Retrocomputing at City Tech: Vintage Computers Organized on New Shelves

My Retrocomputing Office Space
My Retrocomputing Office Space

Thanks to City Tech’s Stanley Kaplan, I now have a substantial new collection of early personal computers including IBM PCs, Radio Shack TRS-80s, a Commodore PET, Texas Instruments TI-99s, ATARI 800, and a number of other computers and peripherals in my office in Namm 520. Some of the smaller items are locked in my filing cabinet, but as you can see from the photos included in this post, I have the larger items arranged around my desk and on a new set of Edsal steel shelves that I purchased on Amazon.com. Now, I have to make some additional room for a large, removable magnetic disk from a TRIAD Computer System (c. late-1970s~early-1980s, the drive that reads this disk was about the size of a washing machine) and an Apple Macintosh Centris 650, which I shipped to myself from Brunswick when I recently visited my parents. In the coming months, I will catalog these machines, see what works, and plan how to use them (research, pedagogy, and exhibits). If you have older computers, disks, or user manuals and would like to donate them for use in my research and teaching, please drop me a line at dynamicsubspace at gmail dot com.

IMG_0337
Radio Shack Color Computer 3s, Zenith Data System, Odyssey, TRS-80, and PET Printer.
IMG_0338
TRS-80, Texas Instruments TI-99s, and Toshiba Laptop.
IMG_0339
Victor Computer and TRS-80.
IMG_0340
Commodore 64s, TRS-80, and Various Floppy Disk Drives.
IMG_0341
IBM PC, IBM PCxt, Kaypro, and AT&T Desktop.
IMG_0342
ATARI 800 and Compaq Portable PC sans case.
IMG_0343
Pentium 233 MHz PC, i7 PC, i7 Dell (office standard issue), and Commodore PET.

Published by Jason W. Ellis

I am an Associate Professor of English at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY whose teaching includes composition and technical communication, and research focuses on science fiction, neuroscience, and digital technology. Also, I coordinate the City Tech Science Fiction Collection, which holds more than 600 linear feet of magazines, anthologies, novels, and research publications.