Wouter's Cra^H^H^HClassic Computer Collection

Item	Description
NANOKIT	My first computer. You've probably never heard of this -- it was produced locally, in the mid seventies I would think. I got hold of mine somewhere around 1979 -- second-hand, from Capetronics (an electronics store in Bellville).
Intel SDK-80	I got this from a friend who got it from... someone else. I had it working for a while, but somewhere along the way one of the support chips (the 8080 is not a single-chip solution) stopped supporting. I have since amassed quite a few spare chips but I have not yet resuscitated this board.
MEK6800D2. MEK6802D3 and MEK6802D5	I got the Motorola 6800 D2 evaluation kit from Jacques ZS1PL, a radio amateur who lived just around the corner. Later I bought a MEK6802D3 with peripheral boards from Capetronics (a now-defunct Bellville electronics shop), they got a whole bunch surplus from maybe UCT. And even later I inherited Barney's MEK6802D3 system. In 2024 I bought an Elenco XK-300 which is a sort-of-repurposed MEK6802D5.
Cape Computer Club 6809	The Cape Computer Club's 680x group built a 6809 based computer on Eurocards, complete with 256 k dynamic RAM, a floppy disc controller, and graphics.
Apple ][	Back in the early eighties my father knew a fellow who was involved with importing Taiwanese Apple ][ clones. We started with a Unitron Europlus clone and a tape drive but soon upgraded to two floppy drives. I still have the Unitron, and later added an Apple 2e (PAL, of course).
Sharp PC-1500	This was my workhorse when I studied engineering.
Apple Macintosh family	I had one classic Mac. Then I had five. Next time I looked there were seven with no idea where they were from. Then one went to a good home. Now I can only find three. It's a mystery.
Panasonic JB-3000	I'm not an IBM PC fan. Way too mundane. I even passed on a Sanyo ~~666~~555. The Panasonic JB-3000 is not dissimilar to the 555 BUT! It has 8" floppies!
ICL Personal Computer	This is NOT an "IBM PC", but some kind of a passive backplane machine with four serial ports and no built-in video support.
Apollo Domain Series DS3000 and DS3500
Micro Professor	I got this and the Murton 8052 system from a fellow radio amateur in 2014, after I put out an APB for old(er) computers.
Texas Instruments Touch & Tell	From one of our swapmeets, 2023. Did not work when I got it, the keyboard is stuffed.
8031 stuff	Being a hoarder, I ended up with a lot of Intel SDK-51 (803x/805x) single-board computers, including some I built myself way back when. Also, my first real job involved both the 8032 and the Dallas DS5000 secure encrypted version of it. It was a great processor for embedded work, these days one would use a PIC.
Radiofin video game	My brother bought this from Game in the late seventies / early eighties.
Burroughs TD-831 Terminal	From a friend who emigrated. Motorola 6800 based.
ITT 3451 Terminal	Via Timothy Venn.
Tandberg TDV 2200 keyboard	I figure I can make this work with one of my systems.
TV Typewriter	I got this from... (lost in the mists of time) someone. It was pre-built, presumably from the Electronics Australia February 1978 article.
Tvornica Računskih Strojeva TRS612	Found on the Ljutomer dump.
Sharp ZQ-6600	The directors at $ORKPLACE used these for a while. Since then the screens melted.
Unknown Z-80 board	(For Reference Only -- Found New Home) Picked up at the Kommetjie waste recycling centre (dump).
Bondwell 12	(For Reference Only -- Found New Home) I bought this portable CP/M machine from the Cape Ads for R350 (December 2002). The people who designed this machine should be kicked. Hard. It's impossible to remove the floppy drives without taking the whole machine, including the video monitor section, apart. The difference between the Bondwell Model 12 and Model 14 is, apparently, an extra 64K RAM (there is space on the motherboard for this) and double-sided floppies. I found that someone had taken my machine apart before, the screws holding the case to the front panel were all missing. As far as I can tell, they are all M3.5 machine screws.
Dragon	(For Reference Only -- Found New Home).
Osborne	(For Reference Only -- Found New Home) I had two of these but passed them on.

Wouter's Computer bits

NCR Core memory

I can't remember where I got this... some junk box at an electronics store, probably. I think it's from a cash register or something. One bit per ferrite bead. But, it will probably survive an EMP, so if there's something you need to store until after World War 3, this memory's for you.

The sticker on the bottom reads

N.C.R. MFG. CO. (HK) LTD.
CORE MEMORY, PLANAR

P/N 095-0008708
S/N 3962
8 May 1974

The core array is 64 x 64, i.o.w. 512 bytes. There's also one core located off to the side, (You can *just* see it on the top righthand side of the fourth picture) I don't know what its purpose is.

During a discussion on the Classic Computer mailing list, I scanned an article, Coincident Current Ferrite Core Memories, from the July 1976 BYTE magazine. A while after that, Jim Jones, the author, contacted me. Read more about it here.

You can also download the complete July 1976 BYTE from http://malus.exotica.org.uk/~buzz/byte/pdf/.

A good description of core memory by Brent Hilpert.

The Casio AL-1000 uses core.

The Core Memory.