Legend 402CD in hand

Today, I was the proud recipient of a Legend 402CD in apparently good
condition, even with the original sticker on the top of the case telling
the specs. It is the usual square desktop chassis of the era.

Assumiong that this beauty is all original, it has a 75MHz Pentium
(worth its weight in gold), 8MB of memory, a CD-ROM drive and a 540MB
disk drive. Killer system!

Any interest? If so, I'll test it. If nobody shows interest within a
week, I'll tear down for the board recycler. You can buy either whole
or selected parts for shipping plus not much more than scrap value. A
potential valuable item for an Packard Bell collector. And I know there
are a few of you out there... Ben Myers

 

Hi Ben !

Once again, I do sincerely appreciate you keeping this (mostly dead ) NG
informed of your valuable finds.

I can't use that one myself, but I *DO* hope someone grabs it. You are known
for your very reasonable price, and it's a given that the machine will be as
you described.

Keep letting us know if any other PB's become available !

bobwatts
EartH

"Stay thirsty my friends! "



"Ben Myers" <> wrote in message
news:ia080f$2nn$-september.org...
> Today, I was the proud recipient of a Legend 402CD in apparently good
> condition, even with the original sticker on the top of the case telling
> the specs. It is the usual square desktop chassis of the era.
>
> Assumiong that this beauty is all original, it has a 75MHz Pentium (worth
> its weight in gold), 8MB of memory, a CD-ROM drive and a 540MB disk drive.
> Killer system!
>
> Any interest? If so, I'll test it. If nobody shows interest within a
> week, I'll tear down for the board recycler. You can buy either whole or
> selected parts for shipping plus not much more than scrap value. A
> potential valuable item for an Packard Bell collector. And I know there
> are a few of you out there... Ben Myers

 

Legend 402CD is history

On 10/23/2010 11:09 PM, Ben Myers wrote:
> Today, I was the proud recipient of a Legend 402CD in apparently good
> condition, even with the original sticker on the top of the case telling
> the specs. It is the usual square desktop chassis of the era.
>
> Assumiong that this beauty is all original, it has a 75MHz Pentium
> (worth its weight in gold), 8MB of memory, a CD-ROM drive and a 540MB
> disk drive. Killer system!
>
> Any interest? If so, I'll test it. If nobody shows interest within a
> week, I'll tear down for the board recycler. You can buy either whole or
> selected parts for shipping plus not much more than scrap value. A
> potential valuable item for an Packard Bell collector. And I know there
> are a few of you out there... Ben Myers

No takers. Stripped for boards and chips for electronic scrap. No
longer available. No longer exists... Ben Myers

 

Re: Legend 402CD is history

Awwwww....

On the other hand, I acquired another vintage 1995 Force 54CD, Pentium 90 MHz,
just last week. Got rid of the old, junk/ed Conner 512MB hard drive and replaced
it with my trusty old 8GB Quantum "Bigfoot" drive. I am using the machine as a
terminal for the ADDS/NCR Mentor 2000 mainframe that I brought back from the
dead earlier this year.

This F54CD is now the second one I own (first was purchased brand-new, in 1995,
at the long-defunct "Computer City" store in PDX.)

Keep it real.

--
MotoFox
Former superstar of the Muzak Forums, 2003-2009
Do not staple, fold, spindle or mutilate; keep away from sources of magnetism.
If ingested, do not induce vomiting.

 

Re: Legend 402CD is history

On 12/28/2010 11:38 PM, MotoFox wrote:
> Awwwww....
>
> On the other hand, I acquired another vintage 1995 Force 54CD, Pentium
> 90 MHz, just last week. Got rid of the old, junk/ed Conner 512MB hard
> drive and replaced it with my trusty old 8GB Quantum "Bigfoot" drive. I
> am using the machine as a terminal for the ADDS/NCR Mentor 2000
> mainframe that I brought back from the dead earlier this year.
>
> This F54CD is now the second one I own (first was purchased brand-new,
> in 1995, at the long-defunct "Computer City" store in PDX.)
>
> Keep it real.
>

TRUSTY Quantum Bigfoot??? An oxymoron if there ever was one. The
history behind the Bigfoot is telling, so I'll tell it.

Way back when, Quantum experimented with a new technique for sputtering
the magnetic oxide coating onto the material used to make the disks
inside the drives. Lo and behold, the sputtering resulted in lots of
defects in the magnetic media, so the capacity of 3.5" drives at the
time was much diminished compared to the competition. Quantum's
response was to build 5.25" Bigfoot drives, increasing the surface area
on which bits could be written.

Once, I mistakenly bought a number of surplus Bigfoot drives from Compaq
just after they acquired DEC. I sold them as quickly as I could, the
ones that worked... Ben Myers

 

Re: Legend 402CD is history

Well, I currently own three Bigfoots, all salvaged from IBM Aptivas manufactured
circa 1999, and haven't had one fail on me yet, although I suspect one of them
is about ready to give up the ghost judging by some weird noises it's been
making lately. I guess they must have come from a decent batch or something.

Now, the "Fireball" drives Quantum introduced a few years later.....oi. Both of
them that I had failled miserably within their first year!

--
MotoFox
Former superstar of the Muzak Forums, 2003-2009
Do not staple, fold, spindle or mutilate; keep away from sources of magnetism.
If ingested, do not induce vomiting.

 

Re: Legend 402CD is history

On 12/30/2010 1:35 AM, MotoFox wrote:
> Well, I currently own three Bigfoots, all salvaged from IBM Aptivas
> manufactured circa 1999, and haven't had one fail on me yet, although I
> suspect one of them is about ready to give up the ghost judging by some
> weird noises it's been making lately. I guess they must have come from a
> decent batch or something.
>
> Now, the "Fireball" drives Quantum introduced a few years later.....oi.
> Both of them that I had failled miserably within their first year!
>

All of which explains why Quantum is no longer a drive manufacturer.
Maxtor bought them, a marriage of equals in product quality... Ben Myers

 

Re: Legend 402CD is history

Tell me, then, what brand of hard drive are you using in your Packard Bell macines?

If you say Western Digital, I will laugh dump-my-pants out loud. All of the
various WD drives I have purchased brand new during the past several years have
failled within the first few months of operation!

--
MotoFox
Former superstar of the Muzak Forums, 2003-2009
Do not staple, fold, spindle or mutilate; keep away from sources of magnetism.
If ingested, do not induce vomiting.