Trenton Computer Festivalt

From: Mike Ford <mikeford_at_netwiz.net>
Date: Thu Apr 15 05:02:54 1999

>Out of curiousity, I took a look at ebay to see what Centris/Quadra 610s
>were going for. $75 seemed to be the normal to high end for a Quadra 610-
>most of those in the stock 8/230 configuration. Prices seemed
>commensurately lower for a Centris 610 with high bids on some stripped
>(4/0) configurations going as low as $33.
>
>Okay, so maybe it's the year of the $50 '040. :-)

Prices come from an odd mix of factors, and seemingly small things can have
big impacts on price especially on places like eBay. A Centris in 4/0 trim
is stripped, just motherboard ram, no simms, no hard drive, and that often
means the system was a parts donor and may have lurking problems. I never
take the prices on eBay at face value. I read the whole ad looking for
problems or features, screwup in the listing (ie selling a SCSI drive in
general PC hardware instead as a Mac drive), hot button terms like AS-IS,
or factory warranty, or goofy posting time (ad closes at 4 am killing last
minute bidders), buyer or seller with a bad feedback rating. Cost of ram
these days is a big factor, really not as big as it should be given the
price of buying ram.

I was at GSA surplus sales this morning and the best deal I could get on a
DFI (clone) desktop 486DX50 8/212 running norton over dos in dirty
condition with no mouse or keyboard was $42.50 (which I declined) and that
price was only because I would have bought half a dozen.
Received on Thu Apr 15 1999 - 05:02:54 BST