Altair Collectors Association

From: cswiger <cswiger_at_wilma.widomaker.com>
Date: Thu Dec 10 02:03:52 1998

> > Well, it may just be a case of marketing in a popular journal, but
> > NONE of the above appeared on my radar screen as a curious teenager
>
> A lot of them are UK/European designs -- the MK14 was essentially a
> Sinclair product, the Nascom was a UK machine (that begat the Gemini

One item in my collection is a project that used a Sinclair 16K
expansion module for one of those very price competitive home computers.
It lives on an S-100 Vector board wire-wrapped to a TMS9918 display
processor (used in the TI99/4) - wish I could find the 9918 manual,
kinda worthless w/o it, and the software lost in tape.

>
> Now, I don't want to start another silly Europe .vs. USA flamewar. And I

's why I avoid discussions about 'first', 'best' and just stick to
techy facts - and fact is I turned to Europe for support for an
Atari St ( >10yrs ) in the late eighties when support was drying
up here, like ST Format mag - hey, here's the Maastricht treaty
on an St disk, heh. Buying software (Lemmings, Stealth Fighter)
was my first trans-atlantic cc transaction went very smoothly,
thank you.

> States. But I am truely suprised that the Altair should be 2 orders of
> magnitude (at least) more valuable than any of the above.
>

Debates on 'value' is another volitile subject - just look at the
book or radio collectors. Whether a book has a dot on the
'i' on page 39, line 13 or not can grotesquely alter the value
to someone. Most people think that's crazy!


        Chuck
        cswiger_at_widomaker.com
Received on Thu Dec 10 1998 - 02:03:52 GMT