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Thanks to a lucky Craigslist find, I now own the ultimate desktop gaming battlestation: the legendary IBM PCjr
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View Reddit by wowbobwow – View Source
[ad_1]
Thanks to a lucky Craigslist find, I now own the ultimate desktop gaming battlestation: the legendary IBM PCjr
[ad_2]
View Reddit by wowbobwow – View Source
For anyone who isn’t a big retrocomputing nerd and/or wasn’t around in the early 80’s, the [IBM PCjr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PCjr) was IBM’s ill-fated attempt to compete with Apple for home users in 1984. IBM was tremendously successful at marketing desktop computers to “serious” business users, but struggled in the consumer market. Thus was born the PCjr, featuring a weird mashup of concepts.
It was reasonably priced, came with a wireless keyboard, supported color graphics, had cartridge slots for games and apps along with a built-in floppy drive. It also supported hardware upgrades via bolt-on “sidecars” that you’d literally stick onto the side of the computer – a fully-upgraded PCjr could be nearly a foot wider than a standard system!
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the PCjr was a *massive* flop – it was just too weird for this world. The keyboard is terrible, the wireless function of the keyboard is flaky, and most damning of all, the system is only “somewhat” IBM PC-compatible, despite literally being an IBM PC. It only lasted on the market for a year and is barely remembered now.
In any case:
1. A couple years ago, a cross-town pal let me know that a bunch of random computer stuff was being tossed into a dumpster from a house that was being gutted. I ran over and jumped into the dumpster and found a bunch of cool stuff, including a complete-in-box copy of King’s Quest for the PCjr! It’s been sitting on my shelf as a display piece ever since 🙂
2. I spotted a local Craigslist ad for a PCjr yesterday. I spent my lunch break meeting up with the seller, and I’m delighted to have it on my desk at home now. Even cooler: this particular Junior was previously owned by Dr. Dale Jurich, who used this machine to create and test the “PC POOL” game that I was *obsessed* with as a kid. I was already excited to have a functional PCjr, but now I’m DELIGHTED to own a machine that had an important role in creating one of my most-played childhood games.
FRICK YEAH!!!!!
Bro, We found the meta. Legit all other battle stations are redundant now
Very nice
You need to get some cartridges for that bad boy. It had some decent games. River Raid and Pitfall would be fun if you can find them.
Cartridges (Games)
ScubaVenture
River Raid
PitFall II
Mouser
Demon Attack
Micro Surgeon
CrossFire
Mine Shaft
Joystick: *Joystick*
[removed]
Looks like a toy
its beautiful
My dad worked for IBM and this was my first Pc. Such great memories!!!!!
Nice, I had a full black case IBM JX which was built on the same platform as the PCjr, but it had a much better full-size keyboard with proper keys not these chiclet ones (also was in black, and like this one, still had the infrared connection built in along with the cable if you wanted). I didn’t have any cartridges to try out the cartridge slots though, i only had floppies with dos and a few games.
It was missing a couple of the features of the jr (like sidecar addons) but it had a couple different ones.
I got it free maybe 20 years ago and I kinda wish I kept it.
Enjoy your jr!
Thats awesome! I was never into this sort of stuff but if I ran across it I’d definitely be intrigued. Gz!
You’re going to be Lode Running all night
Crazy, I remember that the later Sierra Online quest sequels had like 10 discs you had to load. Got a little ridiculous but still some of my favorite games I ever played. Space Quest was so funny and the first couple Police Quests were top notch
Look at that tiny CRT screen
Ahh, life giving water. Nectar of the gods
Wow, even the worst keyboard for that extra nostalgia. Cool find
My goto games were Pitfall and Depth Charge!
My friends and i would play Bilestoad for hours…
edit – sorry, that was on the Apple… we played Ultima on the IBM…
I haven’t thought about that old joystick in like decades. What a trip down memory lane.
Bro, you have to get Oregon Trail.
Awesome!
I am too young to know this era (34) but I remember my uncle having an old Atari console with cartridges that looked like the one on this pic when I was a kid and seeing it makes me feel weirdly nostalgic.
I loved the simplistic design of these covers back then. They even had illustrations that didn’t even have a character of the game itself on it but only a representation of what it was (a knight, a baseball player, etc.).
I grew up with the Sega Genesis and its games covers design was some kind of a transition between these and the next generation when I think about it.
Why does it look so small? Is it the lighting?
A Peanut!!!
I wanted one sooo bad. Dad bought a regular PC with a monochrome green screen 🙁
Adventure and ASCII art was still fun though.
I used to love that game. I never saw that box though.
What in God’s name is going on with his legs? Do they connect at his belly button? Did they only have one guy doing [all the covers](https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/megamanbox.jpg?strip=all) for every game? Was he AI?
I’m very surprised by the wireless keyboard
Ohhh. Kings Quest, Ultima 3, Black Cauldron, Wizardry. So many memories.
Had almost that exact same setup way back in the day, including the game! I remember being super disappointed that the game itself was not much like the cover, though it was still a super fun game. Also I don’t miss trying to guess the right command to do something, and being told “You can’t do that here”.
Anyway, nice find! Enjoy!
Old fart here. I really miss 5 1/4 floppies. Those things made the BEST shuriken. Perfectly aerodynamic and with 4 sharp corners.
I am jealous
Greetings and welcome to another LGR thing!
Did you happen to buy from a John Titor?
Very cool! I would have loved that back in the day. Really curious how the wireless keyboard works. I don’t even think wireless TV remotes were very common in 84.
Is the keyboard wireless???
Not sure which is more impressive, a working 5 1/4 inch drive, or working original 5 1/4 inch disks.