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What was your greatest or wildest needle in a haystack poor score, or pick up?

Drayson said:
I'm a young hobbyist so I haven't found anything astronomically crazy yet, but I got my IBM 5155 with a hard drive, 640k ram, and a modem for only $330 off ebay. It was sold as not working, but the only problem was a single tantalum capacitor
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What can you do with a modem in 2024?

I'm genuinely curious. I've got a handful of modems lying around.
 
I believe people emulate a phone station with some raspberry pi and a lego piece, so they can actually "call" a "bbs" or a "provider"
 
Mine had to be a $15 AST SixPak from VCF Southwest. Yes, the trip up to Dallas already cost some money for me and my parents, but it was decompression for all of us, we had some friends there that we hadn't seen in a while, and we needed it, so the cost for the trip didn't count towards the cost of the card itself.

Part of me wants to not use it in the system I have it in because there seems to be a way to use 640kb of RAM, and the system itself only has 2 ISA slots (one of which is taken up by an XT-IDE), but I keep forgetting that the SixPak has so much more on it, including a serial port that lets me use a mouse.
 
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Maikudou said:
I believe people emulate a phone station with some raspberry pi and a lego piece, so they can actually "call" a "bbs" or a "provider"
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I have always thought it would be fun to build a little web server and run a really simple website off of it. Fully internal to my network, of course. Build a basic HTML page with some stuff on it. I don't know. The fact that I haven't done it yet probably indicates I'm never going to.
 
A home BBS would be useful for file transfers where ethernet is not an option, and the files would be small enough where dialup speeds would not make you want to get up and dig for a floppy.
 
Drayson said:
I'm a young hobbyist so I haven't found anything astronomically crazy yet, but I got my IBM 5155 with a hard drive, 640k ram, and a modem for only $330 off ebay. It was sold as not working, but the only problem was a single tantalum capacitor
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You have no idea how much of that stuff sold as not working actually works.
 
Drayson said:
I'm a young hobbyist so I haven't found anything astronomically crazy yet, but I got my IBM 5155 with a hard drive, 640k ram, and a modem for only $330 off ebay. It was sold as not working, but the only problem was a single tantalum capacitor
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I got mine free - still working to this day. The guy I got it from had two and said I could have both, but I stupidly said one was enough. I regret that. I got an extra 5155 keyboard for $23 from eBay.

By the way, I'm typing this using the IBM 5155 keyboard. (nice little USB converter by "tinkerBOY")
 
hunterjwizzard said:
Oof. Yeah I only moved less than a mile and still managed to loose stuff. Nothing as big as an apple II though.
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I also lost a Compaq Portable III in that same move. I don't know how movers can lose big items like that... unless... these computers were sentient, waited for their chance to escape, hopped off the moving truck and hitched a ride to Las Vegas to start a singing career on the casino circuit.

Beyond that I have no idea.
 
Albuquerque is the home of Altair computers, so I found a working Altair 680 in local flea market 15 years or so ago for $25, but I missed a crate of Altair boards in local surplus store by just few hours. You win some, you lose some.
 
Mr.Amiga500 said:
I also lost a Compaq Portable III in that same move. I don't know how movers can lose big items like that... unless... these computers were sentient, waited for their chance to escape, hopped off the moving truck and hitched a ride to Las Vegas to start a singing career on the casino circuit.

Beyond that I have no idea.
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I saw an Elvis Impersonator at the Sands that did look suspiciously like a Compaq Portable III.
 
Unknown_K said:
A home BBS would be useful for file transfers where ethernet is not an option, and the files would be small enough where dialup speeds would not make you want to get up and dig for a floppy.
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That's what I'm thinking.

My win98 machines won't talk to my NAS, if I want to do file transfers I have to spin up an XP machine or resort to sneaker-netting.

Although utility in this case might take a back seat to reliving the age of modem sounds that I pretty much missed out on.
 
hunterjwizzard said:
That's what I'm thinking.

My win98 machines won't talk to my NAS, if I want to do file transfers I have to spin up an XP machine or resort to sneaker-netting.

Although utility in this case might take a back seat to reliving the age of modem sounds that I pretty much missed out on.
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i've used samba in the past to install/transfer things to 9x systems, this config works on my freeBSD 14 NAS:

Code: 
[global]
...
# allow execution of binaries from smb shares
acl allow execute always = True
client lanman auth = yes
lanman auth = yes
client ntlmv2 auth = no
ntlm auth = yes
client min protocol = LANMAN1
server min protocol = LANMAN1
client ipc min protocol = LANMAN1

[qdls]
  path = /data/smb/qdls
  public = no
  writable  = no
  browsable  = yes
  read only = yes
  guest ok = no
  force user = hush
  create mask = 0755
  directory mask = 0755

i've also heard of people using shared folders on win10/11 hosts but i never tried setting that up myself
 
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Ok actually I do have one really good needle-in-haystack story. I was at a local thrift store not finding anything. As I was walking past the CDs I stopped and thought to myself "wouldn't it be really funny if I randomly reached in there and found a game?" So I grabbed a case and pulled it out and bam - jewel case copy of Riven. I have it on display.

Not an amazing find but now I do spot check the CD shelves.
 
Had a wildly succesful day out thrifting yesterday. Especially because I get to incur the ire of Unknown_K by loudly exclaiming how I "rescued" this "rare" vintage software!

h2tk6eB.jpeg


4tIhkLN.jpeg


eCK4TqS.jpeg


I am of course exaggerating for the sake of hyperbole and entertainment. This stuff is garbage I definitely over-paid for, but the amusement-value is real. Unfortunately it appears whatever hapless child owned that mathematics program before me opened it, took the special edition of Tomb Raider out, and never touched the rest. I wonder if I can find it on Archive.org?
 
hunterjwizzard said:
Had a wildly succesful day out thrifting yesterday. Especially because I get to incur the ire of Unknown_K by loudly exclaiming how I "rescued" this "rare" vintage software!

h2tk6eB.jpeg


4tIhkLN.jpeg


eCK4TqS.jpeg


I am of course exaggerating for the sake of hyperbole and entertainment. This stuff is garbage I definitely over-paid for, but the amusement-value is real. Unfortunately it appears whatever hapless child owned that mathematics program before me opened it, took the special edition of Tomb Raider out, and never touched the rest. I wonder if I can find it on Archive.org?
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At least it's old enough they are not likely to be a downloader pointing to a long gone server.
 
Oh yes. Everything is definitely right there on the CDroms. If its for the 1998/1999 school year, it was probably written around 1997 or even 96. System requirements say windows 95, so either someone didn't know windows 98 was coming or its a repackage of even older software.

I think I'll save it for when I have kids :ROFLMAO:
 
My best find was a Tandy 1000HD. I was working in a house that was being remodeled and spotted this old computer in a pile of trash and asked if I could have it. They said yes and I took it home and cleaned it up and added it to my collection.

Another good find was one day I visited my local surplus store and when I walked in I saw this old tower PC. I looked closer and it was a 486DX VLB. It just came in and had no price yet. I offered $25 and they said yes. I took it home and it ended up in an old desktop case I had left over from a non-working 286. The tower was too big for my room so I gave it to a forum member and he put it to use.

I found an Apple IIe complete with Double Disk drives and an Apple monitor in a dumpster at my local college campus. It took it home and it works perfectly.

I found a CoCo2 for $20 at a garage sale. It was my first "Home" computer. I had a lot of fun with it.

I got my IBM 5162 in a pile of junk computer stuff near where I worked for $100. That haul also included an IBM PS/2 Model 30 and an IBM PS/2 Model 50z and two or three dot matrix printers.

I don't find much good stuff any more. But I did pickup an old Pong machine at the flea market a couple of weeks ago for $40. Not bad. It's a Roberts Paddle IV.

Seaken
 
I have found and bought more Compaq Portable IIIs at yard sales and FB Marketplace than I care to mention.
I used to fix these for a living and everytime I saw a lost soul I brought it home and restored it to its glory.
So much so that I am sure I have at least 6 units all working like the day they were born.
The wife is not pleased as to the space they consume.
 
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