According to Smithsonian Magazine, a salvage company in London was cleaning out a property and found a strange-looking computer. No one knew what it was, and even a quick online search turned up nothing The two devices in question were extremely rare Computer Q1 This is from the early 1970s.
Although these devices looked bulky, they had Intel 8008 CPUs but integrated monitors, keyboards and printers. The two machines were little known at Kingston University in London and are now up for sale. They are expected to bring in about $60,000 each. Not bad for scrap.
Ironically, the $60,000 price tag is less than the original price of $90,000. The article notes that several Q1s have been deployed at NASA sites in the United States There are also reports of sales in Europe and Asia. It was not clear whether the new device was one of the Q1 devices that used the Zilog Z80 instead of the 8008, or whether both devices used the original Q1 CPU.
If you haven’t heard of Q1, you haven’t read Hackaday, but you can watch the video below. Sure, it’s a Z80 machine, but you can take a look inside. The 8008 had a bad reputation, but it was undeniably high tech.
