Australia's Largest Private Computer Collection In Pictures 131
Da Massive writes "UNIX PDP-7, a classic DEC PDP-8, the original IBM PC, Commodore's C64, Apple's Lisa, a MITS Altair 8800 made famous by Bill Gates, through to a working PDP-11 that plays the ADVENTURE and DUNGEON games. Max Burnet has got it all. Burnet has turned his home in the leafy suburbs of Sydney into arguably Australia's, if not the world's, largest private computer museum. Since retiring as director of Digital Equipment Corporation a decade ago, Burnet has converted his home into a snapshot of computer history. Every available space from his basement to the top floor of his two-storey home is covered with relics from the past. On top of his hardware collection are numerous punch cards, tape machines (including the original paper tape) and over 6000 computer reference books. So in demand is his collection that one Australian film called on him to recreate a computer setting (PDP-9) for a movie about the moon landing in 1969."
He has PDP-7 Unix??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the mid '80s, a friend of mine at Caltech, Fritz Nordby, was planning on celebrating the 15th anniversary of Unix by designing a PDP-7 clone on a chip, and making a limited production run. He contacted Ken and DMR to see if he could get a copy of PDP-7 Unix, and they said they didn't have one, and as far as they knew, no copies existed, and that was the end of the commemorative PDP-7 clone idea.
If this collector really has a PDP-7 running original Unix, someone should make a copy and offer it to Ken and DMR. Or make it available on the net (after getting suitable permission). Maybe for the 40th anniversary of Unix, someone could make a PDP-7 simulator to run it. (Hell, you could probably do it in Javascript on a modern desktop machine and be faster than a real PDP-7!)
Re:The movie is called 'The Dish' (Score:5, Interesting)
It was actually Honeysuckle Creek near Canberra that got the signal, but it was dismantled so Sich and co. based the film around Parkes, then filmed in Forbes. They're also the crew behind the Hollowmen.
Almost right.
Parkes didn't get the initial portion of the signal, but they got the moonwalk, since it was only Parkes that could handle video at the time. Honeysuckle dealt with the initial audio.
That's all the film claims, in fact they make it fairly clear that Parkes was late because of the difficulty with the moon being so low in the sky.
Re:I have my old zx spectrum. (Score:4, Interesting)
I showed it to my son last year. He looked at it for a moment then asked me where the dvd drive was....
There are, it seems, some things a parent is best not sharing with a child.
That's nothing. While explaining importance of disciplined backups to a group of freshers, I was telling this story of a screwup while upgrading hard disk. When I mentioned 'while upgrading the hard disk from 20MB to 40MB', these all freshers burst out with laughter. I somehow handled situation while saying, 'you would laugh more, if I tell the configuration of my first PC. 8088, 4.77MHz, 256KB, Dual floppy, CGA card with Monochrome Monitor'.
Sometimes difficult to explain the world we have lived with.
Re:I have my old zx spectrum. (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree. For me pulling out my old Commodore 64 or Amiga 500 is as satisfying as firing-up the old Atari VCS, Nintendo ES, or Sega Genesis. I still enjoy playing those old 8/16 bit games, because even though they are 2-dimensional they are just as much fun as playing a Gameboy..... even the kids enjoy the old C=64 games when I hook them up.
As for productivity, well, I have experimented with GEOS 64 and text-based websurfing, and it works, the only flaw being the pace. GEOS works just great (like a black-n-white Macintosh) until you try to print something out and all you have is a dot-matrix printer. Or websurfing with a slow 2 kbit/s modem. Even so I still enjoy the nostalgia factor.
Re:I have my old zx spectrum. (Score:2, Interesting)
My 7 year old son still mightily enjoys The Great Gianna Sisters. I think he has some sort of platform fetish, because he also loves Mario Bros on the DS and SuperTux on the Mac.
Some kids will be curious about the digital past. They'll want to learn about those ancient systems, and they'll wonder how we survived. Most, however, won't give a rat's ass.
Me, I was *delighted* when I found some ancient graphics beast the size of a small filing cabinet. I don't recall the brand, but I do remember googling them; they're still in business, but they do something with flight simulators nowadays. When I found them, it was already worthless junk, but it still fascinated me.
stiffy (Score:3, Interesting)
FTFA: The first floppy disk was 9 inches in diameter and very "floppy".
At my first job in the late '80's I worked on old Honeywell TDC4500's in a petrochemical plant in South Africa. I think they stopped making those machines in 1979, but due to sanctions and budget restrictions we kept using those trusty workhorses, which used 9 inch floppies.
This was round about the time that the 3.5 inch floppy came out, which was less "floppy". In South Africa we referred to them (innocently) as "stiffies" - something that never caught on in the rest of the world...