Goodwill Computerworks Museum is open

From: Richard Erlacher <richard_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Tue Aug 22 09:47:28 2000

Absolutely right!

What's more, by demonstrating that these "outdated" machines can be made to
work, they show people that THEY can do it, if they've got the interest,
hence encourage people to take one home and make it run. That's more than
the local computer surplus store can do, since their presentation is of one
piece here and another over there, and yet another in the heap out in back
of the store, with no attempt at knowing even what goes with what.

It's likely that Sellam's just experiencing the twinge of envy that you feel
yourself, since these are folks who've carved out a niche for themselves,
allowing them to play with stuff that's donated under the aegis of a
computer museum and getting paid for it.

Remember too, that Sellam's a competitor of theirs and probably resents
their "advantage" in falling under the broad umbrella of a charitable
organization, donations to which are well known to be tax-deductible.

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Tapley <mtapley_at_swri.edu>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2000 8:15 AM
Subject: Re: Goodwill Computerworks Museum is open


> Sellam, you wrote:
>
> >Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 09:27:52 -0700 (PDT)
> >From: Sellam Ismail <foo_at_siconic.com>
> >Subject: Re: Goodwill Computerworks Museum is open
> >
> >On Sat, 19 Aug 2000, Bill Bradford wrote:
> >
> >> Actually it does sell quite a bit of items, but they keep select stuff
> >> as part of their vintage-items museum.
> >
> >Yeah, and that select stuff could probably be selling for a goodly sum of
> >money that will go towards their primary mission of helping people get
> >back on their feet.
> >
> >Someone should write to Goodwill corporate and let them know this is
going
> >on. I'm sure it's not in their charter and I would guess they would not
> >approve of valuable stock being retained for the enjoyment of a couple
> >employees.
> >
> >Sellam International Man of Intrigue and
Danger
>
> Disclaimer: I live in Texas, was born in Austin, and probably have some
> local-boy bias floating around here somewhere.
>
> I agree with you in some ways. I certainly agree in that I'm very
> jealous of those guys (GWCW museum). They have positioned themselves
> squarely astride of the biggest, fastest-flowing stream of castaway (free)
> antique computers in the state. Add to this the fact that they have the
> cachet of a charitable organization to motivate donors (whereas I'm just a
> grubby individual collector) and I turn green with envy.
> Now let's consider what it is they are actually doing. Like it or
> not, they are already astride that stream of computers, because they are
> successful at their mission. Thank goodness they have the sense and
> foresight and resources to preserve the classics mixed into that stream
> (particularly the very interesting ones, like the Lisas and Crays) rather
> than scrapping them as so many other computer dealers, etc. do.
> Furthermore, they are doing with their preserved machines exactly what I'd
> do if I had the resources. They are building a very comprehensive
> collection, and putting it on display for everyone to enjoy.
> Admittedly the choice of "do not touch" signs is a bit off-putting,
> but honestly if my collection were on shelves with hundreds of people
> walking by every hour, I'd have it behind glass. I love the idea of
> teaching somebody to use my Rainbow, but *only* if I can spend the time to
> teach them to turn on *both* of the kludged power switches (two SPST
> replacing a single DPST) at the *same time*, always put the lower floppy
> into the RX-50 *upside down*, etc. A working, hands-on museum is of
course
> the ideal but in a situation where the guest-to-curator ratio is above
> about 5, it entails a very high risk of damage to the collection.
> I'd also like to point out, from a more selfish point of view, that
> there are no more than one of any specific machine type (that I know
about,
> anyway) in their collection. That means all the duplicates they get do hit
> their classic-computer shelves and are available to us (me). Again, that's
> at least as reasonable as I'd be myself and much better than most
> organizations do. (Actually I'd be inclined to keep spares myself, but
then
> I don't have as good a supply channel as they do.)
> The one complaint that you have with which I really can't argue is
> that it's not obviously part of their company charter. However, I'd make
> the reply that so it isn't, but that just means their charter is
> inadequate. What they are doing benefits society, in that it is developing
> and making available a great display of the history of computing. (This is
> the right group to claim that's a worthy goal, right?) They also make that
> collection visible to anyone, even folks of very limited means, and that's
> something that no other organization in the state (region?) is doing.
> Comparing these benefits to the relatively miniscule finacial benefit
> they'd get by, how do we say, "whoring the collection on eBay", I find it
> very attractive to hope they will persist and increase their collection. I
> therefore hope that no-one complains to Goodwill Corporate about it.
> I also should point out that it *is* effective advertising, and
> benefits their chartered mission as such. I've not had a chance to visit
> their store myself - but I will next time I'm in Austin.
> - Mark
>
>
>
Received on Tue Aug 22 2000 - 09:47:28 BST