Recent finds _at_ Indianapolis Hamfest

From: Mzthompson_at_aol.com <(Mzthompson_at_aol.com)>
Date: Mon Jul 9 21:24:47 2001

I hadn't been to the Indy hamfest since the late 80's, so went
Saturday to see what's new. In some ways, not much. There
were still some of the same private vendors as years ago still
selling the same stuff.

As expected there was more computers and less radio stuff, but that's
ok. I did notice that there were around 25-30 various Mac's for sale
by individuals. Don't recall prices on these.

I did notice that some things were not bargins. One vendor wanted more
for current memory (128mb, 168 pin DIMM) than what I paid recently
at Office Max. Another wanted $20 for a spindle of CD blanks, got
the same thing recently for $5, again at Office Max. I guess it
pays to stay current on local prices.

There was one commercial vendor who had apparently bought out a mess
of stuff from a store going out buisness or some such. Most of it
was like the stuff you would find in a Kmart electronics department.
All of this stuff was in blister packs, in boxes on several tables,
every item for 50 cents. Among the goodies I found were a couple
of IBM PC printer cables & an IBM PC keyboard extension cable. The
rest was more general like stereo cables & adapters and cable TV stuff.

Rummaged through a large bin of CD-ROMs and came away with Microsoft
Office 97 Pro and the SR-2 Patch for it, both CD-ROMs for a $1 each.

Found a book on FileMaker Pro 2.1 for 20 cents, then later bought the
entire software package (still shrink-wrapped) for $1.

All in all, a good days haul, and saw some old friends from the days
I was more active in amatuer radio. May have to make an effort to
visit more hamfests in the future.

Mike Thompson
Received on Mon Jul 09 2001 - 21:24:47 BST