I work for my school''s IT department and recently found one of these tucked away in a closet covered in decades of dust. The school decided to junk the thing but after cutting through miles of red tape and talking with an administrator that I had impressed in the past I managed to save it. I am happy to say that it is in perfect working order, is in beautiful condition, and won''t be going anywhere near a junkyard for a very very long time.

My first job out of college in 1981 was in the Environmental Hygiene Laboratory at Olin Corporation in New Haven, CT. We had an HP data acquisition system connected to a Teletype terminal. The HP system needed to be booted up using a key, input switches and a series of three paper table rolls. This system did the data integration for up to four of our Gas Chromatographs (all HP 5710A''s). In 1984, my boss purchased a Varian Vista 402 to replace the HP system. He wanted a computer for the laboratory but could not get it justified. Varian was smart - they had a "Vista Plus" package to go along with the Vista 402 Data Acquisition system. The Vista Pus package was an Apple IIe computer with dual floppy drives and a serial cable to connect the DA system to the IIe. It also came with a small assembly language program to transfer the data from each channel (up to four - one for each GC) to the IIe when it completed it analysis on each sample. I wrote a program to display the data for all four channels (needed the 80 column graphics card). In then enhanced the program to store the data, perform all of the calculations (blank subtraction and spike correction) that we used to do by hand and then write a nice neat report listing each sample analyzed and the concentrations of up to 15 components in each sample. My boss loved what I had done. No more errors by doing hand calculations and then the secretaries typing our results into the Xerox word processor as a neat report to send to the Industrial Hygenists!

Oh wow. This was probably my favorite computer to ever program on. I learned on an Apple $$ first and foremost. Then, we upgraded to the Apple //e with the extensible 80-column card in it. Added another 128K RAM board, and then eventually a Z-80 card so I could run CP/M. I used the Oraca macro assembler as well as the Aztec C environment where I first learned C as well as what a Unix-like environment was like. This is where my geekdom started, all self-taught (Apple Integer Basic, Applesoft Basic, machine language, assembler, Pascal and then C). Miss those days.