Have a dusty stack of old Hollerith-type punch cards sitting in your closet? Then you need this amazing bridge to the past: the Phone 1 P1-14 Card-Reader Terminal. This advertisement, proclaiming a “powerful new concept,” appeared in the February 1979 issue of BYTE magazine. Somehow this terminal seems like an unlikely fusion of new and old, similar to building an abacus into the case of a PowerMac G5. Maybe that’s why no one has ever heard of this unit.

It’s sad to think that some people might have still been using punch cards for data input in 1979, but with the speed at which universities and other institutions updated their equipment, it would be no big surprise. Still, I think this terminal was mainly designed for legacy applications.

Let the punch card memories commence!

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

The popularity of plastic surgery, finally explained.

[ From Personal Computing magazine, December, 1983. ]

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

Take it from Isaac. Now you can save $100 on any TRS-80 Color Computer.

Let’s see. Texas-Instruments had Bill Cosby, Commodore had William Shatner, and Atari had Alan Alda. But did you know that Tandy-Radio Shack’s computer spokesperson in the early 1980s was science fiction author Isaac Asimov? I’ve seen a number of TRS-80 ads featuring him, and he always looks way too happy. But that was his job. And I’ve always loved Asimov’s sideburns. It’s like I’ve always said: nothing sells a home computer like a hairy man with a joystick. Take that, Commodore.

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

When I first started using PC compatibles in the early 1990s, Microsoft mice were recognized far and wide as the best mice around. I used their third model (I believe), which was a smooth, white rounded number with an incredible feel and response. I still use those mice on some of my older PCs. Although I’ve never used the mouse pictured here, but I’d wager that it was pretty good by 1983 standards.

I always found it ironic that Microsoft made some of the best mice on Earth, considering the sorry state of their software at times (I remember thinking this in the Windows 98/ME days — Microsoft’s lowest point so far). Whomever is/was in charge of their hardware division really knows what they’re doing, although I think they’ve been slipping up a tad recently by releasing keyboards with weird, nonstandard layouts and too many mouse models with superfluous buttons. But as long as they still sell this baby, (my current mouse of choice), I’ll be happy.

[ From Personal Computing Magazine, December 1983 ]

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

It’s not colorful and it’s not pretty, but this small piece of paper says a lot about how far we’ve come in personal computing.

I found this 5×10.5″ document in an old box of Commodore 64 ephemera that I inherited from a stranger (along with some of his old speeding tickets) via a hamfest. It appears to be the reward for filling out a COMPUTE! magazine survey (circa mid 1980s) and contains the BASIC program code for a game called Amazer.

Typed program listings like this were extremely common back in the day, but I found this example particularly interesting, as it was intended to be a bonus “gift” program, and they didn’t even bother to send a disk or cassette. Paper was a far cheaper distribution medium, of course, but it’s not even a full piece of paper! They must have had trouble finding a decent game small enough to fit the size of paper allocated by their minuscule gift budget.

I just did a quick search for “Amazer” on Google and found that some enterprising individual is trying to sell a copy of this very document on eBay for $50. He even went so far as to blur out the program listing on his picture! And no, this item is not worth $50. It’s more like a few steps away from toilet paper in terms of actual monetary value. But it’s still a neat historical footnote, no doubt.

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.