One man’s junk

Junk from the loftAmazing what you can find when you start looking. I went up into our loft to get down the old BBC computers I’d kept from ages ago, and they were in better condition than I thought they would be. I also found a computer (an HP 9000/340) I’d forgotten about completely. I still don’t quite remember why I acquired it, but I do remember when.

It’s finally time to get rid of them all. Yes, now — after they’ve been sat unused and getting dirty in the loft for seven years — that’s when I choose to get rid of them. It probably would have been easier if I’d decided not to keep them in the first place, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I don’t think they’re probably worth anything now, so I’m going to try freecycling them.

One BBC, with monitor

Some of the keys are a bit hard to work, but both the BBC Masters are in working order.

Other BBC, with monitor

This second one has the university’s PHX ROM loaded, as well as a terminal emulator. Believe it or not, I actually used this very machine to write email when I was at university. Their computer equipment has moved on since then (in fact, it already had when I was there, but this was still in use).

The other BBC

One BBC

ROMs on the other BBC

The SSMP ROM shown there is the terminal emulator, and PHX is what drove the 4800 baud connection to the Internet (I always likened it to a piece of wet string).

ROMs on the first BBC

And finally, the HP 9000/340. What is this thing? Why did I think it was something I wanted?

HP 9000/340


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2 responses to “One man’s junk”

  1. andyp avatar

    Blasts from the past!
    I’ve got a RiscPC, A3000, and another ancient HP 9000 lying around somewhere.
    Really ought to do something about them.

  2. tim avatar

    Remember “? 01”, the illicit SRAM image with Econet remoting tools in it?

    I don’t think I’ve ever had the HP 9000 running actually — it came from the university when they were upgrading to newer stuff, and I suppose it seemed too good to pass up at the time.