Hey Guys,

I'm a new ham radio operator, but I've been working with computers for
most of my life. I'm now in the process of setting-up my first 'ham
shack', and instead of going with the latest and greatest, I hope to
employee several classic computers to help me along. I have quite a
collection in my closet I plan on pulling out, but I'd like opinions of
others on what they would use in such a situation.

First, I do want to connect my radio to the computer, and many of the
technologies used by ham radio operators, like slow scan TV, packet
radio, etc, can be used on most of the classic computers in some form
or fashion. This I don't think I'll have a problem, no matter which
systemI go with.

One of the main things I do want to do is have the computer on my home
network. I don't need a web browser or even a GUI interface... the
main thing I would really need is Telnet and FTP. I also want
something with a word processor and spreadsheet program -- even
Visicalc would be nice to use.

And finally I want something fun.. which is the entire point of this
venture I know some older computers still have huge repositories of
software online, and whether it's a game or neat utility, I'd love to
setup a classic computer I can really use and have fun with while in my
'ham shack'.

Here's a list of computers I have around me now:
Tandy Color Computer 2
Tandy Color Computer 3 (128K model)
Commodore Amiga 500
Apple II (original, not PLUS)
Mac Classic

And though I don't currently own one, I'm looking at getting a
Commodore 128 as well, either from a friend of possibly from ebay.

Anyway, just curious what others would choose if you had to pick a
computer or even a couple of older computers to use again. Also if
there's any ham operators out there with experience with older systems,
I'd love some feedback!

Take care, and thanks in advance for any ideas.

Alex

"Alex" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hey Guys,

I'm a new ham radio operator, but I've been working with computers for
most of my life. I'm now in the process of setting-up my first 'ham
shack', and instead of going with the latest and greatest, I hope to
employee several classic computers to help me along. I have quite a
collection in my closet I plan on pulling out, but I'd like opinions of
others on what they would use in such a situation.

First, I do want to connect my radio to the computer, and many of the
technologies used by ham radio operators, like slow scan TV, packet
radio, etc, can be used on most of the classic computers in some form
or fashion. This I don't think I'll have a problem, no matter which
systemI go with.

One of the main things I do want to do is have the computer on my home
network. I don't need a web browser or even a GUI interface... the
main thing I would really need is Telnet and FTP. I also want
something with a word processor and spreadsheet program -- even
Visicalc would be nice to use.

And finally I want something fun.. which is the entire point of this
venture I know some older computers still have huge repositories of
software online, and whether it's a game or neat utility, I'd love to
setup a classic computer I can really use and have fun with while in my
'ham shack'.

Here's a list of computers I have around me now:
Tandy Color Computer 2
Tandy Color Computer 3 (128K model)
Commodore Amiga 500
Apple II (original, not PLUS)
Mac Classic

And though I don't currently own one, I'm looking at getting a
Commodore 128 as well, either from a friend of possibly from ebay.

Anyway, just curious what others would choose if you had to pick a
computer or even a couple of older computers to use again. Also if
there's any ham operators out there with experience with older systems,
I'd love some feedback!

Take care, and thanks in advance for any ideas.

Alex


With almost all of the ones you mention, you would probably have to buy a
Multi-Mode Controller to run any of the digital modes as several of them do
not have sound cards. In some cases, you would have to home brew a
connection cable as I believe some of them have non-standard serial ports.
Any terminal program will then suffice to run the multi-mode controller.
However, Multi-Mode Controllers are rather expensive and it might be wiser
to simply invest in a new computer with a sound card (which may very well
cost substantially less than the multi-mode controller).

Software for computers this old is almost unobtainable even via the
internet. I loved the Tandy Color Computer series (had the original, then
the 2 and finally the 3). But I got rid of them when the technology moved
substantially past them. Loading programs from floppies or cassettes just
doesn't cut it these days (no hard drive for most of these).

Dee, N8UZE

On 28 Nov 2006 07:25:10 -0800, "Alex" wrote:

Hey Guys,

I'm a new ham radio operator, but I've been working with computers for
most of my life. I'm now in the process of setting-up my first 'ham
shack', and instead of going with the latest and greatest, I hope to
employee several classic computers to help me along. I have quite a
collection in my closet I plan on pulling out, but I'd like opinions of
others on what they would use in such a situation.

First, I do want to connect my radio to the computer, and many of the
technologies used by ham radio operators, like slow scan TV, packet
radio, etc, can be used on most of the classic computers in some form
or fashion. This I don't think I'll have a problem, no matter which
systemI go with.

One of the main things I do want to do is have the computer on my home
network. I don't need a web browser or even a GUI interface... the
main thing I would really need is Telnet and FTP. I also want
something with a word processor and spreadsheet program -- even
Visicalc would be nice to use.

And finally I want something fun.. which is the entire point of this
venture I know some older computers still have huge repositories of
software online, and whether it's a game or neat utility, I'd love to
setup a classic computer I can really use and have fun with while in my
'ham shack'.

Here's a list of computers I have around me now:
Tandy Color Computer 2
Tandy Color Computer 3 (128K model)
Commodore Amiga 500
Apple II (original, not PLUS)
Mac Classic

And though I don't currently own one, I'm looking at getting a
Commodore 128 as well, either from a friend of possibly from ebay.

Anyway, just curious what others would choose if you had to pick a
computer or even a couple of older computers to use again. Also if
there's any ham operators out there with experience with older systems,
I'd love some feedback!

Take care, and thanks in advance for any ideas.

Alex

YOur best bet would be to get the ARRL CDs for QST magazine; get the
one for the 1970s and the one for the 1980s, and browse for articles
on your computers. But as the other guy said, software would be
awfully hard to find, unless you could find some old programs you
could type out yourself.

Best bet would be to simply get a cheapo more or less modern PC with a
good sound card; some of the newer digital modes are pretty amazing.

bob
k5qwg

Bob Miller wrote:
On 28 Nov 2006 07:25:10 -0800, "Alex" wrote:

Hey Guys,

I'm a new ham radio operator, but I've been working with computers for
most of my life. I'm now in the process of setting-up my first 'ham
shack', and instead of going with the latest and greatest, I hope to
employee several classic computers to help me along. I have quite a
collection in my closet I plan on pulling out, but I'd like opinions of
others on what they would use in such a situation.

First, I do want to connect my radio to the computer, and many of the
technologies used by ham radio operators, like slow scan TV, packet
radio, etc, can be used on most of the classic computers in some form
or fashion. This I don't think I'll have a problem, no matter which
systemI go with.

One of the main things I do want to do is have the computer on my home
network. I don't need a web browser or even a GUI interface... the
main thing I would really need is Telnet and FTP. I also want
something with a word processor and spreadsheet program -- even
Visicalc would be nice to use.

And finally I want something fun.. which is the entire point of this
venture I know some older computers still have huge repositories of
software online, and whether it's a game or neat utility, I'd love to
setup a classic computer I can really use and have fun with while in my
'ham shack'.

Here's a list of computers I have around me now:
Tandy Color Computer 2
Tandy Color Computer 3 (128K model)
Commodore Amiga 500
Apple II (original, not PLUS)
Mac Classic

And though I don't currently own one, I'm looking at getting a
Commodore 128 as well, either from a friend of possibly from ebay.

Anyway, just curious what others would choose if you had to pick a
computer or even a couple of older computers to use again. Also if
there's any ham operators out there with experience with older systems,
I'd love some feedback!

Take care, and thanks in advance for any ideas.

Alex

YOur best bet would be to get the ARRL CDs for QST magazine; get the
one for the 1970s and the one for the 1980s, and browse for articles
on your computers. But as the other guy said, software would be
awfully hard to find, unless you could find some old programs you
could type out yourself.

Best bet would be to simply get a cheapo more or less modern PC with a
good sound card; some of the newer digital modes are pretty amazing.

bob
k5qwg


I used to use my color computer for an Antenna rotor controller. The
joystick port took feed back from the rotator to tell which way it was
pointing and I had built a relay board that plugged into the expansion
bus. These were cool little computers to play around with and you could
find them in yard sells for nearly nothing. At one time I had 8 of them
all at once and probably went through about 15 of them. I remember
getting an alternate OS for it and running pascal. I think the oprating
system was called OS9???.
They were a blast, think I still have a couple in the attic. Also had
an Apple II+. Then someone gave me a whole bunch of Apple II clones,
must have been 15 or 20 of them. Most didnt work when I got them but I
was able to get all but 3 or 4 going. They were all fun to play with
but wouldnt be my choice for a ham shack computer. The color computer
did have one thing nice going for it though. It seemed to be fairly
tolerant of RF in the shack. I cant say this for a lot of the other
computers especially the appales.

In article .com,
"Alex" wrote:

Hey Guys,

I'm a new ham radio operator, but I've been working with computers for
most of my life. I'm now in the process of setting-up my first 'ham
shack', and instead of going with the latest and greatest, I hope to
employee several classic computers to help me along. I have quite a
collection in my closet I plan on pulling out, but I'd like opinions of
others on what they would use in such a situation.

First, I do want to connect my radio to the computer, and many of the
technologies used by ham radio operators, like slow scan TV, packet
radio, etc, can be used on most of the classic computers in some form
or fashion. This I don't think I'll have a problem, no matter which
systemI go with.

One of the main things I do want to do is have the computer on my home
network. I don't need a web browser or even a GUI interface... the
main thing I would really need is Telnet and FTP. I also want
something with a word processor and spreadsheet program -- even
Visicalc would be nice to use.

And finally I want something fun.. which is the entire point of this
venture I know some older computers still have huge repositories of
software online, and whether it's a game or neat utility, I'd love to
setup a classic computer I can really use and have fun with while in my
'ham shack'.

Here's a list of computers I have around me now:
Tandy Color Computer 2
Tandy Color Computer 3 (128K model)
Commodore Amiga 500
Apple II (original, not PLUS)
Mac Classic

And though I don't currently own one, I'm looking at getting a
Commodore 128 as well, either from a friend of possibly from ebay.

Anyway, just curious what others would choose if you had to pick a
computer or even a couple of older computers to use again. Also if
there's any ham operators out there with experience with older systems,
I'd love some feedback!

Take care, and thanks in advance for any ideas.

Alex

i didn't save any links but in the past surfing/googling at college
web sites and ftp site found lots of software for those legacy
computers because they just never deleted the stuff so it's mostly
still up there if you can google the right string or find some of
the more famous old ftp sites that slip my mind if you run 'fetch' on
the newest mac it might even be in the defaults

wrote in message
ups.com...

Bob Miller wrote:
On 28 Nov 2006 07:25:10 -0800, "Alex" wrote:

Hey Guys,

I'm a new ham radio operator, but I've been working with computers for
most of my life. I'm now in the process of setting-up my first 'ham
shack', and instead of going with the latest and greatest, I hope to
employee several classic computers to help me along. I have quite a
collection in my closet I plan on pulling out, but I'd like opinions of
others on what they would use in such a situation.

First, I do want to connect my radio to the computer, and many of the
technologies used by ham radio operators, like slow scan TV, packet
radio, etc, can be used on most of the classic computers in some form
or fashion. This I don't think I'll have a problem, no matter which
systemI go with.

One of the main things I do want to do is have the computer on my home
network. I don't need a web browser or even a GUI interface... the
main thing I would really need is Telnet and FTP. I also want
something with a word processor and spreadsheet program -- even
Visicalc would be nice to use.

And finally I want something fun.. which is the entire point of this
venture I know some older computers still have huge repositories of
software online, and whether it's a game or neat utility, I'd love to
setup a classic computer I can really use and have fun with while in my
'ham shack'.

Here's a list of computers I have around me now:
Tandy Color Computer 2
Tandy Color Computer 3 (128K model)
Commodore Amiga 500
Apple II (original, not PLUS)
Mac Classic

And though I don't currently own one, I'm looking at getting a
Commodore 128 as well, either from a friend of possibly from ebay.

Anyway, just curious what others would choose if you had to pick a
computer or even a couple of older computers to use again. Also if
there's any ham operators out there with experience with older systems,
I'd love some feedback!

Take care, and thanks in advance for any ideas.

Alex

YOur best bet would be to get the ARRL CDs for QST magazine; get the
one for the 1970s and the one for the 1980s, and browse for articles
on your computers. But as the other guy said, software would be
awfully hard to find, unless you could find some old programs you
could type out yourself.

Best bet would be to simply get a cheapo more or less modern PC with a
good sound card; some of the newer digital modes are pretty amazing.

bob
k5qwg


I used to use my color computer for an Antenna rotor controller. The
joystick port took feed back from the rotator to tell which way it was
pointing and I had built a relay board that plugged into the expansion
bus. These were cool little computers to play around with and you could
find them in yard sells for nearly nothing. At one time I had 8 of them
all at once and probably went through about 15 of them. I remember
getting an alternate OS for it and running pascal. I think the oprating
system was called OS9???.
They were a blast, think I still have a couple in the attic.

Yep. It was OS9. I had the Radio Shack Color Computers at one time and
adored them. Now they wouldn't even be able to handle the simplest things I
use a computer for.

Dee, N8UZE

On 28 Nov 2006 07:25:10 -0800, "Alex" wrote:

Hey Guys,

I'm a new ham radio operator, but I've been working with computers for
most of my life. I'm now in the process of setting-up my first 'ham
shack', and instead of going with the latest and greatest, I hope to
employee several classic computers to help me along. I have quite a
collection in my closet I plan on pulling out, but I'd like opinions of
others on what they would use in such a situation.
++++++++++
Sounds like a bad idea. Instead of "Slow Code", you will be "Slow
Baud".

"Alex" wrote in
oups.com:

Hey Guys,

I'm a new ham radio operator, but I've been working with computers for
most of my life. I'm now in the process of setting-up my first 'ham
shack', and instead of going with the latest and greatest, I hope to
employee several classic computers to help me along. I have quite a
collection in my closet I plan on pulling out, but I'd like opinions of
others on what they would use in such a situation.

First, I do want to connect my radio to the computer, and many of the
technologies used by ham radio operators, like slow scan TV, packet
radio, etc, can be used on most of the classic computers in some form
or fashion. This I don't think I'll have a problem, no matter which
systemI go with.

One of the main things I do want to do is have the computer on my home
network. I don't need a web browser or even a GUI interface... the
main thing I would really need is Telnet and FTP. I also want
something with a word processor and spreadsheet program -- even
Visicalc would be nice to use.

And finally I want something fun.. which is the entire point of this
venture I know some older computers still have huge repositories of
software online, and whether it's a game or neat utility, I'd love to
setup a classic computer I can really use and have fun with while in my
'ham shack'.

Here's a list of computers I have around me now:
Tandy Color Computer 2
Tandy Color Computer 3 (128K model)
Commodore Amiga 500
Apple II (original, not PLUS)
Mac Classic

And though I don't currently own one, I'm looking at getting a
Commodore 128 as well, either from a friend of possibly from ebay.

Anyway, just curious what others would choose if you had to pick a
computer or even a couple of older computers to use again. Also if
there's any ham operators out there with experience with older systems,
I'd love some feedback!

Take care, and thanks in advance for any ideas.

Alex


Hi Alex, You sound like a brand new no-code Tech. Welcome to ham radio.

All those computers you mentioned will work fine, but if you really want
to do any serious computer work you're going to want to invest in a Vic
20, or a TI-99, or a Commodore 64. Power users swear by'em.

SC

I second that! The VIC-20 is awesome (and easy to write machine
language programs for it). My first ham use for the VIC-20 was a CW
keyer program. I still have two VIC-20s and a C-64...

Scott
N0EDV

Slow Code wrote:

"Alex" wrote in
oups.com:


Hey Guys,

I'm a new ham radio operator, but I've been working with computers for
most of my life. I'm now in the process of setting-up my first 'ham
shack', and instead of going with the latest and greatest, I hope to
employee several classic computers to help me along. I have quite a
collection in my closet I plan on pulling out, but I'd like opinions of
others on what they would use in such a situation.

First, I do want to connect my radio to the computer, and many of the
technologies used by ham radio operators, like slow scan TV, packet
radio, etc, can be used on most of the classic computers in some form
or fashion. This I don't think I'll have a problem, no matter which
systemI go with.

One of the main things I do want to do is have the computer on my home
network. I don't need a web browser or even a GUI interface... the
main thing I would really need is Telnet and FTP. I also want
something with a word processor and spreadsheet program -- even
Visicalc would be nice to use.

And finally I want something fun.. which is the entire point of this
venture I know some older computers still have huge repositories of
software online, and whether it's a game or neat utility, I'd love to
setup a classic computer I can really use and have fun with while in my
'ham shack'.

Here's a list of computers I have around me now:
Tandy Color Computer 2
Tandy Color Computer 3 (128K model)
Commodore Amiga 500
Apple II (original, not PLUS)
Mac Classic

And though I don't currently own one, I'm looking at getting a
Commodore 128 as well, either from a friend of possibly from ebay.

Anyway, just curious what others would choose if you had to pick a
computer or even a couple of older computers to use again. Also if
there's any ham operators out there with experience with older systems,
I'd love some feedback!

Take care, and thanks in advance for any ideas.

Alex



Hi Alex, You sound like a brand new no-code Tech. Welcome to ham radio.

All those computers you mentioned will work fine, but if you really want
to do any serious computer work you're going to want to invest in a Vic
20, or a TI-99, or a Commodore 64. Power users swear by'em.

SC

What you really need is an Altair.

Dave N



Scott wrote:
I second that! The VIC-20 is awesome (and easy to write machine
language programs for it). My first ham use for the VIC-20 was a CW
keyer program. I still have two VIC-20s and a C-64...

Scott
N0EDV

Slow Code wrote:

"Alex" wrote in
oups.com:

Hey Guys,

I'm a new ham radio operator, but I've been working with computers for
most of my life. I'm now in the process of setting-up my first 'ham
shack', and instead of going with the latest and greatest, I hope to
employee several classic computers to help me along. I have quite a
collection in my closet I plan on pulling out, but I'd like opinions of
others on what they would use in such a situation.

First, I do want to connect my radio to the computer, and many of the
technologies used by ham radio operators, like slow scan TV, packet
radio, etc, can be used on most of the classic computers in some form
or fashion. This I don't think I'll have a problem, no matter which
systemI go with.

One of the main things I do want to do is have the computer on my home
network. I don't need a web browser or even a GUI interface... the
main thing I would really need is Telnet and FTP. I also want
something with a word processor and spreadsheet program -- even
Visicalc would be nice to use.

And finally I want something fun.. which is the entire point of this
venture I know some older computers still have huge repositories of
software online, and whether it's a game or neat utility, I'd love to
setup a classic computer I can really use and have fun with while in my
'ham shack'.

Here's a list of computers I have around me now:
Tandy Color Computer 2
Tandy Color Computer 3 (128K model)
Commodore Amiga 500
Apple II (original, not PLUS)
Mac Classic

And though I don't currently own one, I'm looking at getting a
Commodore 128 as well, either from a friend of possibly from ebay.

Anyway, just curious what others would choose if you had to pick a
computer or even a couple of older computers to use again. Also if
there's any ham operators out there with experience with older systems,
I'd love some feedback!

Take care, and thanks in advance for any ideas.
Alex




Hi Alex, You sound like a brand new no-code Tech. Welcome to ham radio.
All those computers you mentioned will work fine, but if you really want
to do any serious computer work you're going to want to invest in a Vic
20, or a TI-99, or a Commodore 64. Power users swear by'em.
SC