How to reach more classic computer users?

From: CLASSICCMP_at_trailing-edge.com <(CLASSICCMP_at_trailing-edge.com)>
Date: Sat Oct 16 12:08:41 1999

You made some good suggestions, and what I write below may look
as if I'm criticizing your techniques. I'm not critcizing your
techniques - they're about as good as they come! - but I am criticizing
how various phenomena on the web put people off of finding appropriate
resources.

>Here's how I find anything for classic computers:
>------------------------------------------------
>Look on 5 or 6 different search engines.

Unfortunately, many of the best classic archives have "dropped
off" the responses of most search engines. For instance, at one
point in time all of the DECUS indices I maintain at

  http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/decus/

were tracked by Altavista and other major search engines. In the
past six months, though, they've all dropped off. Why? I think
it has to do with the trend for search engine designers to think that
"if it's old, it's not relevant", and in the web-world 6-months
old is *old*. Anyone seen the HotBot ads? If your web page is a
few months old, they rank you with the geezers!

With the increasing trend toward more glitzy web sites, I'm afraid that
an archive 20 or 30-year old text, source code, and assembler source
is going to get even fewer hits by many modern search engines.

>Search Dejanews.

This, actually, is pretty good, if you find the right responses. Many
Usenet responses, though, are of the form "see the FAQ" or "see the
<name but not URL goes here> archive", and a newbie won't know how to
find what the respondent is talking about.

(This applies to this mailing list here, too, BTW. There's a common
reliance on internal resources instead of pointing folks toward
resources maintained by folks off-list.)

>Post questions to this list and/or appropriate mailing lists/newsgroups.

Sure, this works quite well if you're already "in the know" enough to
know where to ask. I'm mainly concerned about folks who don't know where
to start.

>Look on eBay/Haggle/etc for possible books.

What I would really, really like to see is for places like eBay or
Amazon or Haggle maintain references to items they don't offer for sale.
Of course, there's zero commercial incentive for them to do so.

>Besides the web, mailing lists and newsgroups, events like the VCF are
>great.

Again, a wonderful resource for those already in the know! Though
if we're lucky some of the media coverage of the VCF events will actually
contain useful links to this mailing list and other resources.

>And perhaps people on this list who frequent swapmeets which are
>frequented by other classic computer enthusiasts would be willing to have
>a little stack of flyers sitting on a corner of their table.

This is a *very* excellent suggestion! Maybe I can help make it happen.
I can put together a glitzy postscript file (hey, I'm getting pretty
good at page layout in writing postscript by hand these days) with
good PDP-11/DEC resources listed on it.

Again, I'm putting my emphasis not necessarily on collectors, but on people who
continue to use classic computers. I, myself, am not particularly impressed
by websites that are just pictures of someone's computer collection and
talk about these machines as relics from the past or museum items. But
I *am* impressed by folks who continue to actively develop for older
platforms, and want to let the wider world know what's available today.

-- 
 Tim Shoppa                        Email: shoppa_at_trailing-edge.com
 Trailing Edge Technology          WWW:   http://www.trailing-edge.com/
 7328 Bradley Blvd		   Voice: 301-767-5917
 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817           Fax:   301-767-5927
Received on Sat Oct 16 1999 - 12:08:41 BST

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