Thoughts on Taking Inventory

From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis_at_mcmanis.com>
Date: Sun Feb 28 17:44:41 1999

At 03:05 PM 2/28/99 -0800, Zane wrote:
>BTW, this is the one part of my collection that is inventoried. After
>finding out that I already had the controller I was trying to find, I
>decided it was necessary.

I've met several collectors who are acquiring so fast and in such quantity
that large chunks of their collection is effectively unknown to them. Me, I
guess I'm to much of a specialist (PDP-8s until these microvaxes fell into
my lap)

I also thought the idea of an inventory was pretty unlikely for a variety
of reasons, however there is something that would have real tangible value
and this is the ultimate cross reference book.

I've got both the "Pocket Reference" and "PC Pocket Reference" books and
the latter is great to carry to swaps because you can often find stuff in
it and know with authority what you are looking at.

If we could figure out a way to put together the ultimate database of
things (whether or not people had them) then we'd be on our way toward at
least identifying things. Perhaps encapsulating what a lot of us do "normally".

I imagine a web site and book with the ultimate computer database. The
indexes that would be interesting are:
        1) Manufacturer
        2) Date
        3) Subsystem (rotating storage, linear storage, random access, read only,
                communications, cpu, etc)
        4) Bus type (Multibus, S-100, Q-bus, OMNIBUS, S-Bus, VME, etc)
        5) etc

I'd also have a "shadow" page that showed the outlines of the "standard"
bus types so that boards could be identified by their outline.

Suitably cross-referenced you'd have something invaluable. Now if we can
get everyone on the internet to contribute one board or system, we'd have
this thing built in about four months :-)
--Chuck
Received on Sun Feb 28 1999 - 17:44:41 GMT