The Minnesota Museum of Vintage Computing Devices
updated: 04/12/2024 (added links), main content updated 03/19/05

If you have pre-1985 computer stuff, don't throw it out!  Donate it to my (unofficial) Minnesota Museum of Vintage Computing Devices.

I learned to program on the MECC timeshare CDC Cyber 6400, first via penciled Hollerith cards, and later via Model 33 mechanical Teletype and 110 baud acoustic modem.  I stayed after school so often to use the terminal that my Junior High school gave me keys to the computer room, and let me take the big terminal and modem home for the summer.

Then my father, a Univac field engineer, bought a Heathkit H-8 computer kit based on the Intel 8080 micro-processor and let me do most of the soldering and construction.  Programming this was via the octal keypad on the front pannel.  This was my introduction to machine code.
We added a serial interface to store our programs on cassette tape.  Later he built the H-9 video terminal for it.

My neighbor heard about my interest in computers and loaned me his Apple II to write a prototype of a clinical assessment program.  This led a couple of years later to a series of  part-time and full-time programming jobs with him.

While I worked with the H-8, my father built an Apple II clone.

I still have these computers, plus many others I have collected.  Some of them were my workstations from various jobs.

The collection (this list is not complete and is just from memory, some of the model numbers could be a bit off):


Wanted:

Have to Trade: Links to other great sites about Vintage Computers:
 

 


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