So I was thinking today ... I wonder, if you got a bunch of people who didn't use computers before, say, the 1990's ... and you asked them whether their computer has a "floating keyboard" ... how many would get the answer correct?
Sorry, wrong thread.
By the way, many people still use those things around here. It is just that most of them are located in stores where they are for rent :)
Mon Aug 26 2019 09:36:07 AM EDT from zooer @ UncensoredAnybody know what this is? I saw it at a rest stop.
It's called a COCOT
[ Contraption Of Crappy Older Times ]
Mon Feb 18 2019 13:10:15 EST from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensoredwhether their computer has a "floating keyboard" ... how many would get the answer correct?
I never heard the term “floating keyboard” before. When they were first introduced, we called them “detachable” or “detached” keyboards.
Sun Sep 08 2019 13:33:01 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar @ UncensoredOh wow ... I had one too, an ADDS VP60, which was the console for the computer that ran Uncensored from 1988 until 1990. I miss my old terminals. I had an ADDS VP60, a Zenith Z-19, an IBM 3151, and a Televideo 925. None of them survived. I still have a Wyse 150, but that's a much newer terminal, and it misses some of that old charm.
All of these old things are getting very expensive among retro-computer collectors. There is this frenzy suddenly to have old computers that a Droid 1 could emulate without breaking a sweat, and to pay boatloads of money for most of them. Retro consoles too.
I have quite a collection of old stuff, though nothing of this vintage (well... I have an Atari 2600 or two, an Atari 800, a C-128 - but no Z80 CP/M dual floppy machines with a dumb terminal).
But honestly - I do most of my nostalgia computing on an FPGA device - and it is almost bulletproof. Not emulation - but synthesis of the bare metal gate logic of the actual machines in hardware. Pretty cool stuff.
Not sure you need tons of power (car batteries and solar panels). Not sure on CP/M - is the source out there? Well, I'll be damned:
http://www.cpm.z80.de/source.html
Never mind.