

Ten beautiful computers - pmjordan
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/05/14/beauties.html

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mmc
I loved some of these - that Cray "Bubbles" picture is classic, and even
though I never saw a ZX Spectrum, the color scheme is awesome 80's. Some are a
miss, though - the CPC 464?

If I were making a list, I'd add the Connection Machine CM-2:
[http://www.digibarn.com/collections/parts/connection-
machine...](http://www.digibarn.com/collections/parts/connection-machine-
chip/cm2-500.jpg) Now that's what a supercomputer should look like, not all
these boring racks of commodity systems we get nowadays.

There should also be something from SGI - a bunch of pics are here:
<http://www.geocities.com/sgipics/>

I'd also add the Tera MTA, a supercomputer system I'd bet few people have
seen: <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6270/su-tera.jpg>

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jzachary
I'm surprised they omitted the NeXT Cube, the original Macintosh, Silicon
Graphics Indigo, and the Be Box. Oh well, beauty is in the eye of the
beholder.

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axod
I remember lusting over a Sam Coupe as a cool upgrade to our Spectrums as a
kid. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SAM_Coupé.jpg>

Also some of the Amstrad machines were quite beautiful in their ugliness
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amstrad_PPC512_open.jpg>

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arketyp
Without getting into computer nostalgia, I'd like to mention the Amiga 600.
Although I can't say I ever gave much thought to the looks of it as a kid, I
think it would still look great on my desktop today.

<http://www.amigau.com/aig/a600.jpg>

~~~
Keyframe
ugh, I remember how we used to mock 600 - mostly because of the specs, but it
was kind of ugly too. 1200 on the other hand had the specs and the looks out
of all amigas.

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Luc
Nice... but to me there's nothing like the stark retro-futurism of the
Commodore 8032-SK:
[http://www.1000bit.it/lista/c/commodore/8032sk/8032sk_mio2.j...](http://www.1000bit.it/lista/c/commodore/8032sk/8032sk_mio2.jpg)

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cedsav
My dad's first computer was a DAI. So rare that I never heard anyone else
mention it. It still looks good though.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DAI_Personal_Computer.jpg>

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samlittlewood
Wow - we had once of those at school - 2mhz 8080 w 48k. ISTR it had some
interesting bugs in the BASIC interpreter that would trigger a stack overflow.
The first clue was the screen RAM filling with the runaway stack - on it's way
to overwrite the as yet unsaved program.

It did a very good job of highlighting just how good the newly released BBC
micros were that displaced it.

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cedsav
ah! According to the Wikipedia page, the BASIC interpreter was written from
scratch and quite rapidly. It was apparently much faster than the contemporary
MS Basic. Wouldn't be surprising if it was buggy, although my dad did a lot of
programming on it and without to much trouble as far I remember.

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Hexstream
This made me laugh:

"D-Wave Systems of British Columbia announced a prototype _quantum computer_
in January, 2007. _It can play Sudoku_."

Woohoo!

~~~
sp332
Yeah, but it can play _every game of Sudoku ever_ \- all at the same time!!!!

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abstractbill
Nice, I have a ZX80 and a 48k Spectrum (as well as a ZX81) on my bookcase.
They are as nice to look at as they were to play with.

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dhughes
Not a computer system but a Holographic Modulator looks pretty nice:
<http://bayimg.com/CaPEMAAbL>

