Special thanks to my Patrons, with their help I was able to acquire a decent video card, an RTX 4070Ti. I'm a little ticked at NVIDIA for releasing the Super one week after I got it, for less money, but whatever, I'm so thrilled to be able to render a video in under an hour, vs 4+ hours before. Thank you so much for your support Patrons and Super Thankers!!! And of course thank you to all you viewers and subscribers for giving me such a welcome creative outlet! Your support is NEVER taken for granted. Also special thanks to my daughter Jacqueline for designing Perry the pr0n Prawn (don't worry, it's G rated lol). He makes an appearance under Expensive Item #3.

Hope this becomes a regular yearly feature.

We had a PDP-8 in our basement when I was a kid in the late '90s that my Dad got from a bank my Mom had worked at. As far as I know it was never powered up while we had it, but I used to love flipping the switches on the front and typing on the accompanying terminal. One day he said "to hell with this" and cut it into pieces and took it to the dump. I bet he'd kick himself if he saw what they're going for now.

Oh the BeBox, my holy grail. My father owned a dual 133 back in the day. Its such an interesting machine, operating system and concept. He gave it away years ago unfortunately and it ended up being scrapped. Ive been searching for one for years now, but i guess it´ll never happen. They just keep on getting more expensive.

That crocheted altair is indeed pretty cool.

I saw one of those, oddity powerbooks once in a museum. I looked at the person who worked there n just went "What the f**k was Apple smoking?", their response was: "Crayons." can't argue with that.

O.M.G. I *have* a BeBox... and it's a slightly special one. I ordered a dual-66 one, but they were switching to the dual-133 version and ran out of the dual-66 units... so they gave me a dual-133 instead, same price. And due to sheer coincidence, I ended up giving the cashier's check directly to Jean-Louis Gassée himself; because I was working at Apple at the time, didn't want to mail the check as they were just down the road a little ways, and he stepped into the elevator at the same time I did. $10k... WOW. Reminds me - I need to pull it out and check the capacitors on it. 90's machine, ya know... P.s. - no, despite that eBay price, I think I'll hang on to it. Personal nostalgia, etc...

That Apple powerbook reminds me of the VW Polo Harlequin

29:40 "An electronic robot eight feet tall"? Oh man that sounds way cooler than a pile of wires and vacuum tubes filling an entire room.

I love seeing these OG's of computers!

This was fantastic...What a pleasant surprise on a rainy Sunday afternoon! Couple of thoughts: 1. Around 23:48: Not just game console makers. I have a Sanyo digital clock radio that dates to about 1979 that proudly proclaims 'Computer Readout Clock Radio' on the front bezel. 2. Ehrmagerd, the stuffed Altair needs to be in your shop alongside Perry the Pr0n Prawn.

Amazingly informative video Tech-time.Thank you for all the effort you put in to them.

I was given an APF scientific calculator in around 1980. It had an LED display and used RPN if I'm remembering properly. All I have left of it is the memory (in my head) and a single blurry photo, taken with my Polaroid instant camera. As a kid I had a habit of taking things apart and the calculator became another victim of my savagery. I shorted something out (I'm assuming the main processor) and it could not be repaired. It's too bad because today it might have been worth real money, to say nothing of the sentimental value. Everything from my childhood is gone. I regret my choices!

Good to see BeBox featured... I guess... If they regularly go for those kinds of prices I'm definitely never getting one. The BeOS spirit lives on in Haiku and I'll keep running that instead!

I gotta love youtube for getting their act together and recommending the smaller creators every now and then. Thoroughly enjoying this!

The 4000T seen here is an Amiga technologies one.... or somewhat similar. Its post commodore. An original commodore A4000T recently went over 10.000€ here in Germany. The original Commodore A4000T is debatet to be the rarest homecomputer. Numbers in the low duble digits.

Awesome intro!

I just found your channel. Enjoyed the couple of videos that I've watched so far.

I enjoyed this 🙂 Please make another one in a year 👌

That Apple would go really well with a VW Golf Harlequin. Same age bracket too. The 90's were a weird place.

Another masterpiece from TTT. So much great information to chew at!

Cool and entertaining. Thanks for the time and effort (and Humor) in this video

Helping my wife put some stuff away, I discovered her old HP-25 programable calculator, I think from the 1970's - turned it on, and it DID come on! HP stuff was the best! RPN logic makes so much sence.

Awesome video - well done 🎉❤ i’ve got a soft spot for the crazy crayola powerbook … but i dont have 15k AUD for it 😅

I very briefly owned an Apple IIGS that was given to me in exchange for some other cheap junk. It wasn't in working shape, and didn't include the disk drives, just the box. The power supply was DOA. I decided I didn't want to spend the time trying to fix it. I kinda wish I'd held on to it, the IIGS was probably the most interesting member of the Apple II family, and I've learned since how amazing that WCS65816 processor is. I also had one of the first color Mac desktops. Again, it came in trade at a ham flea market. This one was working, but rather wonky. I gave up on it after a few months. I'm not really a collector, especially of Apple gear. I worked for a company that actually bought several Lisa II's, and then converted them to Mac's. Those machines became real work horses for the departments writing manuals and documentation. At the time there was simply no better software or hardware for desk top publishing.

Great work here. I subbed and I promise to watch at least 2 videos at a time (the YT algorithm) Great use of sarcasm.. nicely done. Thanks

I've never been a fan of anything Apple, but that first multicolored laptop actually looks really cool. I'd take that over any of their designs from he past 20 years in a heartbeat.

I love the Imagination Machine advert claim about its keyboard "Not funny feeling touch-pads" at 26:47 :)

PS I had a top of the line Be Box offered to me for the effort of carrying it away, and passed on the opportunity. I did regret passing up on it, because as a hobbiest, it would have been cool just to have that piece of computer history.

I've still got an Amiga 4000 - it was upgraded with what will certianly be a very rare 68060 card with its own RAM and some other stuff! It still works when I tested it, going to play with it some more at some point when I have time!

looking forward to that video on Be.

I saw one of those amiga towers in the wild, over 20 years ago. But it was only the tower, and it was $75 which was way too expensive to me as an AT OEM case.

I fully agree with your assessment of the Rev. 0, anyone mentally able to appreciate Woz' genius should have a Rev. 0 and pray on their knees towards it twice a day.

That intro had me laughing! I have to many items on my eBay watchlist, including an Altair 8800. While I don't have high hopes of winning that one, it's always fun to dream.

AHHH YESSS Iam one of those Silly Gen Xers that loves me some old DIGITAL Computing and VAX mainframe action. Yeah your right you need some real estate to own the awesomeness. VIVA SCHLUMBERGER!!!

A very interesting video, particularly considering that I was a coin toss away from buying a new Lisa, back when they were newly introduced, for the Canadian price of $ 11,000. I am old enough (80) to have seen the beginning of the micro computer, and was tempted to buy the original Altair, this article is somewhat fascinating. I have a fairly large (inadvertent) collection of Commodore (8 bit and Amiga) and Apple (all Mac vintage) computers, and have been watching the market prices climb. I keep waiting for the bottom to drip out of the market, but the prices continue to climb. I guess the time has come, to keep the Amiga 4000, and maybe one of the 3000s, and sell off the rest. I never kept these computers as an investment, they were all computers I used and couldn't bring myself to discard, when that would have been the reasonable thing to do. .

the colorful powerbook is amazing

When I see suspiciously (mega-) expensive items on Ebay that seem to actually sell, I do wonder if the sale ever fully goes through, or if, perhaps, the highest bidder somehow disappears or perhaps just gets marked as "sold" without any money changing hands. Possibly because the account is owned by the seller themselves and is used to inflate prices. Possibly also with a third account to bounce off.

I managed to snag a PDP-8/A a few years ago for just over $1000. Given the kind of prices I've seen them go for now, I realize I got a steal. Granted one of the front panels was missing which I had to replace through a very gracious guy on Reddit, and I've spent the last couple years coaxing it back to life but still. It still disappoints me to see single boards go for as much as I paid for my machine.

I was a bit skeptical about a video solely featuring some overpriced eBay items for 45 minutes at first, but with your signature mixture of background info and humor sprinkled in, this video turned out to be highly entertaining and informative. Thanks for uploading!

The PDP-1 came out in 1959, and $120k adjusted for inflation is only about 1.3 million. Even if you went back to 1946, it's only 1.9 million.

John Sculley: We need a new, full color laptop... (2 minutes later) Engineer #88239: How's this boss? innovative enough? Sculley: (Picard facepalm). Whatever. Ship it.

My dad worked at D I G I T A L for ~30 years. I remember right as Ebay was coming out, he took a few weeks off (this was around the time when Compaq, then subsequently HP bought them out) and decided to sell a ton of old Digital junk he had laying around. It got him an unexpected lot of $. To give you an idea of the era we are talking about, we used an analog camcorder to take the Ebay pictures (with a program called 'Snappy'). I remember him shouting out whiile my friend and I were playing lan DOOM, "That old Digital deck of cards got two-hundred BUCKS!!!" But I think that deck of cards was a completely-unique one-off item he won at an office party... I bet they'd be worth more today.

Interesting. The Fairchild Channel F was the first ROM based cartridge game system and became very popular in Europe. It was also designed by an African America, Jerry Lawson.

Iam definitely not an Apple fan i guess thats why i think Scully was a good move for apple. Steve was being a little more than his unhinged normality.

I imagine the Bebox can fetch a fancy price just because of all those ports

Has anyone else refocused their collecting interests due to increasing cost and/or scarcity? I have never actively collected vintage computers, but starting in the late-1980s I began collecting console video games. I have amassed a decent size collection, but I have not bought anything in the past several years because I refuse to pay current prices. My newest hobby is saving for early retirement. This consumes essentially all of my monthly surplus after the bills are paid, so there is no room for anything else.

Guess I should dig my BeBox out of the closet... it should still be in it's original box. I was a developer and had a reasonable setup at one point.

I want a Saturn v rocket

Its unfortunate that this sorta didnt roll on for three to four hours.. I found this quite enthralling... Keep up the good work..

Is that a x series think by lenovo. Nice brick

If you want a nickname for the Rainbow Brite Powerbook, how about... "Rainbow Shite" ?

Look at all that vintage computing going for all that money and exactly one of those can run Doom

I am this vintage, no intent ro buy them back in the days. I am happy with my new Raspberry Pi5. How much for a ZX81? It has 2KB

I am really happy that I have never spent that much on ebay, although I worry my totals may be getting up there.

Well, guess it’s time to sell my BeBox

Man, I saw that Powerbook 170 and almost immediately called it as a japanese exclusive... but I would have bet money it was a Gundam tie-in, not a golf tie-in.

Wow.. I remember my school GAVE AWAY a bunch of Apple II computers in the early 90s. They were tired of them taking up space and they were basically worthless back then.. NOBODY cared about them. I didn't take one home, I sure wish I had.. Man..

You should do another video, the sub $1000 stuff ? There have been so many really cool things that have come up 😉👍🏻

My high school had 4 apple 2es as their computer lab. we used them just to play games. Occassionallya teacher would walk in. We werent allowed to play games on them, so I would always do an reset. It would load to the * prompt - ID type 800l and the screen would always impress the teacher - to their mind I was programming! Man I loved the old apple games, especially sammy lightfoot!

nice thinkpad i still have my old T40. For all the faults of IBM Lenovo they made good notebooks. The rubberized casing also sold me because i was a control system programmer.

I felt like Reggie Something in The X Files... "Wait...What?!?"

best. intro. ever.

You know what even more expensive and rare the amiga 3000T which i have plus many a4000s and the tower and yes all those unobtanium accel cards etc lol

Last month, I bought my first vintage computer on ebay and it got lost in the post and was narry seen again. Nice guy refunded me though. So I bought another - it's a Sinclair ZX Spectrum +48k (the version that doesn't have the rubber keyboard) so I am oh-so-very at the shallow end. Still waiting to get a modern power supply before I turn it on though.

DEC stuff on ebay has always gone for insane prices. Now these prices are going up again! Terrible!!!

a PDP11 or 8 and the Atari Transputer are at the top of my list... but such computers are more or less non-existant here in New Zealand.. sigh

You seriously missed out on the Commodore 65. It should be a contender for #1.

Is there any console that says “70s” more than a wood grain pong console?

That first PowerBook would go well on the passenger seat of a Harlequin Jetta or Golf. (edit: someone hit that point first. I'm late)

Those prices are just ridiculous. The original box thing probebly came from toy collectors, they seem to be fanatical about having that.

Big prices for what is essentially ewaste does take the fun out of the hobby.

The John Sculley bits are funny. I remember sitting in high school telling friends that Apple was about to go completely bankrupt. In an alternate timeline, John Sculley is my hero.

Hey how much is a Tandy 1000 complete system (computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse, mousepad,, and software), and it works! 😁👍👍🇺🇸

Eww who would actively brandish that they're browsing The Drudge Report.

OVER $$$ PRICED PIECE$ OF crAPPLE$ . . . Ouch . . .

Im sorry but you are incorrect, while you are correct that the most expensive vintage computer in 2023 sold on eBay was an apple, it was not the apple tablet sold for "pathetic" 25k. The most expensive vintage computer sold in 2023 on eBay was Apple I, it went for around 380k. The auction went in June 2023.

Blocky Balboa... lol.

Steve Jobs sandals?!?

John Sculley was a brilliant man, that saved Apple from the mess Steve Jobs made of it. Jobs was basically an idiot, that knew absolutely nothing about computers, but he did know how to align himself with brilliant people like Wozniak. Apple really started having issues after Sculley left the company, and Jobs came in after a few more idiots mucked it up. Jobs at least then started listening to the brilliant people at Apple, many of which Sculley hired, and that's what saved the company.

I come for the retro computing and stay for the smooth jazz and open mike night at the comedy club vibe.

I sold an SE/30 on eBay then used the money to buy a Mac Pro 2013 "trash can" which arrived so fast, it came before I could ship the SE/30 out and I got to take a picture of them side by side. The Mac Pro 2013 is tiny by comparison. No regrets!

I don’t understand how sellers get off taking potato level photos and asking for thousands of dollars. I'm a vintage hardware fanatic too, but put the Mavica camera away and go get your iPhone please!

Speaking of vintage.. I put the oldies station on oh I don't know it was a while ago (I use a flash drive in my car, can't take the commercials anymore sorry) anyway.. the OLDIES music channel, like you know, Chuck Berry... you know, old stuff 50's music.. yeah.. NIRVANA was playing. I about spit my coffee all over my steering wheel. Nirvana? That's GRUnGE rock from the 90s when I was in HIGH SCHOOL. Nirvana is NOT OLDIES. I don't care WHO you are or HOW OLD you are, OLDIES is NOT Nirvana. Errrr

I thought Atari had some add on so you could use it as a really terrible computer

Can we buy crocheted Altair 8800s from your daughter?

Or you can just look what's on the curb or in the container and have fun with that! Can't go wrong with a stack of 386s and C64s for the low low price of having to explain to your mum why you dragged that sorta crap in.

20:30 I hear the CRT :(

ANSI bots for the win 2024!!!

to be honest Apple for me will be forever shit system - amiga users know that if you emulation mac on amiga mac will be faster than a real thing :)

The Apple II series were just such crap computers though! There were many 8-bits, in fact EVERY 8-bit machine, that were cheaper and more capable. Atari are probably second place in ridiculous prices but their 400 / 800 series and everything that evolved from it, are amazing computers! A separate, real processor just to do the graphics! Split graphic modes up and down the screen however you like! 128 colours, hardware sprites, proper (if not great) sound chip. The Apple had awful hacked-in graphics and just... all around terribleness. What justifies the price? Then there was the Sinclair Spectrum, a colour screen and powerful CPU that was almost free! Like a tenth the price of an Apple. And the Commodore 64 of course, a good all-rounder that ought to have pissed on the Apple from a great height. And pretty much did. Who, and why, bought the Apple II series? Was it some lock-in wheeler-dealing with schools, is that all? A business should have gone with an 80-column CP/M machine or an IBM PC, or one of the clones. Or actually an Atari ST did all a Mac does, much cheaper, and better. And has amazing games, a colour screen, and a proper sound chip. It could do 80-columns in it's med and hi-res modes. All bitmapped screen just like the Mac and GEM, a servicable GUI not unlike Mac OS. You could even get Mac emulators for it. Eventually Apple found they were selling more replacement ROM chips than they had sold machines, and stopped the supply to Atari users. So users just pirated the ROM instead, no problem. It ran Mac software just as fast, and with a bigger screen! And then the games, of course. But Apple... yeah... why tho? _Why?_ Nowadays they're a lifestyle brand and sell entirely on conspicuous consumerism. People buy Iphones because they're expensive and people will know your phone is expensive. That's it. They're not particularly great phones, especially for the price. And poor people get them on 2-year contracts and pay for the phone monthly. Stupid all over. Also Jobs was a massive dick and anyone who knows computers has long-known that. Silly bastard thought he knew better than doctors, so when he got cancer he quickly died because the quack nonsense he was betting his life on didn't actually cure cancer. Victim of his own reality-warping field. He didn't realise it was bullshit. Unlike everyone else, for whom the field was powerful but would wear off over half an hour and you'd be back to living in reality again. Guy lived and died in a fantasy and somehow got tangled up in a computer company where lots of talented people did the work he took credit for. If he's not in Hell it's only because the Devil can't stand being near him.

Cannot continue watching. Tech time is too absorbed in their. Clever, graphics, and lengthy storytelling.

Fist one here

Too many ads.

Apple products are always overhyped and overpriced.