On Tue, 12 Aug 1997 07:33:33 -0700 (PDT), Mr. Willing graced us
with these words:
> On Tue, 12 Aug 1997, William Donzelli wrote:
>
> > I also talked to a guy that deals with old computers. Two weeks
> > ago, he _finally_ scrapped out a bunch of old machines - really
> > old. Amongst the deaths were various PDP-8s, two PDP-9s, a
> > Burroughs mainframe, and an IBM 7090 of some sort.
>
> I think; I may scream!
I had the same sort of reaction when I heard the news through
different channels. Needless to say I was less than pleased. However,
Mr. Donzelli believes there to be hope in this; he states that the
guy in question was willing to let him know about future systems
like that.
> *How* do we reach these people *before* things like this happen?!?
That's the proverbial $64,000 (65,536?) dollar question. I guess
we'll have to get to know the various scrap dealers (and especially
"recyclers") in our areas.
> (preferably without starting a mad rush from yuppie collector
> wannabes!)
This is another hot-button issue with me, having seen what the
price of Altairs and the like is now. (No, the price is not
justifiable - other than the machines are very "trendy" right now
and speculators think they can make a killing on them.) However,
given the size of things like PDP-9s and mainframes, I doubt that
systems in that class are likely to fall victim to "speculative
collection". Some of the smaller machines in the PDP-8 class might,
but the PDP-8/I I just acquired filled half of the rear of my
minivan (the other half had an Interdata Model 4 in it) - a bit
too large for the average yuppie. You've got to be pretty sick to
collect things the size of refrigerators (yes, I know, I fit the bill).
Cheers.
--
______________________________________________________________________
| | |
| Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston |
| Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA |
| mailto:carl.friend_at_stoneweb.com | |
| http://www.ultranet.com/~engelbrt/carl/museum/ | ICBM: N42:21 W71:46 |
|________________________________________________|_____________________|
Received on Tue Aug 12 1997 - 10:08:37 BST