Ask HN: What's a cool old/vintage computer to buy?

I'd suggest a NeXT Cube. Got a friend with one that's not running and finding parts is extremely difficult however.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTcube

Another one, a phone I personally owned, is a Palm phone, it was the Kyocera Palm Phone 6035 from 2001! This was a smartphone before that term existed and was eight years before Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyocera_6035

Cheapest complete option is probably an even older PC, which you can install DOS on.

I'd start by playing with emulators a bit. It's not the same as having the actual thing, but is a cheap way of seeing what you might like?

Totally biased recommendation: Commodore 64.

As far as home computers - Amiga (any one, really)

For crazy fun, deskside SGI Onyx RE2.

Commodore VIC-20

- Has a decent built in BASIC in ROM Only 3.5K or programming RAM (well, a little more if you know where to POKE... heh) Has a 22 column by 23 row screen (composite or RF)

- Uses Atari 2600/8-bit standard joysticks, paddles.

- Either use cassette tape or Disk or get one of the current compact flash Drive options to do storage (CF can allow you more easily get things from the internet connected world to the VIC and visa versa)

- Very well documented on programming and hardware - http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/

- Still an active community for VIC-20 enthusiasts.

- If not a VIC-20 I'd suggest a Commodore-16, then you have 16K and much expanded BASIC as well as a built-in machine language monitor assembler/disassembler. Still can use the Disk Drive CF, but you may need an adapter to use the more common Commodore tape drives... and adapter for Atari Style joysticks.

- Commodore 64 prices are getting a bit high, but if you prefer something more 80s mainstream the Commodore 64 or 128 are way more popular. But for uniqueness and fun at budget VIC-20/C16 are it... Maybe Plus/4.

You might have a lot of fun with DOS, if you wanted physical hardware look for a 486 cpu with 8 or so megs of ram, you can put on DOS6.11 and Windows 3.11 and have a play, this was (close enough)the final step before Windows 95

Also have a look at installing djgpp and you can see what a DOS based text-ui IDE looked like.

Also install Desqview for what an alternate desktop environment looks like.

One thing you’ll learn is that installation of all of this will require some tweaking and research, you’ll have to learn about config.sys and playing with extended memory managers, but that’s part of the fun!

Might be more fun to do this on an emulator though, because otherwise you’ll have to mess about with floppy disks or maybe early CDROMs and getting hold of functional ones might be challenging.

That era had tons of great games too! Duke Nukem 1 and 2, Blake Stone, Nyet, Jill of the Jungle, DOOM, try a few games too

Have fun! Shout out if you get stuck!

For just messing around, I suggest a C64. That one has games, demos, and is a lot of fun to program.

An Apple 2 is also good, but for different reasons. Gaming can be fun, but the real benefit to that machine is that it is completely documented, with schematics, and almost entirely software driven. It's a lot like an early PC, with slots, etc...

Both machines have lots of cool devices that make them easier to work with today.

Once you have a machine, you can program it, make some hardware for it, interface it to various things, write programs, and do so in a small scale environment.

Marvel at what people actually got done!

Have fun.

Amiga is a system I would like to get my hands on. I still remember being trolled by Amiga aficionados at my local BBS. While I was trying to get my CGI screen to display more colors there were these rebels talking about the miracle of HAM.