Selling it off. What would you keep ?

From: Brian Chase <vaxzilla_at_jarai.org>
Date: Sat Nov 30 02:08:00 2002

On Sat, 30 Nov 2002, Lawrence Walker wrote:

> I am at a point where I am thinking about divesting myself of the
> majority of my computer collection. Partly needed bucks driven, partly
> tiring of it all. A small museum is unlikely and I have other unfulfilled
> interests which I might focus on as an old fart. Likely on E-Pay
> because we're a notoriously cheap (or poor) lot.
> What would the list retain if they were cutting down or getting rid of
> the majority of thier collection and keeping enough to keep thier hand
> in.

This will be different for nearly everyone on the list. From an
investment standpoint, I'd suggest keeping anything you've got that's
truly rare or unusual unless you /really/ need the money badly.

When I pared down my collection a bit about two years ago, I targeted
the items which I didn't use (and wouldn't ever likely use), the items I
used the least, the items which didn't have any nostalgic value, and
then those which were rather bulky and could be substituted with
something a bit smaller. About half of it ended up on eBay, the other
half I traded for stuff I'd found more useful. My area of focus tends
to be on Unix workstations and servers, and VAXen of all sorts. My
8-bit gear is limited to systems I enjoyed growing up. (I'd really like
to get my hands on a PDP-11/05 and just about any PDP-8). I've yet to
acquire a system with a proper front panel and blinkenlights.

I found that trying to stick to my "areas of focus" has helped keep my
collection under control. That's not to say there aren't exceptions for
interesting or rare items. If someone offered me a Symbolics machine,
or an Altair, or even the Super Foonly F1, I'd take them up on the
offer.

During the last round of cleanup, I got rid of all my video game
consoles except for the Vectrex, all my Atari 8-bit gear, all of my
Amiga gear, the TRS-80 Model 102s, and most of my Apple 8-bit gear with
the exception of some IIc's and a complete Apple III system. The next
things on the list to go will be the Commodore 8-bit systems and much of
my TI-99/4a collection. The items I kept were all my VAXen, my NeXTs,
some older Sun Sparcs, some newer Sun Sparcs, SGIs, terminals, a few
junk PCs for running Linux and NetBSD, my CoCos (for nostalgic reasons),
and an RS/6000 for running AIX.

The collection has grown a bit again, mostly to be within those areas
that I've limited my collecting; but then there's the Amiga 4000 which
someone found stuffed in a corner at work and had planned to pitch. And
there's the Mac Performa 476, also destined to be trashed. I simply
couldn't let such crimes be committed. Sadly, I missed out on the
palettes of about four dozen SGI Indigo^2s and half as many Indys which
were carted off by the recycling guy.

Anyone want to trade a PDP-11/05 for an Amiga 4000?

-brian.
Received on Sat Nov 30 2002 - 02:08:00 GMT