Last Tube TVs?

[VintagePC]

Originally Posted by Jon A.

Makes me think of the Apple IIe, which stayed in production from January 1983 to December 1993 with some revisions (the biggest one in '87) in spite of Jobs' attempts to kill off the line. These computers were in my 4th-6th grade classrooms and were aging even then. They remained in the elementary wing at least until I finished junior high. Funny how technology progressed so slowly even back then. I'm certainly not complaining about that though.

Heh... I remember that back in the mid-90s. Was always a race to see who got the one with the colour monitor and to pick the best games from the bookshelves full of floppies.

Was also exciting when we were occasionally allowed to use the other computer lab with the powermacs...

[user181]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

I don't think, there's any set that stayed in production as long as the Porta-color. It seems like 11 or 12 years running, with minor revisions. OF course, the last models came out with the high voltage focus CRT.
I tried doing a little research, regarding these sets. It seems like the first set was a HB chassis, which was a 1966 model set. That one uses a 11SP22.
I really don't think, they built them after early 1977.

Do you know what the lineage is for all the PortaColor chassis numbers? I know of the HB, H4, and HE chassis. Is that the right order, and are there more?

Is there a known lineage of the model numbers too?

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by user181

Do you know what the lineage is for all the PortaColor chassis numbers? I know of the HB, H4, and HE chassis. Is that the right order, and are there more?

Is there a known lineage of the model numbers too?

I'll try to research Sam's listings again!
IIRC, there's three Sam's folders available for the entire run of Porta-Colors.
Yours is a good question! The last production is the 10HE, covered in Sam's folder #1384-1, dated 3/84.
The information is slightly different, than the models I have. Not by much.
At least, most of the tubes can be bought very reasonable, as they're all dogs that don't have much demand.

[YamahaFreak]

While we're on the subject of long-lived production, I recall the ALCo RS1 diesel locomotive, which had the longest production run of any diesel - 1941 to 1960! They were very well-made and every railroad had them at one time.

[dr.ido]

Originally Posted by VintagePC

Heh... I remember that back in the mid-90s. Was always a race to see who got the one with the colour monitor and to pick the best games from the bookshelves full of floppies.

Was also exciting when we were occasionally allowed to use the other computer lab with the powermacs...

My highschool still had the ][es in use until around 95 or so. Only one had a color monitor, it was also the only one with a 3.5" floppy drive - I used to use the excuse that my "work" was on 3.5" so I had to have that machine. Towards the end most people were more interested in the Macs next door, so I could camp out on "my" machine as long as I liked. They were on a Digicard network. Each user was allocated a massive 32kb of space. I managed to fit a space invaders clone in my user directory, but most games wouldn't run under the network even if they were small enough. We carried our own stash of games floppies.

When I heard a couple of years after I left that they had replaced the ][es and Macs with PCs I tried to buy the old Digicard server, but I was too late. I knew the kid a couple of years under me that bought "my" machine - lost contact with him, sometimes wonder if he still has it.

The other highschool I had attended was once several seperate schools that combined and as such was a mismash of XT PCs, Mac Pluses, C64s, BBC Micros, a few Apple ][es, and even a few VIC-20s and Microbees.

[VintagePC]

Originally Posted by dr.ido

My highschool still had the ][es in use until around 95 or so. Only one had a color monitor, it was also the only one with a 3.5" floppy drive - I used to use the excuse that my "work" was on 3.5" so I had to have that machine. Towards the end most people were more interested in the Macs next door, so I could camp out on "my" machine as long as I liked. They were on a Digicard network. Each user was allocated a massive 32kb of space. I managed to fit a space invaders clone in my user directory, but most games wouldn't run under the network even if they were small enough. We carried our own stash of games floppies.

When I heard a couple of years after I left that they had replaced the ][es and Macs with PCs I tried to buy the old Digicard server, but I was too late. I knew the kid a couple of years under me that bought "my" machine - lost contact with him, sometimes wonder if he still has it.

The other highschool I had attended was once several seperate schools that combined and as such was a mismash of XT PCs, Mac Pluses, C64s, BBC Micros, a few Apple ][es, and even a few VIC-20s and Microbees.

Up until the mid-00s the primary wing of the local elementary school still had 3 C64s. I was involved in the replacement of one of them (rolling out some PCs to every classroom instead of just the labs), so naturally I took it home... it became friends with my Commodore PC10 and generic 8088 clone... and thus my online moniker was born

It is funny because over the years I've occasionally found more 8-bit XT hardware in unlikely places and the PC10 is now tripped out with audio, a CDROM drive, two 20MB ST-512 drives, and I do have an ethernet card I have yet to get around installing...

[KentTeffeteller]

1977-1978 seems to be the last of the Porta-Color production. Which seems to be the last tube color TV made in the USA.

[dr.ido]

Originally Posted by VintagePC

It is funny because over the years I've occasionally found more 8-bit XT hardware in unlikely places and the PC10 is now tripped out with audio, a CDROM drive, two 20MB ST-512 drives, and I do have an ethernet card I have yet to get around installing...

Should probably move this to off-topic if it keeps going, but as pimping XTs goes...

One of my XTs used to run a Seagate ST-02 SCSI controller and an 80MB ST-296N SCSI hard disk. Still made the cool stepper noises, but it was at least a bit faster. I'd did have an XT ATA card around somewhere that would at least in theory run CF cards, but I never did get it running.

Another ran an Intel Inboard/386. This was a card that run a 386DX-16 on the original 5160 motherboard. Same machine had a 15" Wyse WY-700 1280x800 monitor with matching video card. At the time I never did find anything that supported that cards hi-res graphics modes, but it's hi-res text modes were the best looking DOS text display I've ever seen. Unfortunately that monitor died and I couldn't repair it at the time.

[Sandy G]

I remember making a special trip to Knoxville w/a buddy who had like $3500 & bought him a then-new 386 machine... This was sometime in the mid-80s. Think it had something called a SUPER VGA monitor.. it was the absolute LAST WORD in computer technology then... Now, any 10-yr-pld kid's Smartphone can do more than that 386 machine ever THOUGHT of being able to do..

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

buddy who had like $3500 & bought him a then-new 386 machine... This was sometime in the mid-80s. Think it had something called a SUPER VGA monitor..

A friend of mine was buying a machine like that, and his was to have a HUGE 120 meg hard drive. The year was 1991 or so. He mail ordered it, it arrived destroyed by united parcel smashers. Then it was a nightmare for him getting that mess cleared up, as around $5K was at stake...

[lnx64]

I still got my first.

640K RAM (from 512K stock), NEC V30 (from 8086 stock)... Monochrome CRT. I did actually put together a 8-bit IDE card for it, that allowed me to use a 2GB solid state drive from it's original 20MB hard drive). Oh, and it DOES have ethernet, as a later upgrade. Goes on IRC and can run as an FTP server.

https://scontent-b-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/...14495308_o.jpg

[dr.ido]

Originally Posted by lnx64

I still got my first.
640K RAM (from 512K stock), NEC V30 (from 8086 stock)... Monochrome CRT. I did actually put together a 8-bit IDE card for it, that allowed me to use a 2GB solid state drive from it's original 20MB hard drive). Oh, and it DOES have ethernet, as a later upgrade. Goes on IRC and can run as an FTP server.

Before I clicked the link I was thinking an upgraded Amstrad PC1512. A PS/2 model 25 - cool. Never seen one in the flesh over here, not sure if they were sold here. I did have model 30s (both 8086 and 286), PS/1 and PC JX (a version of the PCjr). Which IDE card do you have? I had a couple, but I could never get them working - I think they were intended for specific drives.

[lnx64]

Originally Posted by dr.ido

Before I clicked the link I was thinking an upgraded Amstrad PC1512. A PS/2 model 25 - cool. Never seen one in the flesh over here, not sure if they were sold here. I did have model 30s (both 8086 and 286), PS/1 and PC JX (a version of the PCjr). Which IDE card do you have? I had a couple, but I could never get them working - I think they were intended for specific drives.

The IDE card is the XT-IDE rev 2. It's a homebrew card with a homebrew BIOS, and I received it as just the bare PCB and constructed the entire card myself.

[dr.ido]

Cool, just googled it. Looks like with some effort it could be made to work in all kinds of PC based machines. I'll already thinking about my Toshiba T1000, T1100 and T2100 (original XT version, not the later 486 laptop that reused the model number), though I've got to get them running before I think about upgrades. I've ordered a kit.

[VintagePC]

Originally Posted by dr.ido

Cool, just googled it. Looks like with some effort it could be made to work in all kinds of PC based machines. I'll already thinking about my Toshiba T1000, T1100 and T2100 (original XT version, not the later 486 laptop that reused the model number), though I've got to get them running before I think about upgrades. I've ordered a kit.

Might be a challenge to get access to the expansion bus to build in the electronics for that... I don't think those had standard I/O ports.

FYI if the problem with those is simply that they no longer turn on... they have a quirk (at least, the 1100+ does, which I was fortunate enough to borrow and explore) in that the battery packs are 4-pin connectors and the presence of the pack is what shorts the input leads from the charger to the power input of the computer (no fancy sense logic there...). If the pack is flat or short it can draw enough power for the system to fail to boot (the power adapter can barely provide enough current to support the machine running). If there is no pack, your system won't boot at all.

To get them running from just a wall-brick you need to therefore have a battery pack minus the batteries, but with the internal wiring intact. I have notes on this somewhere, shoot me a PM if you require more details. I also have disk images of the original 720K Toshiba DOS 3.3 which came with some of the system control utilities for things like display and speed

http://vintagepc.co.nr/site/index.ph...mputers/t1100/ has some pictures, one of which shows the scavenged wiring harness from a battery pack.