Alto II (was Re: PDP-8 prices

From: Derek Peschel <dpeschel_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Sun Jan 24 23:42:31 1999

> So, don't worry, if you don't pay him $5K, it'll still have a good home.
> $5K seems like a reasonable price, BTW (assuming he doesn't have a $20K
> reserve). Only 1000 or so were made. It's historic. It would be easy to
> justify. Who's gonna do it?!
>
> Not me! I have absolutely no desire to spend $5K on the thing. And this
> confuses me a little. It's near the top of my wanted list, and I can
> afford it, but the prospect doesn't interest me even a little bit. For
> some reason, I find the idea somewhat offensive.

I had the same feeling when I looked at the bid. (The Alto is also near the
top of my list of Super-Cool Machines. It's much higher in Cool Use terms
than an Apple I, or an Altair, or even a straight -8. It may not be higher
in Cool Prestige terms than those machines, but that's OK.)

One problem is that we on the list are spoiled. When we get an offer, it's
usually in the form of, "Hey everybody, I have an XYZ for sale! It comes
with this stuff and is in that condition, and I'm asking N dollars or so."
But this guy is offering his machine as is, in unknown shape, probably with
no docs or software, for EXACTLY $5000. (Or more, of course.) It just
doesn't seem as inviting, and actually it seems a bit imperious.

OK, most auctions are like that to some degree. But this one WAS extreme --
no description of the machine, no newsgroup message (at least not on the
groups I read).

> I guess it's because I think of an acquisition sort of like an "adoption".
> I'm willing to house the thing, and spend a good chunk of time trying to
> get it working, keep it working, and make it accessible to others. Why
> should I have to pay $5K on top of that?

Yeah, this thing would probably require some work to get and keep it
runnfing. For starters, you'd have to find disk packs, put software on
them, and possibly set up a boot server for 3MB/s Ethernet.

The other reason the Altair is so high on my list is that I don't know of an
emulator. Anyone?

-- Derek
Received on Sun Jan 24 1999 - 23:42:31 GMT