What's Your Specialty?

From: John Lawson <jpl15_at_panix.com>
Date: Tue Feb 5 21:49:48 2002

  I can heartily attest to the run-away-collection syndrome. There is
indeed that imaginary 'line' (as somone recently said) between avocation
and pathology.. and I have crossed it several times.

  The BIG problem for me was that the collection was amassed in
increments, but divested as a whole... yikes! I will *never* do that
again!! It took over my living space, and I ended up with crap I didn't
want, couldn't use, and nobody else really wanted, either. Of course,
there was a lot of 'good stuff' too.

  Now, I want to have just one, fully fleshed-out, peripheral-rich DEC PDP
11/44 system, but I want it to be complete and pristine... completely
stock DEC, all manuals, doc, printsets... as if it had just come off the
truck from the Mill. Then, we'll see if expansion of the collection is in
order.

  As an aside, the big problem I face is that classic computers are *not*
the only thing (heavy, big) that I am a fan of. I have an extensive
vintage electronic musical instrument collection, and I love boat-anchor
radio gear and teletype machinery... then there's the antique and classic
audio studio equipment Stuff I have, recorders and outboard gear and many,
many devices to reproduce the various ways humans have devised to record
sound... which I use as part of my hobby/business of audio restoration,
preservation, and archiving.


   sigh... why couldn't it have been stamps?? Ten thousand stamps
could *all* fit in the chassis of one 11/44 CPU...



  Cheers

John
Received on Tue Feb 05 2002 - 21:49:48 GMT