PDP-12 on eBay

From: Sellam Ismail <foo_at_siconic.com>
Date: Mon Jan 13 11:32:00 2003

On Mon, 13 Jan 2003, William Donzelli wrote:

> > That's low. Even for two years ago.
>
> Well, too high for me, anyway. I was just starting the business back
> then, and could not spend anything near that money.

Me too. But it is what I would consider a deserved price.

> Just an observation - this does show how DECcentric this list (and
> really, most of the big iron retrocomputing folks) is. There have been a
> few things pop up like this, on Ebay and elsewhere, but because they were
> not from Digital, little attention was given to them. Huge demand
> outweighs the supply side. I suppose (PDP-12s actually are not all THAT
> rare).

Actually, this is borne out of ignorance (not necessarily meant to be
insulting) of the overall computing scene of the past 50 years. People in
general just don't know their history, and don't put in the effort to
learn it either, so the sheep effect drives up prices on high profile
things (Altair 8800, PDP-8, etc.) while more technically or historically
interesting pieces get overlooked.

I say, good. If it means someday I might be able to get an IBM 650 for a
song, that's fine. I'll then use that score to tell a story about a
significant machine, and then perhaps raise its profile ;)

I don't think the list is inherently DECcentric. The list is collectively
what its members are. There are more DEC-heads than IBMers here. Get
some more IBMers on board and even it out.

Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org

 * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
Received on Mon Jan 13 2003 - 11:32:00 GMT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Oct 10 2014 - 23:36:00 BST