Vintage Computer - Micro 68 a 1976 microcomputer made by "Electronic Product Associates"

Bugbooks

I am still busy gathering new items for the "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum" and selected  a Micro 68 computer from our warehouse.  This microcomputer was not a very popular machine however it did find some following for those wanting to learn  machine language programming on the 6800 microprocessor. It is more of an art piece than a useful computer. You can see from the photos with the wooden sides and nice smoked Plexiglas cover it is very nice looking .

To enlarge CLICK on photo

Micro 68 microcomputer

The Micro 68 is a nice art looking computer with the smoke colored -see through - cover and beautiful finished Walnut wood sides. You can see the components though the cover making it a nice display piece.

The computer was manufactured by Electronic Product Assocates in San Diego , California - starting in 1976. This is the same year as the Apple 1 was introduced.


You can take a video tour of the computer here "CLICK"

Micro 68 microcomputer

This computer could have made a big impact if the designers had worked with Bill Gates and Paul Allen to have a version of Basic running.  The computer was very limited in capabilities and expanding the computer was inconvenient.

Micro 68 microcomputer

The keyboard has several dual function keys allowing you to load, examine, and execute programs.
The best use of the computer was to learn to program the 6800 microprocessor in machine code.
A serial interface card was available for $40 and the software to use with an ASR Teletype was available for about $30.                  

The ROM chip is 512 bytes and contains the monitor program allowing you to program and run the computer with the 16 keys on the keyboard.
An addition 6 memory sockets are on the PC board for expansion with your own software in EPROM's.

Micro 68 microcomputer

The power transformer is plugged directly into a wall outlet and the balance of the power supply components are on the circuit board.

Micro 68 microcomputer

The RAM memory with the basic unit is only 128 bytes and with all the chips loaded it had 768 bytes of RAM. This is very  limiting allowing only very short programs.
You could purchase an external 8K bytes RAM card for $270  and would have been able to run Tiny Basic with this card. The card attached to the external bus shown in this photo.
The computer was expandable to 64K bytes of RAM. You would have to build your own expansion card for the 64K of memory.

Micro 68 microcomputer

This photo was taken with the cover down a a bright flash to see the components on the PC board.
This computer was available the same year as Steve Wozniak's Apple 1. The Apple 1 required power supply transformers,keyboard and display to operate -- this computer would operate out of the box. They did miss the boat - by not offering more-- but no one could see that in 1976. The Apple 1 was a very clever design and the Micro 68 computer was just a standard 6800 with no vision of the future.


Steve Wozniak realized the limitations of the Apple 1 and quickly designed the Apple ll microcomputer - a great Plug-&-Play out of the box computer that took the world by storm in 1977 and was the start of today's largest company in the world. Great work Woz and Jobs.

 I purchased 6 of the Micro 68 computers in 1995 at the Dayton Hamvention in Dayton Ohio.  The early 90's were a real hayday for finding the early microcomputers from the 70's and early 80's.  I would always come home from Dayton with the car packed with good collectible computer items. It slowed down very fast in the late 90's and after 2000 it was very slim picking. Gosh I was just fortunate have started serious collecting November 1970 when the first  microprocessor chip (4004) was introduced .

David Larsen KK4WW

I have 6 of these Micro 68 computers and if you are interested in one contact me.
A lot more to do in the new museum area so more items to get from the warehouse.

I started to go the Dayton Hamvention in 1976 with John and Chris Titus - we sold our Bugbooks at the show and they were real popular.  John and I are both amateur radio operators and Chis never had interest in Ham Radio.  My wife and I are still going to the Hamvention and represent our "Foundation for Amateur International Radio Service" (FAIRS) .
 ^{"by David Larsen"  KK4WW Computer Collector Historian}     Send Message    Like us on Facebook  My Blog about hometown Floyd VA

Vintage Computers - Where do computer collectors find them ?

Bugbooks 

SCELBI Microcomputer 

How did you find the computers in your 40 years+ of collecting ? That is a question I get often. My historical collection of microcomputers is very nice and includes a lot of hard to find computers - like the Apple 1, SCELBI , and a warehouse full of historical computer memorabilia.

First of all I have been involved directly with computers for over 50 years  & that was a big help. However the source of most of my collection was a result of just advertising for them.  For more then 30 years I ran  very simple classified advertisement "wanted pre1980 microcomputers for historical collection".

Enlarge the photo's by clicking on them and then even more by a right click and select "View image' you can easily read the text.

Ad in QST magazine

 This simple ad placed in about 6 publications every month for many years resulted in 1000's of responses and resulted in a wonderful collection of computers  for the 'Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum' collection. Often a pleasant and sometimes humorous dialog would develop between me and the person responding to the advertisement. 

Computer Collector

I have many 100's & probably 1000's of letters, fax's, emails, postcards, notes scratched on the back of napkins, and phone logs as well.  I kept them all and now it is interesting to look back at them. 

I selected a few of the offer letters and notes -  I hope you find them interesting.

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Schoolsky Apple 1

Schoolsky Apple1 Computer

I did purchase this Apple 1 Microcomputer from Adam Schoolsky & you can see in the letter many other nice items as well. Here is a video about this computer in our "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum" 'CLICK'

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Craig Solomonson offered me this Apple 1 computer July 1996 for his price of less then $40,000.

WOW I sure missed a computer that made the big time - Auction at Breker Nov 28, 2010 - Yes, Italian collector Marco Boglione paid $212,000 for a 34-year-old Apple-1

Craig Solomonson  Apple 1

The information below is from the Apple 1 Registry 

Solomonson Apple 1 

NTI logo at one time purchased from Frank Anderson, an electronic dealer in Great Falls, Montana by Craig Solomonson for MECC.  Craig reports that this computer was sold by Jobs and shipped from his parents address. Woz seemed a bit confused when Craig showed him the invoice and asked about it. He said "Not sold by us, although Job's may have sold it without telling me." 

• Sold by Craig to Jesse Sackman in California
• $50,000 unit sold in Ebay auction 320447681957, late in 2009

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Byte Magazine 1

Donation Postcard Larsen Blog

Sometime we  received a note on a card or scrap of paper.  This card from John was loaded with good stuff and for only $25.  First issues of Byte and Kilobaud magazine and a COSMAC VIP microcomputer. This was added to our historical collection.

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Regis and Steve Jobs 

McElwee Letter Larsen Blog

At times the letter or inquiry had lots of interesting historical information about the collector or computers. In this letter McElwee tells about his activities in the very early days of the Microcomputer Revolution - MITS Altair, Pertec, first person to work with Apple at the Regis Mckenna Advertising Agency ( He still has a copy of the first Apple Marketing Plan), also he worked for Atari. That is an interesting  historical background. I don't remember just what I purchased from him - I know I would have liked everything in his letter.

For the rest of the story read more

Soviet Union Vintage Computers - Donating computers to the old Soviet Politboro - USSR - 1991

Soviet Flag

Bugbooks

In my last post I mentioned the fun I have had the past 50 years with computers and looking back on this effort to donate & ship computers to the Soviet Union in 1991 is one of those fun times. The timing was really good as  this would have been a whole different story about 8  months later with the shift in power from Soviet President  Mikhail Gorbachev to  Boris Yeltsin .This shift in power was the break up of the Soviet Union into 12 independent countries and the downfall of the communist system.  

Boris Yeltsin

Mikhail Gorbachev

It all started with our first visit (October 1990) to the Soviet Union with an invitation from Victor Goncharsky ( An amateur radio operator UR5WE in Lviv, Ukraine) to help bring the average citizen into the computer world. Up until about that time Soviet citizens were not allowed to have a computer in their home or personal possession.  This first visit resulted in taking one computer and teaching material for a training workshop.

I was a tenured faculty member at  Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VT) and made arrangements to issue Continuing Education Units (CEU's) for the 4 day microcomputer instrumentation workshop. The process of getting approval to do this work and carry the computer required the approval of many agencies and groups.  President George W. Bush and the USA State Department were some of the groups helping with  these efforts. We did make this work and my wife and I in October 1991 made our way to Lviv, Ukraine via Moscow and a 24 hour train ride with our computer and all the teaching material. It is believed this was the first time an American University awarded CEU's in the Soviet Union.

KGB

This first trip was a success and we realized the great need to get computers to some of the citizens of the Soviet Countries. This and the next 15 visits were a real fascination for me, my wife Gaynell and our colleagues. Always intriguing, a bit risky and filled with stories of KGB, an acquaintance being killed, and others being sent to jail.  We were working with permission at the highest level of the Politburo and our government for these efforts to succeed. 

Our adventure Donating  Computers to Soviet Citizens
                                                             The story


Why am I writing and sharing this information ?

1.  I would like to show that it is  possible for average folks like me to have some really great experiences. Be careful what you ask for you may get more then you wanted.
2. You can work at the highest levels if you have a good message - these adventures were helped along by  President George W. Bush, USA State Department, Soviet President Gorbachev, many members of congress, various ambassadors and many other folks. I have saved all these correspondences - What a ride looking back over these - 100's of letters and papers. Once I made a couple of Soviet visits, officials at VT were on board with this and even gave me some special  funds to carry on this work.
3. I encourage you to get out of the box and try some new adventures - I do not suggest however taking unwise risks to you own safety. Show your skeptics you are not a pipe dreamer but a real doer. They will of course be envious when you do succeed.
4. They say you can't live in the past - That is true but it sure is nice to look back on fun and successful events from your past and wonder  --- How did I do that ? it was just great!
5. Actually I did have opposition at my university (VT)  by some folks who did not like my time away and the fact I was not just grinding away in my office.  I did not have resistance from officials at VT that had power to stop this work - it was good I had tenure - The Virginia Tech President at the time Dr. Jim McCommas was a great fan of this work and helped with funding and in many other ways. Dr. McCommas sent Virginia Tech Documentary film producer "Jerry Scheeler" on one of our trips. Here is his film "Click" . Most of  the opposition came from faculty members who were envious, jealous and just too lazy to get out of the box.
6. I did this long term project because it was interesting, useful for me, the University and our whole country.  I was rewarded for this work near the end of my 31 years of teaching at VT with a University Presidential Award (1995) University Public Service Excellence Awards. This was the first time this outreach award had been presented by VT.
7.  A great bonus- My wife and I  received amateur radio licenses in Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, and  Poland .  It was great fun and my wife Gaynell was the first American woman to receive an amateur radio license in some of these countries. Of course operating from there was fun - my Ukrainian call is UR5WUS and Russian call is UA4LWW.

A story about our first donation of computers to the USSR appeared in  the American Radio Relay League journal QST September 1991. 

For the rest of the story ......

PDP 8S Minicomputer discovered hidden in warehouse

Bugbooks

PDP8S

                           Computer Collector Lyle Bickley now has this computer in his collection.
I received this PDP8S minicomputer from a fellow collector in 1990 and it has remained unopened for all these years. Desiring to focus on the historical microcomputers  I have found new homes for most of my minicomputers. It was now time to open the box for the very first time. My friend Clement Pierre Lewis visiting from Dominica helped open the box and make the video. The computer and box weight about 100 lbs so it was a two person effort.  It was fun to open the box - sort of like early Christmas and I am very pleased with the condition of the computer.
A video  opening the box with PDP8S inside - This was fun

Here is the box PDP8S was in for the past 24 years.
The computer is about 50 years old so it was it has
been in this box for 1/2 of its existence. The wooden
box is rare these day so maybe I should keep it as
example of how it was shipped in the old days.

 The PDP8S computer is in good condition and
has interface cables to attach to a peripheral
device. Computer made by Digital Equipment 
Corporation.

 

Not room for one more card in the computer and it
appears to be in very good condition.

PDP8S MINI

The core memory stack consisting of
4k of 12 bit words.

The computer is self contained in a small cabinet
with built in power supplies.

David Larsen

You can see the actual unpacking for the first time in the video listed above the photo's. This was an interesting and fun experience and the computer is a real beauty.  I do not plan to power it up at this time however I would not be surprised if it worked ---- out of the box.
  ^{"By David Larsen" KK4WW Computer Collector Historian}   
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Vintage Computers - Apple Computer Historical data

The LCF Group has several Apple 1 computers in our "Bugbook Historical Microcomputer Museum" and the stories about the early start up days of Apple Company are always of interest.

Steven Wayhrich, MD

The information below is from the website of  Steven Weyhrich,  a family practice physician in Omaha, Nebraska. Steven's writing's about Apple history is very informative and the paragraph below is directly from his web page.
  

The Start of the Apple Computer Company

Original Apple Logo

""By early 1976, Steve Wozniak had completed his 6502-based computer and would display enhancements or modifications at the bi-weekly Homebrew Computer Club meetings. Steve Jobs was a 21 year old friend of Wozniak’s and also a visitor at the Homebrew club. He had worked with Wozniak in the past (together they designed the arcade game “Breakout” for Atari) and was very interested in his computer. During the design process Jobs made suggestions that helped shape the final product, such as the use of the newer dynamic RAMs instead of older, more expensive static RAMs. He suggested to Wozniak that they get some printed circuit boards made for the computer and sell it at the club for people to assemble themselves. They pooled their financial resources together to have PC boards made, and on April 1st, 1976 they officially formed the Apple Computer Company. Jobs had recently worked at an organic apple orchard, and liked the
name because “he thought of the apple as the perfect fruit–it has a high nutritional content, it comes in a nice package, it doesn’t damage easily–and he wanted Apple to be the perfect company. Besides, they couldn’t come up with a better name.”  "" The above from Steven Weyhrich's website.

Read the whole story on Steven's website about how the Apple Computer Company was started by Jobs and Wozniak in 1976.


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David & Gaynell 

Larsen

The interest in the Apple Computer Company is on the increase almost daily now. Several movies are being  produced about Steve Jobs and these increase buzz about Apple Inc. I was working  in the early days of microcomputers  as faculty member at Virginia Tech and a member of the Blackburg Group.

"by David Larsen" KK4WW    Computer Collector/Historian

Computer Mouse Inventor Douglas C. Engelbart Died Tuseday July 2,2013

The inventor of the simple but powerful computer Mouse Douglas C. Engelbart died on Tuesday July 2,2013. The mouse is the physical link that connects most people to their computer. Douglas invented the Mouse in 1968. He did much of his work in an experimental research group at Stanford Research Institute.

Douglas C. Engelbart

Here is the story as reported by the New York Times.

More historical information for the serious history buffs - This is 35 video clips made from a 100 minute presentation December 9th 1968 of the mouse and much more - when you go to this site it takes you to the bottom of the site it will view better if you  scroll to the top for short clips and info - from the Engelbart Collection in Special Collections of Stanford University.

I appreciate your doing a like on my Museum Facebook page
Thank you for reading my blog - if you like info, news and stories about vintage computers please subscribe or follow by email. -   Thank You.

The inventors of much of the computer technology we use today are passing on. I hope their stories are recorded for future generations. Their are thousands of interesting people and stories about these inventors that were able to 'Think Outside The Box' and I am fortunate to have known a few of them personally.

"by David Larsen" Computer Collector / Historian

Vintage Computer Pioneer "Adam Osborne"

                                                                     - News items at bottom of post-                                                                     
Adam Osborne had many professional credits and the most visible are the "Osborne" computer and his book series. (his Biography & more ) I never new him in person but he wrote many books during the time I was working with the "Blacksburg Group". You can see by the links about his biography that he lived a very different and interesting life than most of us.

The Osborne computer had new & creative features. The computer made a really big entry into the personal computer

market for a short time. The Osborne 1 was one of the first computers to come bundled with a number of useful software packages ready to operate. The Osborne was one of the earliest  potable computers and had an optional battery pack. The price was remarkable because the software if purchased independent of the computer was more than the $1795 cost of the computer.  Lee Felsenstein designed the computer and incorporated revolutionary concepts in his work. The computer took the market by storm in 1981 and reached sales of $80 million per year. Management decisions resulted in several problems that could not be resolved and the company quickly went out of business.   One of the bad decisions was to announce the new Osborne Executive & Vixen computers early and not being able to sell the older Osborne 1 inventory. This is became known as the "Osborne Effect". The Osborne story is fascinating and you can read much more in the links provided in the blog.

 (From Wikipedia) Osborne was also a pioneer in the computer book field, founding a company in 1972 that specialized in easy-to-read computer manuals. By 1977, Osborne & Associates had 40 titles in its catalog. In 1979, it was bought by McGraw-Hill and continued as an imprint of McGraw-Hill, "Osborne/McGraw-Hill".

Bob Denton in his book "The PC Pioneers" reports that Adam Osborne produced all the supporting documentation for the Intel MCS-4 (1971). The MCS-4 is the 4004 Intel microprocessor and the 3 support integrated circuits that can be made into a  working microcomputer. This was early in Adam's writing career and it is not clear if he worked directly for Intel or as a consultant.

Bob Denton's book "The PC pioneers" is 542 pages of great reading for cyber history folks.
 

                                Video of the Osborne computer I produced in October 2010

 Adam Osborne passed away in March 2003 (3/39-3/03). His passing reminds all of us that the pioneers in the early days of microcomputers will soon all be gone. We will have only the history recorded in books and on the Internet.  It also reminds me of my age as an active computer collector/historian & makes me looks like an  old timer - 75 in November.


NEWS :
The untold story behind Apple's $13,000 operating system This story about the Apple 11 operating system is just out on the cyberpath of CNET April 3,2013. Posted by Daniel Terdiman  - be sure to look at the comments - all interesting for cyber history folks.

Vintage Computer Festival Southeast - April 20 and 21, 2013- Apple Pop-Up Museum
This story posted  on cyberpath of Arstechnica March 29,2013 by Jacqui Cheng.

 Here I am with my wife Gaynell on one of our Radio Mission visits to Dominica in the Caribbean.  We are directors of the "Foundation for Amateur International Radio Service" (FAIRS) and have been at this for 21 years with mission visits to many countries. We had a great Easter weekend and hope you enjoyed your Easter.
"by David Larsen" - Computer Collector/Historian