that I need one.

Then I opened the keyboard. That’s where things get even more interesting. All the logic is in the keyboard unit itself. That explains the wiring on the DB-25 keyboard connector and everything else I saw in the main unit. Looking for an MPU of some kind, the only chip I recognized in there is an Intel 8048, which is apparently a common (and now very cheap) microcontroller used in some IBM PC-compatible keyboards. According to a few sites I found, the 8048 was first produced in 1977, dating this unit to that year or later. Cosmetically, I initially dated this unit to 1978-79 in my head, so that matches up pretty well. At about this point in messing with the Incoterm, I had to give up and put it back together. Why? First of all, it was cluttering up my dining room floor, making it hard to walk around. Second, I didn’t want to forget how to put it back together, and third, I have other things to take apart. 🙂

Digging A Little Deeper

Right after writing most of this entry, I remembered that there is a sticker on the base unit that has a United Airlines logo and the word “Apollo” on it. I decided to search Google for “United Airlines” and “Apollo” and I found some neat info — not about the hardware, but the Apollo reservation system itself. There’s some computer airline reservation history over at Wikipedia, a United Airlines history page, and airline fan site that says that the Apollo system was set up some time in 1970-71 for UA internal use and made public (to travel agents) around 1976. Then I ran across a cool article from 1996 talking about how the entrenched airline reservation systems like Apollo were on the verge of becoming obsolete thanks to consumers being able to look up flights by themselves on the Internet. Somebody should write a book about how the Internet completely shook up established institutions like that. Well, they probably already have. But as more and more time passes, such books will become less speculative (Wired: “eCrisp: The way you toast bread is about to change forever.”) and more historical (“Through blogs, the Internet put editorial power back into the hands of the average man.“). I like my toast just how it is.

If anyone can contribute any knowledge as to how this terminal works or anything else about this it, please let me know. Until then, it will remain a nice conversation piece.

The keyboard unit without the case. Notice the ICs on the top of the board. There are also two unused key switches that are normally covered up by the chassis.

A label on the bottom of the unit that lists info on the terminal.

Ah…the trusty Goodwill store. Once the last bastion for countless old computers thrown out by a thankless middle-class America that had grown tired of them, it’s now merely a graveyard for broken VCRs and 1970s-era crockpots (you can always find at least one crockpot at any Goodwill store). So what happened? Around 2001, if I recall correctly, GCF was choking at the gills with hordes of truly worthless PC-clones that no one ever bought. They kept pouring in, non-stop, stacking up at the back of every store. The only thing Goodwill Industries could do to prevent themselves from being crushed by a mountain of PC trash was to stop accepting donations of computers, period. Unfortunately, this policy threw out the wheat with the chaff, the baby with the bathwater, so to speak. No longer could I find complete, boxed TI-99/4a’s, pristine Commodore Plus/4’s (yes, I found two of these complete in boxes Goodwill), and an endless supply compact Macs with personal resumes and strange letters still on their 10 meg hard drives (giving me hours of entertainment as an unexpected bonus).

But there are still some good things about the Goodwill store for the computer and gaming collector. For one, they still sell video games and systems, although they are pretty rare finds, and they’ve recently taken to locking them up in a glass case near the checkout counter. I’ve picked up an excellent condition SNES with some games (no AC adapter, though), and some really nice Genesis games in their original plastic boxes with manuals (Landstalker and Shining Force among them!) at Goodwill stores over the years. Also, they have a book section, which is the true focus of this entry, although it will ironically take up the least amount of space.

Paperback books cost fifty cents a piece; hard cover books, one dollar. That’s where I found the first edition of “The Media Lab” by Steward Brand (1987), hardcover and in great condition. This is a really cool find — an excellent addition to my computer history library — at a great price. It’s fun to see what was considered futuristic even as recently as 1987. The book has a great picture section in the middle (Grog no like words, Grog like piktures!), which, since I haven’t actually read the book yet, will have to suffice for a source of a description of the book. There are examples of early computer illustration software, rudimentary 3D computer graphics, anti-aliasing for digital text, force-feedback joysticks, holograms, AI, and something called NewsPeek, which was an idea for an electronic newspaper with eerie echos of the World Wide Web before such a thing existed. If it deals with computers and media, the MIT lab did it all first. And, if I may add personally, they also repeatedly failed to capitalize on their discoveries first, a ridiculous flaw of many a government and corporate think-tank and R&D division over the years (Xerox PARC comes to mind). “But RedWolf,” you say, “That’s not the purpose of a research institution!” I don’t care. Many incredible inventions are made at university labs, but it always takes a maverick separatist entrepreneur to break off from the organization and bring the benefits of those inventions to the masses. Otherwise, great ideas would stagnate there forever, and die on the vine where they were grown. Until new technologies are actively pushed and available in the marketplace, they’re just academic play-toys that don’t help anybody, hoarded by elitist engineers. So am I criticizing academic and big organization research? Hell yes. But hey, that opens up another can of worms, and I think it’s time to eat lunch.

…On second thought, maybe not.

I’m convinced that computers make the worst monetary investment of a physical item in history, continually going obsolete and losing 95% of their value in just a few years. As a result, I’ve spent most of my money on things that are now near-worthless. This sort of situation is probably unique in the history of mankind if you think about it. If I want some quick cash, I can’t just sell my computer that I paid $2000 for a year ago to get $2000, or even $1000. Not only since it’s used, but since it’s yesterday’s news that it is now worth bupkis. Contrast this to buying a used car for $2000. Take good care of it, and it’s probably still worth about $2000. Or real estate, which only seems to rise in value over time (unless the neighborhood goes to hell). Or, heck — even a table. You can buy one for $20 at a yard sale. It works. You use it. You can sell it for $20 if it still does its function. Nobody has come out with a “Super Table 2000” that has completely obsoleted your make and model of table. No — we who love computers pour our hard-earned dollars into elaborate gadgets that lose all their physical value in no time. I bought an iPod in 2003 that cost $400, now I’d be hard-pressed to get $50 for it on Ebay. And all these Palm and Windows CE PDA palmtop whatevers.. they’re all $500 to $1000 one year, and the next you can’t sell them for more than $100 (Thus making them, along with other dedicated gadgets like cell phones and iPods, even worse “investments” than computers).

So here I am, years later, after spending thousands upon thousands on miscellaneous computers and electronic do-hickeys. I need to drum up some cash. The first thing a traditionalist would say is, “Why not sell what you’ve bought and make some money?” Well, I look around. Gee, don’t I have anything worth anything? What the hell happened to that ten grand I spent over the last five years? I can’t see it anywhere. I look all over the house.. it’s just not there anymore. It has vanished like money poured into a deep, deep hole. Computers are a great way to destroy value. It’s not like what my dad could do with his camera collection, circa 1970-1990. If he wanted a new camera for his collection, he’d just sell his old ones (for about as much or more than he paid for them) to make enough money to buy a new one (of course my dad’s camera collection is becoming obsolete thanks to digital cameras and rapidly losing value, but for over 80 years the technology was basically the same). But it’s more trouble than it’s worth to sell any of my old electronic devices. They’re worth more to me to have them and play with them than the $10 I can make by selling them. And that’s why it’s so easy to collect them. Nobody wants them, they’re useless to people now, and they just take up space. And that’s about when they end up taking up my space instead of theirs, for little or no cost to myself. Initial cost, anyway.