Vintage computer equipment is not just for collectors

[ilyaz]

From time to time I sell vintage computer equipment. In most cases the buyers are collectors. But once in a blue moon I come across people who actually use this equipment for work rather than pleasure. Here's one example.

Picked up a pair of vintage Toshiba Satellite Pro 420CDT 11.3" laptops that both came with external 3.5" floppy drives. They did not have power adapters so there was no way for me to test their functionality. Threw them on eBay "as is" and they sat there for quite a while. I decided to take one apart just for sh1ts and giggles. The very next day I get an email from someone interested in just the floppy. So I sent it to him and got this response:

The floppy arrived and I’m happy to report it works fine. ... I’m a writer and use those old Toshiba laptops for my work. I strip them of the windows operating system and install dos 6.22 then WordPerfect 5.1 , my preferred writing program, having used it for over thirty years. I don’t need Hard drives or CD roms but am always on the lookout for batteries and floppies and Toshiba Satellite pro laptops that work, I have several of them, but they’re old and break down.

I was a bit surprised, but hey, if it's true that some of the US nuclear weapons facilities still use 8" floppy drives then maybe I shouldn't be...

By the way, the 2nd laptop sold on eBay the other day as well...