Vintage Computer Rare SCELBI on display in "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum"

The SCELBI 8B is a rare computer - according to the developer Nat Wadsworth only about 200 SCELBI computers were made in 1974/75.  One hundred of them were the 8B (Business Model).
Click on Photo to enlarge

SCELBI 8B Microcomputer

info click

Mike Willagel (on  his blog) indicated only about 12 original  models are know to be in museums. Mike estimates 20 to 40 originals still in collections and closets.  This SCELBI  has been in our collection 25 years and I purchased it from Robert Forman of Portland, Oregon. Robert purchased the bare boards and built the computer adding his own customs cards you see on the right side of the computer.

Mike Willagel has made clone cards for the SCELBI & some folks have made clone computers from the cards.


Go here for more information about the computer in this blog including a video with close up view of the cards & original purchase receipt   "CLICK".

   
          David give a little history about his SCELBI Microcomputer

Click on photo to enlarge 

Display in museum with SCELBI  Microcomputer 

The SCELBI computer is on the second shelf down - right side, 

Computers in this display case top L-R Superjolt, LSI 11,the Tent card describing the SCELBI and copy of 1974 SCELBI advertisement.

2nd shelf Commodore 128 and SCELBI 8B.

Bottom shelf HP 85 microcomputer & Kaypro lugable computer.

On the top of case is a display of amateur radio publications.

SCELBI computer information

Close up of tent card describing the SCELBI in display case and copy of  First SCELBI advertisement in 1974 OST amateur radio magazine. A copy of the 1974 QST is in our collection.

You can read the tent card information and see the advertisement
Click on the  photo to enlarge and read.




More Reference information about SCELBI Computers.

Mike Willegal's hobby Blog

Build Your Own SCELBI

John Calande - His SCELBI Clone
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Bell & Howell Apple 2 computer

We have been busy today in the museum. Packed this Bell & Howell Apple 2 for shipment to "Alex's Apple Orchard" Museum collection.


It is not known how many of these computers are in collections however they are becoming rare and collectible.

Bell & Howell Apple ll computer

When Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs started to sell the Apple 2 computer - Jobs was not sure he could sell in the educational market and made a deal with Bell & Howell to sell to schools.   Jobs realized very soon he did not need  Bell & Howell and canceled the agreement.

David Larsen

We are having a good time with our "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum" in Floyd, Virginia. Lots of visitors and nice to have Grayson a doing an Independent Study as graduate student from Virginia Tech (VT). Grayson is back September 2015 for one more "Special Study Course" at the museum. I taught about using early microcomputers at VT for 31 years and retired in 1998.

.^{"by David Larsen"  KK4WW Computer Collector Historian}   
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Vintage Computers - Apple ll Computer Pirates - The Franklin Computers 'Clones of Apple ll computers'

Bugbooks

Steve Wozniak spent several years developing the Apple 1 computer before he and Steve Jobs actually brought the computer to market. It was a wonderful design at that time however hobbyist were not willing to purchase or able to make working Apple 1 computers in very large numbers. Only 200 Apple 1 computers were made and not all of them were actually sold.  The Apple 1 required the addition of power transformers, keyboard and a  display to make an operating system. Even then it was crude looking if a display case was not custom made for the computer.  The short story is the computer did not sell well and Wozniak realized a plug and play computer was needed and started the design of the Apple ll soon after the Apple 1 was put on the commercial market.

The Apple ll was a tremendous success for the Apple Company - selling 5 to 6 million from 1977 to 1993 ( according to information in Wikipedia ).

1982 Enter Franklin Computer with a Clone of the Apple ll
                        "the Franklin Ace 100" 
 The Franklin Company wanted to cash in on the large following of purchasers of the Apple ll computer and the Ace 100 was almost an exact digital copy. The monitor program in ROM was also an exact copy of the the Apple ll ROM.
 

Ace 100

Ace 100

Ace 100

This Ace 100 computer for sale








 March 1982 the Franklin Computer Company released the Ace 1000 a copy of the Apple ll+.

Ace 1000

Ace 1000

Ace 1000

 The Apple Company did not take this lightly and in June 1982 sued  the Franklin Computer Company for copyright infringement. Initially Apple lost the case and Franklin continued to sell their clone computers. The next Franklin computer was the Ace 1200 and it was the same as the Ace 1000 with additional features. The Ace 1200 came with 2 floppy drives built in and it also had and 8080 CPU on a plug in card and could execute CP/M programs as well as the Apple ll software.  The Ace 1200 had upper and lower case characters and a color display.

Ace 1200

Ace 1200

Ace 1200

 The Apple Company did win the infringement case in 1983 however the Franklin Company received an injunction and was able to continue making the Ace Apple clone computers.  The numbers I have found indicate that the Franklin Company sold these computers in the 10,000 + range.

Franklin continued to develop additional computers -  Ace 500 an Apple llc clone and Ace 2000 an Apple lle clone. In 1986 - 1988 the Ace PC 6000 & Ace PC8000 both IBM PC clones were brought to market. The hand held small computer line of Franklin products was introduced with such products as spelling correction, dictionary definitions and a thesaurus. The production of Franklin desk top computers ended in the late 80's.

The  Franklin Computer Company  merged with Saunders Acquisition Corporation September 30, 2009.

The computer photo's in this blog are from our "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum". Our collection includes most all of  the Franklin computers.

Many companies made Apple ll clones - mostly they were from China or Taiwan. Their were dozens of these clones however none of them were really a success. The Apple Computer Company put most of them out of business quickly. It would be interesting to hear of anyone who has made a collection of Apple clone computers.

David Larsen

Space Museum

This has been a busy and fun two weeks with our friends Clement & Hetty  Pierre Louis visiting from Dominica. We just returned from taking them to Dullas airport for a Saturday morning departure back home. Friday we toured the  Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center | National Air and Space Museum near the Dullas airport. If you have the opportunity to visit this is a great air museum with a Space Shuttle and an SR 51 spy plane + 300 or so other very interesting planes. The tour guide told lots of really good stories about many of the planes and the folks associated with them. The Imax theater there has great shows.


  ^{"By David Larsen" KK4WW Computer Collector Historian}   
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Computer Conference - THE FIRST WEST COAST COMPUTER FAIRE APRIL 15-17,1977

The First West Coast Computer FAIRE in 1977 was probably the real start of the personal computer industry. The FAIRE created a tremendous interest in microcomputers with over 12,000 folks attending .  A number of first in the industry took place at this FAIRE. 

I am fortunate to have some great items from Adam Schoolsky who was at this FAIRE with Steve Wozniak and the Apple group 

View/Read all 48 pages of  program listing of Events and Companies  'CLICK'

The program is fascinating to look at and see what the cyber world of microcomputers was in 1977 - look at some memory prices (4 KB for $1298) that would be more then $3000 in todays $. This is a PDF file of the Computer FAIRE program in our collection and it is in mint condition.

Adam Schoolsky attended the 1977 FAIRE and was working with Steve Wozniak. Steve like to play jokes so cooked up the idea to introduce great computer - The Zaltair computer and compare it to the Apple 2 and other current computers. The Zaltair only existed on paper in a spoof brochure that Adam Schoolsky and Wozniak created and secretly distributed during the Faire. I will do a whole blog about the Zaltair joke that Wozniak played on Steve Jobs.

Adam Schoolsky was a friend of Wozniak and during this time Adam told me Wozniak gave him an Apple 1 computer.  Adam had this computer for about 18 years and in 1994 he contacted me about selling this Apple 1 to me.  Adam and I  reached an agreement and in January 1995 I completed the purchase. This Apple 1 ( Which we call the "Schoolsky computer" because Adam Schoolsky was the first owner) is in our 'Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum' Along with many other items Adam provided with the computer.

You can see this Apple 1 Computer, The Zaltair Spoof computer brochure and the other items Adam provided from the "First West Coast Computer FAIRE" with the purchase  of his Apple 1 in this Video.  These items are a real important part of our museum collection and we are grateful to Adam for this all these near mint condition.

 The introduction of the Apple 2  by  Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs at this FAIRE  had more impact over the years then any other exhibitor. The  Apple Company is now the largest stock valued company in the world.

 The FAIRE was organized by Jim Warren and Bob Reiling. 'The First West Coast Computer FAIRE'  was a big success. In 1983 Jim sold the FAIRE to Prentice Hall for a reported $3 million.  The FAIRE changed hands one more time and the last FAIRE was produced in 1991 .

You can read a good story about the 1977 FAIRE in  Best of Creative Computing V3 (1980)

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Gaynell and I are leaving this Saturday for a visit with my brother Howard in Missouri for a few days. We had some terrible wind and rain this afternoon in our little town of Floyd Virginia and it knocked out the power. I had power at home so being home early I was able to do this blog post.  Have a great weekend . Update 8-28-13 We had good visit with my 92 year old brother.

"by David Larsen" KK4WW Computer Collector/Historian