Age

I'm 42, born in 1962. I was facinated by computers while still in grade school. My first hands-on experiance was seeing an 'open house' demonstration of a Hughes HM 4118 (18-bit) core memory machine running a combat air traffic control system (with massive radar and vector data display tubes) at an Air National Guard base where my Uncle worked. My first 'commercial' personal computer was an Elf II (now Jack Rubin's) back in 1978, and I also home-brewed several 1802 and 8080 based projects. While in high school I had use of the PDP-8E running a multi-user BASIC interpreter with four ASR-33's. After graduating in 1980 I enlisted and was trained on the very same Hughes HM-4118 system I'd seen as a child. After my service I worked on PDP-11's at Applicon, then Lisp Machines at LMI and the MIT AI lab. I began to collect and restore old computers back in 1984. While working for TMI (helping to build connection machines) I found a Hewlett Packard 2114A system with all its cables and peripherals as well as a box of documentation for the system. After a bit of reading I got brave enough to plug it in and the machine still ran very well. At that point I was hooked on HP hardware, and I now have two 2114's, two 2116's, a 2115, and a large pile of 2113's, including two complete racked systems with many peripherals (perhaps 7 working 2113's and an equal number of parts machines). My HP collection also grew to include an HP-01, and several vector graphics generators. I even went so far as to build my own ATA disk controller and developed a threaded interpreter designed for the restoration of vintage HP 1000 series CPU's. The most uncommon machine in my collection is an 'alpha' Imlac PDS-1, which combines the blinking lights and vector graphics into one very unusual and special machine. I also have a number of Apollo workstations (running SR7. something), but I'm unloading these machines to make room for all the HP's. (does anyone have an Apollo DN660 itch they need to scratch?) My ultimate 'dream' collectable machine, CDC6600. Dual vector based CRT's on the console make up for a major lack of blinking lights, IMO. I'd also love to find a Raython 704, perhaps a more practical 'dream' machine. Of course a Hughes HM 4118 would be very welcome as well... Bob Shannon