Taking control of your collection

From: Brian Chase <vaxzilla_at_jarai.org>
Date: Tue Feb 5 14:13:44 2002

On Tue, 5 Feb 2002, Lawrence Walker wrote:

> How do YOU limit your collection when you aren't a Sellam, John Keys
> and others with warehouse space. Seriously. It must be a problem that
> many of you have made a decision on, even when it wasn't your S.O.
> giving an ultimatum. Any guidelines ? Be stern.

Great question, BTW.

For my collection, I've tried to set some arbitrary limits. My appetite
and fascination for old computer stuff is pretty boundless, though I
do avoid old PC stuff. I think mostly that's due to having wasted a lot
of time in the late 1980s and early 1990s fighting with PCs, MS-DOS,
Windows, and generally crappy PC hardware.


* No old PC stuff unless it's an active part of my home network
  infrastructure. I've got a relatively new PC laptop, and a fast PC
  server in a co-lo. That's all the x86 I need.

* It (almost always) has to have an MMU. I'll make exceptions for truly
  rare finds... but so far no Altairs or PDP-8s have wandered my way.

* No game consoles except for my Vectrex (and a Sony PS2).

* Stick mainly to DEC equipment, specifically the VAX family of systems.
  I would willing expand this into the PDP-11 familiy, but as of yet,
  I've not found any systems that I like for the right price (or close
  enough).

* For some variation, I also collect NeXT equipment, but I only have two
  of them, and likely won't get any more. Still looking for a few
  options and a cube logo to fix up my salvaged system.

* Systems have to run headless with only serial console access (with
  very few exceptions to this rule.)

* Documentation consisting only of relevant user guides, hardware docs,
  technical refs, and software docs. No periodicals, no marketing info.

* Almost no peripherals at all. I've used the NeXT laser printer as a
  network Postscript printer. I wouldn't mind have a dot matrix as
  well, but generally I live a paperless life.

* Stick to things with standardized interfaces: SCSI, ethernet, RS-232.


I do keep some duplicates and spare parts around, but my collection ends
up being relatively manageable. I try to keep it geared towards being
practical. "Can and will I actually make use of this stuff?" is a
motivating question for me. There are certainly exceptions, but I try
to keep them to a minimum.

Based on what I can tell from following this list, I'd guess a fair
number of the people here have some pretty serious obsessive-compulsive
disorders. But hey, I guess you're allowed as long as you can afford it
and you aren't screwing up the quality of your life.

-brian.
Received on Tue Feb 05 2002 - 14:13:44 GMT