A friend of mine contacted me recently to ask if I had an IBM AT PC or clone in my computer collection. Of course I didn't! He needed it for an unusual instrumented sensor project he was working on. Why it had to be an IBM AT I don't know?

Anyway, I suggested he check on eBay as there must be 1000's available for sale at very low prices since million's of "AT" PC's were sold between 1984 & 1990. Now here's the surprising bit, when I checked on eBay there were no AT's listed for sale? I wonder where they have all gone.

TrevorD

Last edited by TrevorDick on 04-Mar-2010 at 09:17 PM.

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@TrevorDick

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Where have all the IBM AT & clones gone?

Silicon heaven.

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Sam

@-Sam-

, I was waiting for someone to say doorstops.

TrevorD

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@TrevorDick

There's almost no nostalgia value in AT, there's some in Amiga or Atari. AT/XT where office computers mostly, it's 386 that went into people's homes. Because there's no interest in AT computers people just don't post them on eBay and just trash them.

I've found one (there may be some more, I don't care that much) on our auction site:

http://allegro.pl/item941758311_rarytas_headstart_turbo_286.html

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@TrevorDick

Which makes one think everyone should have purchased an Atari or Amiga back in the day. Just think about it. Back then, an Atari or Amiga would have been cheaper to buy. They were stellar in what they could do. Then, when these platforms were left behind, everyone could have kept them store in closets for the next 10 to 15 years and purchased some PC that had to be used for work purposes. Then 15 years after having then in the closet, they could easily sell them today for a nice little profit. Just look at some prices people get for used computers of the Atari and Amiga land these days.

So, in the end, the Atari or Amiga gives the user the absolute best value and great resale value in the end.

Like the energizer bunny.... they keep going and going and going.

Amazing how well the old systems were made also in those days.
tj

@TrevorDick

I still have one. My wife needs to run msdos for her older embroidery sewing machine.
And that's all it does. For some reason the dos versions higher than 5 just don't work.
Also, as I discovered the hard way twice, if you backup data in one version then install
a newer version the SOB won't read the backup. Typical.

@TrevorDick

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I was waiting for someone to say doorstops.

That's true. Why would a PC end up in heaven? Honestly - I blame the caffine for making me think and say odd things.

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Sam

@TrevorDick

We used to see lots of them on the footpaths around where we live. And every one of them had burnt DC power connectors. I collected PSUs for a while, nothing else was of any value.

I think they all ended up in council tips.

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@TrevorDick
..back to 1987 ..damn I still have my first PC in my basement..a whopping 20Mhz 286 with original 40MB Hard Drive

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People don't keep the old machines around because there is no point, the platform didn't die.

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@klx300r

Same here, I have my first PC (386 DX) down in the basement for nostalgic purposes

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You people need help

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@-Sam-

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Silicon heaven.

You mean silicon hell i hope?

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@TrevorDick

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TrevorDick wrote: A friend of mine contacted me recently to ask if I had an IBM AT PC or clone in my computer collection. Of course I didn't! He needed it for an unusual instrumented sensor project he was working on. Why it had to be an IBM AT I don't know? TrevorD

I suspect it has something to do with the bus timing those machines had - the ISA bus was synchronised with the CPU speed, and was really part of hte CPU's bus, so you could literally poke ISA lines on and off exactly how your custom hardware required. It was so easy to build ISA hardware - though you needed to be brave connecting your newly soldered circuit directly to an ISA slot!

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@TrevorDick

There is this one for sale: Ebay Link

But I havent seen one in the flesh for aaaages

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@BinoX

Thanks,

I spotted that today. Local pick-up only. Unfortunately, my friend lives in Aberdeen.

TrevorD

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Well, most of them are gone. The early IBM XT/AT were used as office computers, and they are gone. For gamers that computers were completely unintersting. That leaves it to people like my father, who bought a PC in the 1980s, because he was told that an Amiga is only a "toy", and at their company they used PCs, so that is the "standard". (I wonder why people like my father would buy a normal car like a "Ford Focus" instead of a lorry, if the lorry is industrial standard...)
On the other hand: If people like my father decide to upgrade to a more recent computer (that can take some time, my father is retired since many years, not knowing what they are currently using at his work), you will get a computer in excellent condition.

@TrevorDick
Quote:

A friend of mine contacted me recently to ask if I had an IBM AT PC or clone in my computer collection. Of course I didn't! He needed it for an unusual instrumented sensor project he was working on. Why it had to be an IBM AT I don't know?

IBM AT was IMR from 80268 to 80368 after or during 80368 they changed the technologie to IBM PS/2 ... it depends on what your friend 'reall' needs, mostold cards needs a AT-ISA Bus card for work and some needed it with 8MHz and 1 Waitstate ( orig. IBM Timing ) So any old PC with a ISA bua ( there where also som Pentium PC with ISA Bus ) might work.

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I borrowed this comments from here (#27 & #28):
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=38873&forum=2&start=20&order=0

@TrevorDick

IBM AT was "true" 16bit machine, perhaps he has some SW bit that require that. Or some SW that works correctly only with some exact CPU MHz.

A friend of mine used A1200 years for PIC programming (home & @ work), because the equivalent PC SW did not work on x86 machines beyond 386sx (or something like that).


btw. Surely xena could do all the needed adaptation to the instrumented sensor project...

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@KimmoK

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Surely xena could do all the needed adaptation to the instrumented sensor project..

TrevorD

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No, I don't need no reason, I'm just breezin'