Even if I had the room and time to pick up every machine that was
headed for the dump, what can I do with several dozen PC clones?
Same goes for other systems. It's interesting to have maybe a
couple, but not the "8 PDP 11/34, 22 Atari ST, 15 Apple ][" I hear.
>Well, not all of us have the time to work on every single system we get
>our hands on. There are only so many hours in the day left over after
>life stuff (ie. job, pets, family...) and this is just a side hobby for
>me. My concern first is to at least get the computers to prevent them
>from being disposed of and worry about getting them running later.
>
>> I collect for many reasons, amongst them :
>> 1) The fun and mental challenge of restoring/repairing them. Fault
>> finding can be interesting, you know
>
>I do it for the joy of being surrounded by such an ecclectic and
expansive
>collection of computers that span the innovation of two decades. When
I
>make enough money to relax for a couple months, I'll have fun restoring
>and repairing them.
>
>> 2) Finding out what the machines I grew up dreaming of were really
like.
>> And the machines that came before them. I could never afford them
when
>> new, now I can play with them
>
>Same here.
>
>> 4) Tracing the history of certain features. To take a trivial
example,
>> IOBYTE at location 3 on CP/M can be traced back to the Intellec
MCS8i. It
>> was at location 3 on that machine (with the same format of 4 2-bit
>> fields) as locations 0-2 were reserved for the reset jump
instruction, so
>> this was the first free RAM location.
>
>This is not only fun, but in my view, relevant. These are the sorts of
>tidbits that, in my nerdy opion, would make a fascinating book: where
all
>the standards came from.
>
>> I won't claim I run all my 150+ machines all the time. I have a few
that
>> I run quite often (the PDP11/45, the PDP8/e, the PERQ 2, a TRS-80 M4,
>> this PC/AT, etc). Others I only run from time to time when I need
them.
>> But I do try to have all my machines operational if at all possible.
>
>That's commendable, but there's not a lot of need on my end to have
>everything running. There's a desire, but not a need. When my
collection
>goes on display, it will be desirable to have at least one of
everything
>in the collection working with usable software so that people studying
the
>artifact can get a better understanding of it.
>
>Sam Alternate e-mail:
dastar_at_siconic.com
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Don't blame me...I voted for Satan.
>
> Coming in September...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
> See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
> [Last web page update: 04/08/98]
>
>
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Received on Mon Apr 13 1998 - 16:10:47 BST