{"id":8826,"date":"2017-03-02T00:01:08","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T08:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=8826"},"modified":"2017-02-25T11:01:46","modified_gmt":"2017-02-25T19:01:46","slug":"a-relic-i-cannot-get-to-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=8826","title":{"rendered":"A Relic I Cannot Get to Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have quite a few antique computers laying around. Why I keep them, I don’t know, but the list grows longer. One of the beasts is the original Osborne computer, called the Osborne 1.
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\nThe computer was named after its creator and one-time computer book author, Adam Osborne. (He founded Osborne Press as well.) The Osborne had everything you needed in one, portable (later called “luggable”) package: A Z80 CPU that ran the then-popular CP\/M operating system, 64K of RAM, two 160K floppy drives, a 4-inch CRT monitor, and a keyboard, shown in Figure 1. The thing retailed for just over $2,000 and it included bundled software — a first at the time.<\/p>\n

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Figure 1. My Osborne computer: Two hulking, full-height floppy drives flanking a 4-inch CRT. Check out that keyboard, too; no Backspace key! Those were the days.<\/p><\/div>\n

What doomed the Osborne was its successor, the Osborne 2. The company announced that product too early. Sales of the Osborne 1 stopped as consumers, not being dumb, waited to buy the second generation. The company folded soon after the Osborne 2 appeared.<\/p>\n

I never owned an original Osborne, but I remember it well: I went out to buy my first computer. With $1200 in my pocket, I intended on purchasing an Apple II+, but the salesman spent all his time with an old geezer who was buying an Osborne. He basically told me to get lost, so I marched across the street and purchased a TRS-80 Model III instead.<\/p>\n

The reason I have an Osborne computer is because it was cheaper to buy the computer than to buy a photo of the computer.<\/p>\n

When I wrote the first edition of Laptops For Dummies<\/em>, I wanted a chapter on laptop history. The Osborne is part of that chronology, which was desire to go portable. Rather than pay the licensing fees for a photo of the Osborne (several thousand dollars), I turned to eBay and picked up a used unit for $100.<\/p>\n

Unlike other computers I bought for picture-taking purposes, the Osborne actually worked. It just lacked the CP\/M boot diskette, which I knew I could buy later on eBay if I wanted to.<\/p>\n

The other day I was thinking about the Osborne, specifically its diminutive 4-inch screen. I wanted to see it in action, so I pulled the machine out of the boneyard, warmed it up, and powered it on. I figured if I could at least get the boot message on the screen, it would be worth it for me to go back to eBay and pick up the CP\/M boot disk.<\/p>\n

Alas, the system didn’t start. It beeps loudly, which I believe is an error condition. The floppy drive spins, but it won’t read a diskette, so it can’t get far enough to load an OS. And the the tiny screen shows no details. The video below demonstrates.<\/p>\n