So this happened

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So this happened

First off I'd like to say hello, long time (several years at least) lurker, first time poster. Smile I grew up with a Laser 128 and like most people I moved to PC's in the 90's. I still have my original Laser 128 which I occasionally fire up to play taipan or load runner. I've got an office full of older systems at home, although mostly older unix systems. Recently while hunting for vintage systems on the local classifieds site I found post that stated "I have a shop full of vintage computers. Come and make me an offer." After some more back and fourth and little detail I decided to make the almost 3 hour trip out to the middle of the prairies to check it out.

It turns out the lady that posted the ad inherited the place from her uncle who apparently used to bid on lots of computers at auction in the 80's and 90's. On her farm there are 5 outbuildings that were full to the roof with vintage computers! Two of the buildings were basically fallen in on the systems and they'd been exposed to rain and snow for who knows how many years. One building had mostly old typewriters and early mainframe hardware that the mice really seemed to like. One main building was still fairly well sealed and contained the bulk of the PC's, atari's, commodores and macs and the last building was a small shop that was basically filed with IBM PS/2s and Apple II's.

She told me the ad had been up for over a year and there had been a few repeat visitors out (I don't even want to know what awesome stuff the 1st few guys got). I was welcome to as much as I could take away. We negotiated $100 (Canadian). Here's what I collected:

1 x Apple III (had a mouse living in it but it's cleaned up nice, going to try to boot it when I get time).
16 x Apple IIe systems (I picked some that looked like they were in good shape, clean internals)
1 x Microway Apple IIe clone (Can't find anything on google about it)
1 x Apple II plus
1 x Atari 65xe
1 x Atari 130xe
1 x Atari 600
1 x Mac Classic
2 x Mac SE
2 x Apple IIc
2 x Vic 20's
1 x Colleco Adam
3 x Colleco consoles
2 x IBM PCjr's with a load of software and accessories
3 x Tandy 1000
3 x 486 PCs

I also got about 70 lbs of boxed software and manuals for the systems along with around 15 Disk ][ and Duo Disk drives.

http://www.sysop.ca/media/haul2016.jpg

transwarp II guy's picture
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Re: So this happened

Rock on! That's a nice haul!

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Re: So this happened

Could you post photos of the Microway Apple IIe Clone?
It would be interesting?

And also could you list/photo of Apple ][ manuals?

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Last seen: 7 years 2 months ago
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Re: So this happened

I am going to take detailed photos of the microway clone, it seems quite well made and it came with microway branded clones of the disk II card, the 64 memory board and a printer interface. I didn't get much in the way of apple ][ plus manuals or software. Most of the manuals and software are for the other systems.

CWJ_Wilko's picture
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Re: So this happened

Congrats on the huge haul. I'm trying to smother my intense jealousy right now - any one of those items on eBay in Oz would cost over $100 in itself, usually a lot more. Not even in local classifieds would you see something like this. Obviously this is a great haul no matter where you are, but it does seem like there is still an abundance of old tech in North America to be found. Rare as gold down under though.

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Re: So this happened

There was so much stuff, it boggles the mind that this was/is rotting away in a couple of barns in the middle of nowhere. The lady that owns the property now figured he prob bid $1 on huge auction lots and no one else bid so he got them, some of the machines have asset tags from the local municipalities and some have engravings from local schools. No one cared about old 80's computers in the 90's before ebay and ridiculous ~RARE STEVE JOBS APPLE IIe~ type auctions. I myself have thrown out 8 bit machines that I did not care about like color computers or commodores simply because I didn't want to deal with storing them.

I left behind easily a hundred apple IIe's and prob 30 or more of the amber monitors. Due to the state of some of the buildings a lot of the machines were homes to rodents or had a lot of weather on them over the years. He seemed to care about them because he had taken the time to organize things into areas and collected not only the hardware but the boxed software and manuals. I bet the 1st few visitors got some real gems. She said one guy left with 70 or so machines, mostly commodores. I also found a few Atari ST manuals and power supplies but no machines so I'm sure they went before me as well. Had I found it a year earlier I would have rented a moving truck and cleaned the place out. I did see an ad on our classifieds site last month with a giant pile of classic macs and accessories, the ad didn't have a lot of detail like it was posted by someone who didn't know much about computers. i think I know where they came from now. Smile

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