Collecting Philosophy

From: Marvin <marvin_at_rain.org>
Date: Sun Apr 12 22:14:32 1998

Tony Duell wrote:

> > Well, I collect for the same reasons as Enrico and my collection is
> > somewhere over 300 comupters. It would be wonderful to make sure they
> are
> > all working and use them on a regular basis but that is not even
> remotely
>
> Hmmm... No flmes intended (and I hope we can agree to differ on this),
> but I really can't see the point in collecting non-working computers _and
> keeping them that way_. Sure I get a lot of non-working machines, but the
> first thing I do is attempt to find a technical manual or scheamatic and
> repair them. Working machines are a lot more interesting. The case

I probably didn't phrase things as well as I could have. I am *always* on
the lookout for technical manuals, documentation, and schematics for the
early machines, and *keeping* the older machines non-working is not the
idea. Most of the machines I have do work. However I also have a number of
them that were given to me not working. Some, such as C-64s, are a dime a
dozen and not worth (to me) the time to fix them. Understand them yes, but
fix them no. Others, such as the Jonas computers, are completely without
docs and I continue to keep my eyes open for stuff like that. In other
cases (pun intended :) ), I simply have no use for the computers and have
gotten them because they were headed to the dump if I had not taken them.
Of course, I usually take them regardless when they are given to me :). I
don't think we differ on the reasons for collecting.
Received on Sun Apr 12 1998 - 22:14:32 BST