Name the Thing Contest – 72

27

This contest will run for one week (Jan 10 – Jan 15, 2009) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example of what can be done with it. You need to name the make and model of this system.

Please do not give the answer in the comments.

 

Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with "Name the Thing Contest" as the subject, and the message body consisting of:

  • The name of the item in the above picture
  • An example of what the item pictured above can be used for

The winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries.

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Added January 23, 20089

The item to guess was a Commodore PET

The winner is Brett K.

Thanks to all who entered (there were 173 entries)

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Below is a picture of the prize.

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27 Comments


  1. Oh yes, I remember it well… This one has a little mod done to it…


  2. There was a kid in our neighborhood who had one. Needless to say he was the envy of the neighborhood. He would be again these days if he had hadn’t blown it with a couple of mods he made.

    I need one of those prizes. Mine kinda got run over when I forgot to pick it up after taking some readings on the fan circuit (found the bad relay though!). It works, but it’s really scratched up.


  3. I know what it is but never had the experience of using one, my 80s based computing consisted of ZX81, ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro & Archimedes.
    Won’t enter the compo because I’ve got more than enough multimeters.


  4. I get to take one of these apat when I was like 6, it was fascinating on the inside. Hey Haku if you have more than enough meters, send one my way, you can never have enough tools.


  5. I got to take one of these apart when I was like 6, it was fascinating on the inside. Hey Haku if you have more than enough meters, send one my way, you can never have enough tools.

    damn auto spell checker


  6. My ‘everyday’ ones like the one pictured would probably cost more to post than you could buy one, apart my best one which in looks & functionality is probably the closest thing to a Star Trek TNG tricorder going – a Metrix MTX3282, http://www.haku.co.uk/pics/MTX3282.jpg , it can measure volts / amps / ohms / capacitance / hz / temperature, but my favourite function is being able to measure volts & amps at the same time to also display watts.


  7. I don’t know the real name of the picture above but It was so familiar with me. I guess, it could be a great thing to researched.


  8. This was the first computer I ever owned!
    I bought a used one with money from my paper route (yes it’s true) and taught myself and many of my friends basic on it.
    I even learned how to program in machine code for the 6502 using the peek and poke functions.
    Suffice to say that I am old enough that they were still selling new ones when I bought mine…

    Damn I loved that thing.
    I lost it in college when the basement of the house I was living in flooded.

    Looks like they put an NMI (non maskable interrupt) button on it. If I remember correctly that was the only way, short of power cycling, to break out of a infinite loop in machine code.


  9. It’s a *** *** ***. Ancient yet cool. It even has a cassete reader. Sorry I can’t make my outlook work


  10. I would like a meter to, though I have one. It’s a really big step in PC tech


  11. It’s got such a crappy ram that it used ordinary cassetes. Can you imagine 7k of memory in an era of Tb.


  12. Hi Alex,

    For obvious reasons using email is the only way to enter the contest.


  13. I have one in my basement, it still booted last time I checked. Anyone need one? Yours if you pay shipping.
    Brett (bvk@pobox.com)


  14. OK i’m sorry. My damn Outlook dosen’t work


  15. Shipping, all across the world to here?? nope thanks. I bet it weigh’s 50lbs or so :D:D:D


  16. Hmm no-one mentioning mine I had one of those back then. Bought it with 4 Kb RAM. Upgraded it later to 16Kb. Back then ppl never believed you could own one personally and the cassette- player was a pain-ITA Especially when finding/loading/saving ‘large’ databases.


  17. Hehe… too easy.
    I have a later model from that company… which had a separate cassette drive option. Took ages to load something!


  18. Don’t say it’s a *** ***vintage *** computer in the comments, guys.


  19. Sheesh guys. How difficult is it to read and follow instructions?? Especially ones that are in bold and twice the size of the other words around them?

    I say we get just rid of the comments on the contests until the deadline has passed. Just my 2 cents.


  20. Ruins it for everyone… Alan should add a dialog that pops up with 72pt red bold text that says ‘I VERIFY THAT I AM NOT ADDING AN ANSWER IN THE COMMENTS. If I do, then may my e-mail address be given to all who entered the contest so they can sign me up for every single spam list known to them’.
    or something like that, anyway. 😀


  22. Somehow I think there still would be some people that don’t even read it and hit okay…
    but you’re right it would change once they get tonnnes of spam…
    (and, it has the added bonus of teaching them to read the not-so-fine print!)
    I have no doubt a few minutes of google will locate some extremely… ummmmm… “unorthodox” sites which offer e-mail newsletters with HTML and pictures, and if everyone did that;
    Remember, it is not possible to ‘un-see’ something…

    😀

    On a more serious note, perhaps voiding their contest entries…. 🙂


  23. @VintagePC… Hear, hear! Of course, some still wouldn’t take the hint! Especially those with disposable accounts.

    Maybe it’s time to register with the site via credit card before posting comments. That way, if the comment is a guess or spoiler, the price of the prize gets charged to the card.


  24. LOL Josh! I like that idea. With the additional revenue we could have some very cool prizes! To bad I am an honest guy and would never do something like that. 🙂


  25. Even better- everyone who entered and gets it right wins, at the cost of the spoiler…
    DMMs for everyone, Yay!


  26. I’ll give you a hint it doesn’t cook pizza… yet hehe

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