Watch out kids! Here comes the IBM 5110 — the successor of IBM’s first “personal computer” (the 5100), and somewhat of a distant precursor to their real PC, the IBM PC (model 5150). Despite its tiny screen, arcane interface, and outrageous price, the IBM 5110 never quite caught on. Of course, it should be noted that this machine obviously wasn’t targeted for the home market.

Only $18,000 (1978 dollars) for the system you see here. Whew.. no wonder Apple was laughing at IBM back then. By 1982, however, they wouldn’t be laughing quite as hard…

(Trivia Fact: Did you know that the IBM 5110 will be used to save the world in 2036? It’s true!)

[Scan from Time Magazine, February 20th, 1978]

Flash back to 1986: “Is your family life not quite how you’d like it to be? Does your husband stay late at work and seem ungrateful? Does your wife refuse to clean the house and make you dinner? Are your kids too gross, squishy and organic? Well worry no longer, because now you can buy and build your own Heathkit RoboFamily Plus (GD-9920) for only $2999.95 plus shipping! (Important Note: The ‘RoboFamily Plus’ comes pre-programmed to buy Heathkit products and demonstrate them frequently, thoroughly, and repeatedly, so do not be alarmed if you witness this behavior.)”

[Scan from a 1986 Heathkit Catalog.]

This advertisement appeared in the September 1995 issue of “Electronics Now.” I found it lurking in the back of the magazine — you know the place, the cheap black and white section where all the “shady” ads are (for porn BBSes, diet pills, pirated games, etc.). This particular ad is for what appears to be a re-branded version of the “Game Doctor III” game copier for the Super Nintendo / Super Famicom. I happen to have a Game Doctor III, but could never get it to work properly (I prefer my Super WildCard DX2 instead, which vastly outclasses it anyway). “Backup devices” such as this are/were illegal, of course, so it’s interesting seeing how this particular distributor skirted the issue with their entertaining “Engrish” description of the product. For Great Justice!

Remember the “Play it Loud!” days? I almost wish I didn’t. Even then I would cringe every time I heard or read Nintendo’s ads. Nonetheless, this flier sets off all the relevant nostalgia alarms in my brain, with specific regard to the Super Game Boy. The Super Game Boy (SGB), for me, was one of the most exciting Nintendo products launched in the 1990s. You could play all your current Game Boy titles in four whole colors. But of course, I usually ended up using just a greyscale-like palette and simply enjoying the fact that you could actually see the games you were playing for once. Then there were the SGB-enhanced games that had more colors when you played them on the SGB. The SGB I bought had the first SGB-enhanced game Donkey Kong as a pack-in. It was one hell of a winning combination.

It happens every week: I lose another disk drive to dust and dirt because I can’t find the drive filters I need to operate my high capacity hard disk drives. Well no more headcrashes for me, because I found Inmac! They have more drive filters for more disk drives than anybody else, all without the two month lead times you normally run into when ordering drive filters elsewhere. If you ever need drive filters for your hard disk drives, give Inmac a call.

Somebody pinch me.

A few years ago, a good friend of mine gave me a few of these interesting pieces of history. To this day, coming across an original Apple Lisa “in the wild” would be my version of finding the Holy Grail, and he knew this, so he gave me the closest thing I’ve ever gotten to an actual Lisa. Sure, I could always buy a Lisa on eBay for an arm and a leg…but it just wouldn’t seem right — it’s all about the quest, the mission, the adventure, and the discovery. Witness, then, a scan of an original 5 1/4-inch FileWare “Twiggy” Floppy Diskette. The Twiggy format (Supposedly nicknamed that after the model/actress “Twiggy Lawson,” for reasons unknown to me) was engineered by Apple as a proprietary storage format for its Lisa computer (1983). The original Lisa model came with two Twiggy drives, but after the Twiggy format proved unreliable with high error rates and slow read speeds, Apple begrudgingly switched to Sony 3.5″ drives on their next Lisa model (their hand was likely forced by the release of the Macintosh with Sony drives). All we’re left with now are these neat little curiosities. At least they make great conversation pieces at nerd parties. Now…to have a nerd party…

Here’s the cover of the Radio Shack “TV Scoreboard” Model 60-3056 instruction manual (Circa mid-late 1970s, USA). This machine was one of the many billions of Atari Pong home machine clones that flooded the market after General Instruments released it’s “pong-on-a-chip” IC. Oooh, detachable controllers — what luxury! I don’t actually have the unit itself, but I have the manual for some reason. If anyone wants to see the rest of it, let me know.

This 8.5″x11″ fold-out flier probably came with a Game Boy game, circa 1990 (My brother bought Ishido back then, which is on the flier, so that’s probably it). The Dominator controller looks pretty mean, doesn’t it? I saw one of those only once in person, at a local Hamfest. I would have bought it, but it was beat up pretty badly and covered with 10 years’ worth of kiddie-grunge. The Dominator had the unique ability to turn all NES controllers into “wireless” controllers — you could plug them into the sides of the stick and the Dominator’s infra-red link with the NES (courtesy of a special IR receiver) would do the rest. Anybody have one? I’ll buy it from ya.

A vintage IBM PC Ad from Time Magazine (October 26th, 1981). I am always surprised at how much verbiage magazine advertisements used to contain. If you look back in magazines from the 1960s to the early 80s, most of the ads have lots of text, expecting you to stop and read all their sales jive. Now I guess people are too impatient, so if an ad doesn’t poke us in the eye immediately, we pass it over. Words make Grog head hurt!

From a 1986 Inmac catalog. It really makes the decision a simple, clear-cut one — and it doubles as a really boring board game! I found this amusing, so I thought I’d share it. More to come.