A very different Magnavox Portable CD Player 1990

Simon, feel free to post any cool computers, I grew up in that era, I started with a paper dot-matrix terminal (and a box of thermal paper) logging into the university, got my hands on a CRT terminal, then a Timex/Sinclair 1000, then Apple II+. Those were the good days when everyone was making some sort of computer.

 

Nice! I love watching all of the YouTube Videos popping up with the old equipment, just like audio, they were cranking out all kinds of stuff but one of the funest parts was watching the Motorola/Intel/Cyrix/AMD chip wars and seeing how much more power you were going to get with the new releases.

Locally we used to be the Silicon Valley of the Midwest, we had Cray, Honeywell, 3M, Control Data, Hutch Tech (hard drive arms), Seagate and IBM south of the cities. I've been in most of the factories, or what's left of them, selling high-purity water pipe systems and control panels.

I run into the retired engineers once in a while and they all have crazy stories of the products they cranked out, those were amazing times. Unfortunately, as a thrift store/garage sale guy, I never run into anything really cool from back then. We had some of the first electronics scrappers up here, guys would melt down circuit boards for the precious metals. They'd have a hill of old computers sitting outside that were stagged to be thrown in the pot. I have a feeling most got melted down, never to return.