Retirement Party!

Written By Alistair Logie

So, I retired last May, and for my retirement party, I decided to display some of my vintage computer collection. It was of interest to virtually nobody at the party, but I enjoyed setting it up. It’s only about 50% of my collection, but I tried to pick stuff that people might be familiar with, as well as some oddities. Enjoy these photos!

Here’s an overview of the display.

The view from one end of the table.

And from the other end.

The Osborne-1, which is the only machine I had up and running. Note that the cyan part of the screen is just an artifact of the photo. It’s just a green screen monitor.

A collection of odds and ends.

This photo shows a few bits and bobs. From top left to bottom right:

  • Atari Portfolio from behind (there's a better shot of that).
  • Your Computer - Also known as the Lambda 8300. A ZX81 clone.
  • Husky Hunter
  • Laser 200
  • Dragon 32
  • Mattel Aquarius

Another mixture.

From top left to bottom right:

  • Texas Instruments CC-40 from hehind.
  • Olivetti M10 - a rather stylish version of what was also sold as the Tandy Model 100.
  • Oric Atmos (swoon!) - the prettiest machine on display.
  • Convergent WorkSlate
  • Oric 1
  • Enterprise 64

Acorns, as Sord and a Lynx

From top left to bottom right:

  • Acorn Electron
  • Sord M5
  • BBC Micro Model B
  • Camputers Lynx 128

Sinclair corner!

  • Timex Sinclair 2068 - The slightly enhanced US version of the ZX Spectrum
  • Timex Sinclair 1500 - A US ZX81 in a Spectrum style case
  • Sinclair ZX80 - the original sub $100 computer
  • Sinclair ZX81 with a 16K Rampak and a ZX Printer (you can see a bit more of that in the previous photo).
  • ZX Spectrum with Interfaces 1 & 2 attached, a Microdrive, and a cartridge version of Planetoids.

Pocket Computers.

From top right to bottom left:

  • Tandy Pocket Computer PC-6
  • Tandy Pocket Computer PC-7
  • Tandy Pocket Computer PC-5
  • Tandy Pocket Computer PC-8
  • Tandy Pocket Computer PC-4
  • Psion Organiser II
  • Tandy Pocket Computer PC-3
  • Tandy Pocket Computer PC-2
  • Tandy Pocket Computer (PC-1)

Yep, that's a full set of the Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80 Pocket Computers. They're a mix of rebadgedd Sharp and Casio pocket computers.

Commodore bread bins.

From top to bottom:

  • Commodore 16
  • Commodore 64
  • Commodore VIC20 - this one has the original PET style keyboard.

Texas Instruments.

From top to bottom:

  • TI Compact Computer CC-40
  • TI-99/4 - this is the earlier, and much rare big brother of the TI99/4A with the chiclet keyboard
  • TI99/4A

A brace of TRS-80s

From top to bottom:

  • TRS-80 Model 100
  • TRS-80 Color Computer - the original CoCo with the chiclet keyboard

A selection of Atari 8-bits and a Portfolio

From top to bottom:

  • Atari Portfolio - handheld device famously used by John Connor in Terminator 2 to liberate some cash from an ATM
  • Atari 400 - one of original incarnations of the Atari 8-bit line, complete with awesome '70s styling and awful flat keyboard
  • Atari 600XL - my favorite style of all the Atari 8-bit incarnations
  • Atari 65XE - the final incarnation using Atari ST styling

A couple of pioneers

From top to bottom:

  • Epson HX20 - widely considered to be the first laptop. This is the silver version. There's also one in beige.
  • Apple IIe - although this isn't the original Apple II, it does represent one of the first hugely successful home computers.

I hope you've enjoyed the photos of my vintage display. I'm sure you're probably more interested than most of my party guests were...

Alistair Logie
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