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1982 Osborne 1 sleeper build

What do I do?  

8 members have voted

  1. 1. What do I do

    • Do the sleeper build
      4
    • See if linus wants to do something with it
      1
    • Restore to former state
      3
    • Restore and sell
      0


Just got a osborne 1 "portable" computer (it's 24 pounds) from the junkyard for $150, thing still turns on, asks for a boot disk, but it doesn't work. Thats aside from the point. 

I was thinking about using this and building a sleeper PC with it, keyboard and all. I'd have to swap out the screen because its not good enough for my usage but I think it very well is doable.

Perhaps linus would be interested in doing something with it considering it is the first major portable computer ever made? Its a piece of history.

 

Any thoughts?

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31 minutes ago, campy said:

You found an Osborne that isn't entirely dead and didn't explode when you turned it on and you want to gut it for a sleeper?

Yes, I'm a computer science major and think it would be funny to bring the thing into class to do classwork and such.

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My first pc was an Osborne 1. ?

 

If you are willing and able to extensively mod the case, it would be a fun project. I suspect though that one would quickly tire of lugging the equivalent of a small suitcase around, regardless of weight.

 

80+ ratings certify electrical efficiency. Not quality.

 

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22 minutes ago, brob said:

My first pc was an Osborne 1. ?

 

If you are willing and able to extensively mod the case, it would be a fun project. I suspect though that one would quickly tire of lugging the equivalent of a small suitcase around, regardless of weight.

 

I have a lot of the tooling to do it, the main issue would be converting the native keyboard to usb and replacing the crt with an lcd

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6 hours ago, ExpectNeo said:

I have a lot of the tooling to do it, the main issue would be converting the native keyboard to usb and replacing the crt with an lcd

 

Instead of converting the existing keyboard give some thought to replacing it with a modern wireless model. The Osborne keyboard is missing a number of commonly used keys - F1 - F12, Alt, Windows, navigation, etc. You should be able to build in a pocket for a matching wireless mouse.

 

80+ ratings certify electrical efficiency. Not quality.

 

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  • 1 year later...

Make a 3d Printed version of it!!

 

Or to save money make it using a hard sewing machine case which would cost from 24-34 USD +Mods and Standoff components

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