An old computer you always wanted.

The Kaypro fired up.

Here's a better pic of the leather case:

And the leather logo on the leather case:

And finally a screen shot of the boot error.

It first reports 512kb mem test complete. Then writes overtop of the 512k a 1701 error code which is the boot missing code.  And finally the error printed out in English.

The computer has both a hard drive and the floppy.  However the hard drive is marked as "bad" and has been disconnected.  The floppy drive appears to be alive and is trying to boot up a floppy disk so that's encouraging.   I don't currently have a 5.25" floppy boot disk handy.   There probably are some in the attic.  So back up to the attic again.    At least it's alive.  We'll see how far I can get this along.   If I could get this in good enough shape that some vintage computer collector would give me a couple hundred bucks for it my dream of owning a Jetson nano with a Lidar sensor could become a reality.

I might even have some old 5.25" hard drives in the attic.  So I might even be able to get this thing back up and running with the  hard drive an everything.

Wish me luck.  In the meantime I better get back to doing responsible real life chores. ? 

I'll just keep chipping away at this a little bit at at time until I turn it into a Jetson Nano.  Hopefully.

Abracadabra poof!  Kaypro becomes a Jetson Nano.  I hope I can muster up the magic.

Somebody STOP  ME!

I'm wasting too much time with this. ? 

I found a 5.25" Floppy in the Compaq computer box and tried it in the Kaypro and by golly it booted up!

The floppy drive still works!

Far out!

Now I've got to get back to work on real life chores!

I have to quit this!

Here's the Compaq Portable 286.  I just plugged it in and nothing happens at all.  So that's going on a back burner.  It seems to me that it was running when I put it in the attic.  So it must be something with the power supply.  I'm not going to mess with it today.  Just thought I'd share this photo.  There's a bunch more computers in the attic.   I just saw to Commodore 64's up there.   Even if I sell these in a yard sale for peanuts I might be able to collectively obtain a couple hundred bucks total.  So the Jetson Nano may be a dream come true after all.

Here's the Compaq Portable 286.

Dag blast it!   I'm falling in love with this Compaq Portable 286.  And it doesn't even run!

When I turn it on only the fan comes on.  The fan is so quiet I didn't even hear it the first time I tried this. This computer is built like a TANK!   It's so well-manufactured that I'm falling in love with it for that reason alone.

I just took the cover off and the monitor section looks beautiful.  I used to work in a TV repair shop and trust me, this little monitor is far superior in quality.   In fact, everything about this computer looks like it was manufactured to send to Mars on a space mission.   It's such a marvel of manufacturing I just can't see it going in the trash.

The Power Supply appears to be a real monster to get access to though.    But I'd like to get this baby up and running.  It a really cute vintage computer.  I'll never get my attic cleaned out if I stop to fix everything I take out of there!

Here's some shots of the inside of this thing.  It is also exceptionally clean inside.  Hardly any dust.  It all looks brand new.  I just have to get this baby back up and running again.

When I was young, I wanted the HeathKit as I thought I would be able to learn on it but the best part would have been building it myself.

I was just getting out of high school when the Commodore 64 came out and I was lucky enough to get one of those as a present.  I learned a lot of programming on that and used it while in the Army and then kept it for many years after that.

Now, I find leisure time enjoyment experimenting with Raspberry Pi and its simplicity.

Now, how about that mythical statement that our Smart Phone's have more power than the computer that sent the astronauts to the moon?

This message has been typed on my portable ENIAC.  No electrons were harmed in the transmission of this message.

More Junk from the Attic!

This time it's a Franklin Ace 1000 computer.  Unfortunately this one was in seriously bad shape.  You never know what you'll find in my attic.  In any case, here's some photos to share.

The computer and two disk drives. 

Mouse house inside the computer.  No repairing this computer!  YUCK!

I did manage to salvage some parts though.  Here's the power supply which I haven't tested yet but it doesn't appear to be in too bad of shape.

And finally I salvaged parts off the old Disk Drives.  Got two really large stepper motors, they look like they came out of a Mack Truck.  Along with two quite large PM motors as well.  

Plus I like to keep the nice heavy gauge sheet metal from the disk drive boxes.  It comes in handy to have nice heavy metal laying around for various projects.   And there was a very nice heavy sheet of aluminum plate as the bottom of the computer.  The plate was protected from the mouse dirt by the motherboard. ? 

I have a metal shop and it's always nice to have various sizes of aluminum plate laying around.  That stuff is expensive to buy anymore.  So this Franklin was worth tearing apart.

More to come from the attic,... There's tons of junk up there and the whole attic needs to be emptied so I can put a new roof on my house.   So who knows what else I'll pull out of there?   Even I don't know what's up there.

I thought I'd posts this video in this thread.  People are interested in antiquated computers might enjoy this video on the computer for the Apollo Mission: