

Xerox Alto for sale on eBay - rbanffy
http://cgi.ebay.com/Xerox-Alto-Vintage-Computer-Ultra-Rare-system-complete_W0QQitemZ320602942545QQcategoryZ4193QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp4340.m8QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DMW%26its%3DC%26itu%3DUCC%26otn%3D5%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D4944756747746538267

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angusgr
In case people don't actually realise how historically significant these
computers were, Xerox PARC invented most of the common UI abstractions that we
take for granted today:
<http://www.digibarn.com/collections/software/alto/index.html>

(Although it looks like the common "desktop layout" screenshots that I'd
always associated with the Alto are actually the SmallTalk environment running
on the Alto.)

~~~
masklinn
Yep, the Smalltalk machines (and the Lisp machines as well, in some ways) are
perfect examples of three things:

0\. It is perfectly possible to be 20 or 30 years too early

1\. Some corporations just suck at understanding the value of what they
already own

2\. Price matters

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kabdib
We had some of these at the National Bureau of Standards, where I interned.
Someone had to give up an office, for the laser printer.

There were some games on the disks we got from PARC, among them a BreakOut
clone written in SmallTalk. You could break into the SM interpreter, get a
listener, and start hacking away. I think the BYTE issue on Smalltalk had just
come out; we were Very Happy until the Altos went away.

I still have my RK05 disk pack. Nothing to mount it on now except a wall. :-/

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noonespecial
I had a working Xerox 860 in my parents attic when I was in high school. The
one with the weird round touchpad on the keyboard.

The school I went to got it as a donation and didn't know what to do with it
so I adopted it.

I finally got rid of it when multiple 'experts' that I knew convinced me that
it was completely worthless. For a long time, its giant wheeled case housed my
dual pentium pro motherboard that was too big to fit into a standard ATX case.

Regrets.

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cpr
I remember using the Altos at PARC during a visit in '73 or so, then using the
MIT-LCS pool (actually not that busy) during the late '70s.

The Lisp Machines we had in the EECS computing pool (which I was managing
along with our own DECsystem-20) were much cooler even then so the Altos never
caught my fancy... :-)

(Edit: expanded slightly.)

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swah
I'd pay just to see it booting. Some university should take this...

~~~
rbanffy
They could transcribe it to VHDL so it could be burned to an FPGA.

I would love a desktop Alto to play with.

~~~
glhaynes
I would _love_ to boot a software Alto emulator. (With its OS, Smalltalk
environment, etc.)

~~~
rbanffy
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1803001>

Maybe this helps.

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bcardarella
If there isn't already one in a museum then this should go there.

~~~
wyclif
I'd love to see someone win this auction and donate it to the Computer History
Museum, does anyone know if they have one already?
<http://www.computerhistory.org/>

~~~
meatsock
all we need is the opposite of ebay, people teaming their money to acquire
something for the commons, so that all these expensive historical products
noone in their right mind would buy wind up in the same place that we can send
schoolkids to as punishment.

~~~
rbanffy
<http://www.kickstarter.com/> but we have to be quick.

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rbanffy
There is an emulator. I have some limited success with it (it compiled and
lights flashed), but couldn't go further.

Maybe some fellow hacker here gets further

<http://altogether.brouhaha.com/>

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avdempsey
Looks like it just went for 30 grand.

~~~
rbanffy
I hope it will be a loving home ;-)

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adlep
I wonder why they have not been successful.Had this brand taken off, the mass
Internet may have started 5~10 years earlier.

~~~
rbanffy
> I wonder why they have not been successful

The Altos were not official, supported products, but R&D projects and
prototypes. I heard several were given away. The "real" products were the Star
series.

Those didn't succeed because they were far too expensive. As were the Altos,
BTW. A working system could easily run into the US$ 100K range, with
workstation and printer.

A couple years later, Apple made the same mistake with the Lisa, pricing it
over US$ 10K. They only got something with the US$ 2K-range Macintoshes. And
those really caught on when Apple launched their laser printer.

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jonhendry
I think I'd rather have a Pixar Image Computer.

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meatsock
so is anyone here willing to admit to spending 30K on a hood ornament? =)

