Ebay Altair

From: Gary Oliver <go_at_ao.com>
Date: Wed May 10 00:29:36 2000

At 18:04 5/9/00 -0700, you wrote:

>As I have always maintained in the past, eBay has done nothing but
>artifically inflate the prices for old computers to the detriment of this
>hobby (and others as well).
>
>Sellam

For me, eBay has made it possible for to obtain a few things that
would never have reasonably come my way. I could certainly roam
around the U.S. and abroad and sniff around all the really good
sites, but here in Oregon there isn't much coming available that
I'm interested in (or that isn't being snapped up by one or more
busier members of this list <g>.) When you count the cost of even
CHEAP transportation, eBay *can* (not always) be cheaper.

What I truly find distressing though is the tendency to "chop" some
items (e.g. front panels, core memory arrays, etc.) to make "trophies"
to hang on the wall (I know this has been covered, ad nauseam.) One
item that really ticks me off is the little .5 inch square core
memory arrays being sold in little plastic "specimen" boxes.

<RANT>
This is one area where I agree that eBay has made a frenzy of things.
I doubt if more than a few percent of the core memories will ever
find their way back into an operating system. In most cases, even
if the memory planes are intact, they've been separated from their
siblings and you'd never be able to reconnect the thousands of wires
to reorganize the stack. I've been looking for some "intact" core
stacks for years now and they're all showing up one plane at a time
for at least $100 per trophy. And sellers are in no way interested
in selling a complete stack. Of *course* they want to turn it into
the $1000+ that eBay will bring... Do you blame them? This seems
a lot like taking a sculpture and breaking it into a thousand pieces
so you can sell them off for a higher price. "I couldn't afford the
whole thing, but I did get a piece of it..."
</RANT>

The want me back at the home, now...

Oh well,

-Gary
Received on Wed May 10 2000 - 00:29:36 BST