A moment of silence, please

From: Marvin <marvin_at_rain.org>
Date: Wed Aug 13 10:22:05 1997

Philip.Belben_at_powertech.co.uk wrote:

> > Another thing to think about is the opportunity that the speculators
> > provide. I don't recall the number of museums spread around the world,
> but
> > it is at least a dozen or two :). Right now, I am in the learning
> stages of
> > finding out what it takes to run a museum and donations seem to be a
> > biggie. If a non-profit status museum is available, I can't imagine any
>
> > speculator trashing something instead of taking a tax rightoff.
>
> Do keep us posted! There are plenty of us on this list who dream of
> converting our private collections into musea when we retire - or
> before! - who would welcome any info on the subject.

Over the past couple of months since I found out about this listserver, I
have been talking to a number of people about the feasibility of opening a
computer museum here in Santa Barbara. Lots of reasons: 1) I live here :),
2) quite a bit of technology has been developed here primarily due to the
university, Raytheon, Delco Electronics, and Santa Barbara Research Center,
3) there are a number of people here with money that might well be willing
to help fund such a venture, and 4) quite a bit of early microcomputer stuff
took place here and most of the people are still around.

We had a meeting of the Classic Computer Club last night (*small* turnout -
only four people) and discussed some of this. One of the guys is a hardware
wiz who is *really* familar with the Kapro computers, another guy was an
early Kaypro dealer here in town, and the other guy actually worked on the
Illiac II computer at (I think) the University of Illinois and still has
some of the documentation. Now that there is a concensus that we will do
it, I will be checking today to see if we can get space donated at the
September computer show here in Santa Barbara. Gotta build awareness!
Apparently we will also be giving a program to the local PC Users Group (100
people or so at the meetings) on the Classic Computers. I also *really*
like the effort Sam and others are putting into the Vintage Computer Faire
since it will also build awareness. Another thing that seems to be helping
to build awareness are the web page museums that people like Jim, Carl,
Kevan and a host of others have where they display information and pictures
of these older computers. I have a list of 50+ web pages dealing with the
older "obsolete" computers and I have seen another 50 or so.

> And however much we dislike the price spirals that occur, we must
> remember that unless people know that collectors want these machines,
> they'll put them in the dustbin.

So true!
Received on Wed Aug 13 1997 - 10:22:05 BST