[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Ryan de Laplante via cctalk]

There is an IBM 5100 on eBay right now:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/314137209812 

In 2018 I saw a BASIC model sell for $2500.  I’ve seen a working APL model sell 
for $6150 in 2021.   


I’ve been keeping track of Lisa 1 sales on eBay for some years.  I take a 
screenshot of the finished auction and also save all of the photos.  They sell 
for a lot, and I wonder if  they will one day be priced like Apple 1 computers? 
 I remember when Apple 1 computers were going for $10K - $20K, and now they go 
for the price of a house. 

Twiggy drives only:

Mar 14, 2017 : $32,100.52

Face plate only : 

Mar 14, 2017 : $4,602

Complete Lisa 1 system:

Apr 25, 2017 : $99,500
May 11, 2017 : $55,300
Jan 14, 208 : $56,100
Mar 25, 2018 : $55,300
Nov 11, 2018 : $65,000 (did not sell, later marked as “no longer available”)
Sep 7, 2019 : $43,900


obsol33t



> On Sep 3, 2022, at 7:16 PM, Sellam Abraham via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> I think there's a rather large disparity in value between the two systems.
> I'm not sure what an IBM 5100 would go for these days, but a Lisa 1 will
> generally sell in the $10K+ range minimum these days.
> 
> I had two Lisa's with Twiggy drives: one I sold for $9,600, and the other
> for $14,500.  That was over 8 years ago.
> 
> Sellam
> 
> On Sat, Sep 3, 2022 at 4:12 PM steven stengel via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
>> This seems like a good place to ask this question - I'd like an Apple Lisa
>> 1 "twiggy" system for my collection, and can trade a working IBM 5100
>> Portable PC. We'd probably have to meet in person to make the transaction.
>> I'm in So CA.
>> Thanks-
>> Steven Stengel
>> http://oldcomputers.net
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 5 Sep 2022, jim stephens wrote:

The unit I have is IBM.


There was no floppy drive unit from IBM for the IBM 5100.
Or do you have a model number?


It only did single sided diskettes, low density.  It's the only device which


The IBM 5114 handles single and double sided diskettes, as well as FM and 
MFM, so up to over 1 MB per floppy.


I've ever had which could write deleted sectors.  The formatting on the 
diskette is very similar to the tape formatting with two EOT records followed 
by the remainder of track 0 padded out with deleted sectors.


??
Now I'm curious. What floppy drive system exactly are you talking about?

Christian

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 5 Sep 2022, jim stephens wrote:

the 5100 has an external connector.  The floppy drive is a floor unit about


Yes, three Sub-D connectors. Two for the signals, one for power.


the size of three AT units upright, with two single density floppies in it. 


And that floppy drive (if you are thinking of the IBM 5114) does *not* 
work on the 5100. The 5100 simply has not the "driver" for it.

Is it possible that you are thinking of the IBM 5110 ?

And there was another connector on the back of the unit to daisy chain the 
printer.  This is the 5100 desktop unit.


You could only attach up to three IBM 5106 external tape drives and one 
5103 printer at the end of the chain. There wasn't anything else AFAIK.



I've got one of the units with the integrated 8" floppies as well.


That is the IBM 5120 aka IBM 5110 model 3.

Christian

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 5 Sep 2022, Tom Stepleton wrote:

Or at least there as something that was sold in this way. Here is its
brochure:

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/sykes/brochures/Sykes_Comm-Stor_5100_Brochure.pdf


Interesting!


(What is an IMF?)


IMF = internal machine fix
The 5100/5110 had a mechanism to load resident binary routines into memory 
in order to patch ROS (=ROM) routines or to add a driver (e.g. the 
Plot feature). Basically, you load a program that then relocates the 
resident part to the end of free memory, patches some entry points in RWS 
(=RAM) and adjusts the end-of-memory value.


Christian

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 9/5/22 11:07, Tom Stepleton via cctalk wrote:

Are you sure about that? The 5100 doesn't support floppy drives. And

I've

never heard of third-party drives (that would need IMFs, too) for the

5100.

$3100 is about what IBM charged for a fully loaded 5150. (PC)
THAT is not a 5100!   $3100 for a 5100 would have been a bargain.

We are neither talking about the 5150, nor about $3100 but $31,000 for a
5100 (see above). Or did I miss something?


There was a third-party floppy drive for the IBM 5100 :-)

Or at least there as something that was sold in this way. Here is its
brochure:

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/sykes/brochures/Sykes_Comm-Stor_5100_Brochure.pdf

Note that it "plugs directly into the Serial I/O Adapter of the IBM 5100
with no hardware or software changes". So it's a serial-port connected
floppy drive that talks to the 5100 in a format that it likes.

(What is an IMF?)

--Tom

The unit I have is IBM.

It only did single sided diskettes, low density.  It's the only device 
which I've ever had which could write deleted sectors.  The formatting 
on the diskette is very similar to the tape formatting with two EOT 
records followed by the remainder of track 0 padded out with deleted 
sectors.


My Tarbell controller would read the two records and returned errors for 
the remaining sectors.  That's how I discovered that deleted sectors 
existed.


Sykes made much more robust devices, and I'm not familiar with the unit 
for the 5100.  But I'd not be surprised if it wrote and read many more 
formats.


Thanks
Jim


thanks
jim

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 9/5/22 08:53, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote:

On Mon, 5 Sep 2022, Fred Cisin wrote:

Well, it ain't in the 5150/5160 range!
The 5100 new was $10K to $20K.

On Sun, 4 Sep 2022, jim stephens wrote:

I had a 5100 that a dentist had bought as soon as it  came out and he

    
added the floppy drives and printer. It was a direct IBM buy for 
31000.

^

On Mon, 5 Sep 2022, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote:
Are you sure about that? The 5100 doesn't support floppy drives. And 
I've never heard of third-party drives (that would need IMFs, too) 
for the 5100.


$3100 is about what IBM charged for a fully loaded 5150. (PC)
THAT is not a 5100!   $3100 for a 5100 would have been a bargain.


We are neither talking about the 5150, nor about $3100 but $31,000 for 
a 5100 (see above). Or did I miss something?


correct.  I'm guessing they are thinking I'm confusing the unit with the 
integrated 8" floppies, or with a much later PC.  which I'm not.


The referred to guy was a dentist who had had this in a closet for 15 
years or so, had written a couple of floppies worth of programs, and 
otherwise had not done anything with it.


it was all in the trunk of a huge ass Cadillac convertible.  I was one 
of the first who came by, and bought it on the spot.  Drove to my truck, 
offloaded it and sent him on the way on an early Sunday morning.  At the 
ACP Swap Meet in Santa Ana.  He wondered if he asked too much, and 
wanted it gone and didn't want to really be in the middle of a spectacle 
over it and how little he got out of it.


I was glad to get it.


Christian

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Chris Zach via cctalk]

The Lisa is the first consumer grade GUI computer to come to market.  The
Xerox 8010 with the Star operating system preceded it by a couple years,
but that was a high-end $50,000 (in 1981 dollars) workstation with big
businesses as the target market.  So it has some historical significance in
that regard.


Ok, a Lisa 1 perhaps. Very few of those drives survived (for good 
reason, they were terrible) and most were upconverted to Lisa 2's.


I still have a Lisa Prodrive around here somewhere.

CZ

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[jim stephens via cctalk]

the 5100 has an external connector.  The floppy drive is a floor unit 
about the size of three AT units upright, with two single density 
floppies in it.  We used my unit as an engineering reference to do a 
floppy interface project which required 3740 compatability from our 
hardware.


And there was another connector on the back of the unit to daisy chain 
the printer.  This is the 5100 desktop unit.


I've got 3 of the floppy drives. Ethan Dicks was kind enough to retrieve 
another system for me from Pittsburgh, PA some time ago and is storing 
it for me at his house.  Got the printer and the floppy unit.


I've got one of the units with the integrated 8" floppies as well.

Initially a 5150 was 6000 and wasn't fully loaded.  A friend against 
computer advise bought one along with an IEEE interfaced 5mb drive when 
the PC first came out.

thanks
jim

On 9/5/22 07:16, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

Well, it ain't in the 5150/5160 range!
The 5100 new was $10K to $20K.

On Sun, 4 Sep 2022, jim stephens wrote:
I had a 5100 that a dentist had bought as soon as it  came out and 
he added the floppy drives and printer.  It was a direct IBM buy for 
31000.


On Mon, 5 Sep 2022, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote:
Are you sure about that? The 5100 doesn't support floppy drives. And 
I've never heard of third-party drives (that would need IMFs, too) 
for the 5100.


$3100 is about what IBM charged for a fully loaded 5150. (PC)

THAT is not a 5100!   $3100 for a 5100 would have been a bargain.

A 5150 would not be worth as much as a Lisa.
A 5100 would be. (or at least in a similar range)

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Sellam Abraham via cctalk]

On Mon, Sep 5, 2022 at 12:49 PM Fred Cisin via cctalk 
wrote:

>
> Haven't heard from you for a while!
>

Yep, and I missed you at the VCF this year.  I decided to re-join this list
when I happened upon it through a web search.  The traffic is considerably
less than it used to be so it's a tolerable distraction.

It's good to see you're still around.  I hope you are well.

Sellam

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

I played briefly with a pre-release Lisa (Berkeley Smalltalk).  But then 
didn't see them again.  I almost bought one later as a cheaper substitute 
for a Mac!


It is historically significant.
So is the 5100.

But, they are totally different categories.  It's like when I traded a 
Honda for a Leica.



Haven't heard from you for a while!

--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com


On Mon, 5 Sep 2022, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote:


The Lisa is the first consumer grade GUI computer to come to market.  The
Xerox 8010 with the Star operating system preceded it by a couple years,
but that was a high-end $50,000 (in 1981 dollars) workstation with big
businesses as the target market.  So it has some historical significance in
that regard.

Sellam

On Mon, Sep 5, 2022 at 11:50 AM Chris Zach via cctalk 
wrote:


It continues to blow my mind that the Apple Lisa is worth anything. They
used to be sold for almost nothing as Mac XL's, and tended to be
temperamental.

So when will the Apple Newton or Mac Plus be worth anything? :-)

C

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Sellam Abraham via cctalk]

The Lisa is the first consumer grade GUI computer to come to market.  The
Xerox 8010 with the Star operating system preceded it by a couple years,
but that was a high-end $50,000 (in 1981 dollars) workstation with big
businesses as the target market.  So it has some historical significance in
that regard.

Sellam

On Mon, Sep 5, 2022 at 11:50 AM Chris Zach via cctalk 
wrote:

> It continues to blow my mind that the Apple Lisa is worth anything. They
> used to be sold for almost nothing as Mac XL's, and tended to be
> temperamental.
>
> So when will the Apple Newton or Mac Plus be worth anything? :-)
>
> C
>

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Chris Zach via cctalk]

It continues to blow my mind that the Apple Lisa is worth anything. They 
used to be sold for almost nothing as Mac XL's, and tended to be 
temperamental.


So when will the Apple Newton or Mac Plus be worth anything? :-)

C

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Tom Stepleton via cctalk]

> >> Are you sure about that? The 5100 doesn't support floppy drives. And
> I've
> >> never heard of third-party drives (that would need IMFs, too) for the
> 5100.
> >
> > $3100 is about what IBM charged for a fully loaded 5150. (PC)
> > THAT is not a 5100!   $3100 for a 5100 would have been a bargain.
>
> We are neither talking about the 5150, nor about $3100 but $31,000 for a
> 5100 (see above). Or did I miss something?
>

There was a third-party floppy drive for the IBM 5100 :-)

Or at least there as something that was sold in this way. Here is its
brochure:

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/sykes/brochures/Sykes_Comm-Stor_5100_Brochure.pdf

Note that it "plugs directly into the Serial I/O Adapter of the IBM 5100
with no hardware or software changes". So it's a serial-port connected
floppy drive that talks to the 5100 in a format that it likes.

(What is an IMF?)

--Tom

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Mon, 5 Sep 2022, Fred Cisin wrote:

Well, it ain't in the 5150/5160 range!
The 5100 new was $10K to $20K.

On Sun, 4 Sep 2022, jim stephens wrote:

I had a 5100 that a dentist had bought as soon as it  came out and he



added the floppy drives and printer.  It was a direct IBM buy for 31000.

  ^

On Mon, 5 Sep 2022, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote:
Are you sure about that? The 5100 doesn't support floppy drives. And I've 
never heard of third-party drives (that would need IMFs, too) for the 5100.


$3100 is about what IBM charged for a fully loaded 5150. (PC)
THAT is not a 5100!   $3100 for a 5100 would have been a bargain.


We are neither talking about the 5150, nor about $3100 but $31,000 for a 
5100 (see above). Or did I miss something?


Christian

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

Well, it ain't in the 5150/5160 range!
The 5100 new was $10K to $20K.

On Sun, 4 Sep 2022, jim stephens wrote:
I had a 5100 that a dentist had bought as soon as it  came out and he 
added the floppy drives and printer.  It was a direct IBM buy for 31000.


On Mon, 5 Sep 2022, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote:
Are you sure about that? The 5100 doesn't support floppy drives. And I've 
never heard of third-party drives (that would need IMFs, too) for the 5100.


$3100 is about what IBM charged for a fully loaded 5150. (PC)

THAT is not a 5100!   $3100 for a 5100 would have been a bargain.

A 5150 would not be worth as much as a Lisa.
A 5100 would be. (or at least in a similar range)

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Sun, 4 Sep 2022, jim stephens wrote:

On 9/3/22 17:38, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

Well, it ain't in the 5150/5160 range!
The 5100 new was $10K to $20K.
I had a 5100 that a dentist had bought as soon as it  came out and he added 
the floppy drives and printer.  It was a direct IBM buy for 31000.


Are you sure about that? The 5100 doesn't support floppy drives. And I've 
never heard of third-party drives (that would need IMFs, too) for the 
5100.


Christian

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 9/3/22 17:38, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:


Well, it ain't in the 5150/5160 range!
The 5100 new was $10K to $20K.
I had a 5100 that a dentist had bought as soon as it  came out and he 
added the floppy drives and printer.  It was a direct IBM buy for 31000.

thanks

Also a fair amount of software.

Jim

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Sat, 3 Sep 2022, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote:

I think there's a rather large disparity in value between the two systems.
I'm not sure what an IBM 5100 would go for these days, but a Lisa 1 will
generally sell in the $10K+ range minimum these days.
I had two Lisa's with Twiggy drives: one I sold for $9,600, and the other
for $14,500.  That was over 8 years ago.
Sellam


Well, it ain't in the 5150/5160 range!
The 5100 new was $10K to $20K.

I haven't seen any available in a long time; although one sold on eBay in 
June for $10K.



I had a standing offer for Jon Titor, that in exchange for a one-way ride 
back 60 years, I would get him a 5100 (with BASIC and APL), AND, set up a 
stock portfolio in the 1960s to fund his activities.

[cctalk] Re: You have Apple Lisa 1 "twiggy" system to trade for my IBM 5100 Portable PC?

[Sellam Abraham via cctalk]

I think there's a rather large disparity in value between the two systems.
I'm not sure what an IBM 5100 would go for these days, but a Lisa 1 will
generally sell in the $10K+ range minimum these days.

I had two Lisa's with Twiggy drives: one I sold for $9,600, and the other
for $14,500.  That was over 8 years ago.

Sellam

On Sat, Sep 3, 2022 at 4:12 PM steven stengel via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> This seems like a good place to ask this question - I'd like an Apple Lisa
> 1 "twiggy" system for my collection, and can trade a working IBM 5100
> Portable PC. We'd probably have to meet in person to make the transaction.
> I'm in So CA.
> Thanks-
> Steven Stengel
> http://oldcomputers.net
>
>
>
>