I collect a few chips, but I'd rather have a whole
working machine that I can demonstrate. You've got to
admit, a set of chips I've got in a shadowbox on my
wall - the 4004 to Pentium Pro - takes up a lot less
space than the machines, generally! I puke when I see
the word "rare" in the ePay ads. There are some
unbeleivably idiotic gems on ebay right now (like the
RARE!!!! 1977 8251 CPU!!!!!, for example).
--- Sellam Ismail <foo_at_siconic.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Nov 2002, Brian Chase wrote:
>
> > I find the whole practice of "chip collecting" a
> bit disturbing. Mainly
> > because it means functioning, useful, components
> are becoming scarcer
> > for those people who could actually put them to
> use. And then
> > secondarily, it creates a market for the willful
> destruction of what
> > might be otherwise working systems or subsystems.
>
> I totally agree. Chip collectors are focused mainly
> on the one part they
> are after, and I can imagine a rare board that could
> bring a rare system
> back to life being stripped of a few ICs considered
> "gems" without
> consideration given to the whole.
>
> > There's difficulty in attempting to educate people
> that working systems
> > are more interesting, and valuable, than
> disassembled bits of them. It
> > /is/ solely a matter of viewpoint, and not
> everyone has the skills or
> > resources to collect like most people here do, but
> getting even a few of
> > them to see things our way is progress.
>
> I'm not going to outright condemn chip collectors as
> they are definitely
> preserving information and artifacts, but they need
> to be mindful of
> computer collectors and not leave a pile of debris
> in their wake in
> pursuit of their hobby.
>
> That being said, I agree that a piece of silicon
> sitting there doing
> nothing is nowhere near as interesting as the
> greater machine that it is
> helping to make work.
>
> Sellam Ismail
> Vintage Computer Festival
>
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Received on Thu Nov 14 2002 - 23:03:01 GMT