Rose vs. Poppy: Which would you choose?

I’ll admit that I’ve never encountered a Durango Poppy in person, nor do I know much about them aside from ads like this in old magazines.

So I did some digging, and I found that the Poppy model seen here was an 80186-based system that ran either MS-DOS for a single-user setup or Xenix for a multi-user configuration. It retailed for between $4,395 and $11,475 in early 1984 ($9,881 to $25,798 when adjusted for inflation), which was quite a bit of money — but actually far cheaper than IBM’s comparable offerings at the time.

A March 5, 1984 issue of InfoWorld available through Google Books has a neat article that mentions the Poppy.

I didn’t realize it at first, but the rose in the ad above is meant to symbolize IBM. IBM’s PC ads at the time featured Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp character, which always carried a rose.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Did you ever purposely pass up IBM hardware for a cheaper alternative? Tell us about it.

Walkin’ [through the pearly gates / into an alien ship] with an Osborne 1.

See also: The Osborne 1 (RSOTW, 2012)

Discussion Topic of the Week: If you could take any computer with you into the afterlife, which would it be?

“Try new metal puddin’ pops!”

When looking at the Texas Instruments CC-40’s capabilities, one wonders why companies even bothered in making tiny portable machines like this one (see also the Epson HX-20, HP-75C, and TRS-80 Pocket Computer, among others) in the early 1980s.

Sure, each one came equipped with a gee-whiz wow factor, but most of these diminutive PCs proved impractical to actually use. Limited memory, restrictive and unreliable data storage, and tiny LCDs capable of displaying either one or a few lines of text almost ensured that these products would remain technological novelties.

(As an aside, the only computer of this circa-1983 portable class that I find to be practical and truly useful was the TRS-80 Model 100, which many journalists relied on for decades)

After giving the question considerable thought, I recently realized why they did it. Companies like TI spent untold millions upon millions of dollars on R&D, design, tooling, and production, distribution, and marketing so that collectors of vintage computers, like me, would one day have more and varied specimens to collect.

To those companies, I say this: Thank you for wasting your money to make my hobby more fun.

See Also: Bill Cosby Fondles a TI-99/4A (Retro Scan, 2006)

Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s the smallest vintage computer you’ve ever used?

An elephant never forgets your Atari 2600 cartridges.

In a previous Retro Scan, I cataloged one of my least-favorite brands of floppy disk storage boxes. This time, I thought I’d share an ad for the Elephant Memory Systems Trunk, one of my favorite disk storage boxes.

As far as floppy disk box designs go, the Trunk is my favorite mostly because of nostalgia. This was one of the first floppy boxes I ever used; my dad had bought one to store our Atari 800 or Apple II floppies in (can’t remember which, although I still have it in my closet). Compared to other disk boxes, this one feels solid, and the build quality is high.

The Trunk does have one serious drawback, though: The lid covers so much of its outward-facing surface area that it is very hard to pick up and move around without accidentally opening it and spilling its contents on the floor.

Still, it’s a pretty good floppy box. This and the Flip ‘N File.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Estimate how many 5.25″ floppy disks you own. What system(s) are they for?

The Star Micronics Delta-10 Dot Matrix Printer: Mouse with Machine Gun

My family owned this exact printer. In fact, I think it’s still sitting in my parents’ attic as we speak. If I’m not mistaken, we used it with our Apple IIe system — the one my dad built from a bare circuit board and a set of cloned ROM chips (much like the one in this 2006 VC&G post).

It’s probably the first printer I ever saw in action, likely before I could even walk. I can recall crawling under our computer desk (the printer was on the floor beneath it for some reason) and watching it print out whimsical banners and calendars from a program like Broderbund’s The Print Shop.

But what I remember most about it, of course, was the sound it made: like a screeching robot mouse spraying lead into tractor-feed paper with a tiny machine gun. Like any dot matrix printer, once you hear one in action, the sound will never leave you.

Those were the days.

Of course, I was still using a dot matrix printer until the early 1990s, so I am pretty much scarred for life. Mice everywhere.

Discussion Topic of the Week: What was the first printer you ever owned?

APPLE’S BOLD NEW COMPUTERS IN ALL-CAPS

Thirty years ago last Saturday (January 19th, 1983), Apple announced two new computers: the Apple Lisa and the Apple IIe.

Ultimately, the Apple Lisa met an early end, leaving behind technology that shaped the entire industry. The Apple IIe remained a reliable breadwinner during uncertain times in the early life of the Macintosh and remained the flagship member of Apple’s popular 8-bit computer line until it ended in 1993.

Here’s the cover of the March 1983 issue of Popular Computing which featured Apple’s two new machines. It has always been one of my favorite vintage computer magazine covers.

By the way, I recently wrote an article about this anniversary for Macworld in case you’re interested.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever used an Apple Lisa? What did you think about it?

“My whole torso is numb, and it feels great!”

The Sanyo MBC-1100 (1982) was a Z80-A-based business machine that ran CP/M as its operating system. It was one of many, many Z80 business machines from that era designed to run CP/M.

Japanese computer manufacturers were just breaking into the U.S. computer market at the time, so the Sanyo MBC-1100 would have likely been a curiosity in an American office setting.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever used a Japanese-designed vintage computer? Tell us about it.

“You won’t find a bluer word processor package anywhere…”

Discussion Topic of the Week: What was the first word processor software you ever used?

Every instance of those 16 TRS-80 logos is trademarked, so hands off!

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you owned a TRS-80 Color Computer (any model)? Tell us about it.

The IMS 5000IS: Your Key to Office Neck Pain

It’s almost amusing to recall the days when secretarial computer work mostly involved data entry and/or printing. (In this case, data entry inspired the neck-cramping computer setup seen here.) Both of those activities were designed to bridge the world of the computer and the world of paper.

By the mid-1990s, the introduction of low-cost scanners paired with optical character recognition (OCR) software helped relieve the tedium of typing in paper-bound data by hand.

Today, such scanning happens far less frequently, as most text-based data originates in the computer space to begin with. And many times it stays there, too: office workers regularly publish data electronically to the Internet or share it over local networks and email, making routine printing (and routine data entry) far more uncommon tasks in the year 2012 than they were in the 1990s.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Was there ever a time when you were forced to do lots of manual data entry? Tell us about it.