Viewer Mail Worth Its Weight In Gold!!!

Holy cow, those alphanumeric tubes are stunning. And that Sinclair was a blast from the past, for sure. And those tools -- oh my, can't ever have enough. It's like a dozen unboxing videos in one!

Peter Knazko

Oh man, that Timex/Sinclair 1000! My first computer, at age 10, in 1982. I learned BASIC on one of those!

Circuitmike

WOW! You certainly have some great stuff there, look forward to seeing them in future projects, you have some very generous "physical" donators too.

Dr Andy Hill

Awesome :) At least you can now cut back on the number of boxes laying around!

veritanuda

if you use all Fran... the electric bill would shoot high in just one our... but you*re all worth it :-)

NorSob

Wow!!!! Freaking amazing

Simon Deards VK3FSPD

I foresee some exiting videos ahead.

David Peaker

Christmas comes but once a year- except in The Franlab!! Wonderful gifts!! ... and the delight in your voice is superb to hear!

Mike Hughes

Speaking of Techmoan...he just did a video about a nixie-style 6-digit clock where each of the digits is a separate little color IPS panel. The individual digits are defined by a .BMP file that gets uploaded to the clock. As soon as I saw it I thought about how AMAZING this clock would be with digits from some of your vintage displays. If you ever made the time to photograph them, I'd pay actual money for a set!

Andy Ihnatko

WOW fantastic!! In how much time you have collected all this stuff? I ask because i have the same segment too my channel.

MVVblog

Happy as my BIL with a new collection of piano rolls.

Dan Swinehart

Wow! I still have that Sony Air Band radio sitting on my kitchen counter. A relic from the 80s that still works wonderfully. I use it when the power goes out to find out what's going on. It really looks kind of modern even today. You have enough of those alpha-numeric Nixie tubes to create a long line with something like stock numbers scrolling from one side to the other. I remember the Sinclair computers from the early 80s. I had a Z-80 based NEC PC-8000 series computer with a massive 64K of RAM on it. I donated that computer, still working 40 years later, to a computer museum that had never heard of the system before. It used one of the first RGB color monitors that cost a fortune for a whopping 8 colors. It was replaced in 1983 by an NEC-PC8801 which was backwards compatible with the PC-8000 series, but was also Z-80 based. It had the greatest graphics of any computer at the time and blew the doors off the Apple IIs everyone bought. Even the IBM 1st generation PC with a graphics card (Computer Graphics Adapter - CGA) was no match for the old NEC. That 1983 computer is STILL operational and somehow still serves as a great test bed for digital interface development. I have no idea how those ancient NEC computers remained operational after all these decades. Even the 5" floppy disks still read and write. Personal Computers in the early 80s were terribly expensive and not "throw away" electronics like the computers today. They were designed to last. Sometimes at the company junk shop I find the very 1st generation of IBM PCs (Model 5150?) that were used in clean rooms all their lives. It's like time travel to see a 40 year old computer that has not discolored, uses a tactile feedback keyboard (to simulate the feel of an IBM Selectric II) and not one spec of dust is on it. Boy, it's fun to see you go through all this old stuff! I love the donations like the power cord squeezer! Your fan base really knows just the right stuff to send you! See, we ARE paying attention! :-)

Matt Wietlispach

The only answer is a Rockwell AIM-65 with a 7971 display. The interface shouldn't be that hard since the AIM-65 used the same format, just in very little LEDs.

Fran, you have some very generous views. It says a lot about what you mean to your views. I'm sure you will find good use for all those Burroughs displays. A digital clock project would be one obvious choice. How about a line voltage monitor display or an audio level display for your stereo? Whatever the project, I'll bet you will have fun building it and we will have fun watching you building it.

David Blake

This channel never ceases to amaze me!

Carol K Stouffer

Gobsmacked indeed! What an amazing haul! Can't wait for your record setting Nixie Tube display video! ;)

kevin_p0