kurtk7_at_visi.com wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I have contributed to the lists on occasion, but now I have a special favor. I
> don't expect a response given the system, but you never know. Hope springs
> eternal. On a regular basis there are requests for this system or that. For
> reasons from simple curiousity to treasured memories of youth. Mine is the
> latter. The first computer I ever saw, way back when in my younger days, on
> the East coast, was the APF Imagination Machine ...
At least you have the pleasure of having driven up the price for the guy
who won it.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2737531463&category=4193&rd=1
They don't show up very often on ebay (not the computer part) and
certainly the one that just sold was the most complete such system I've
seen.
In my own limited experience, you can probably get the system you want,
but the highest leverage way I've found takes these two things:
1) put up a web page dedicated to the machine. a good one.
one that shows you are serious about it and one that supplies
a lot of interesting information. one that other people will
find first when they do a web search. some day one of those
people searching will be an owner of such a machine and
they'll contact you.
2) patience. lots of it. I'm sure right now that feeling of
needing to own one is overwhelming since you just got so
close, but you must also realize that you spent the previous
20 years in bliss after having forgotten about the machine.
It may take two or three years, but it does happen. The bees do
eventually find the flowers.
You can also go out and beat the bushes, do frequent google searches
looking for other owners or people who mentioned owning one in an old
usenet posting, haunt every goodwill/salvation army, hit lots of yard
sales, etc, etc. The best approach is to do all of the above.
I got the idea in my head to locate a wang 2200 four or so years ago.
It was the machine I first learned to program. After two years of
hitting nothing but dead ends and not seeing a single one on ebay or at
any swap meet, I decided to put up a web site. Within 6 months I had
one. A year later I had a second one. Oh, another cosmic side effect
is that within a month of acquiring my first 2200, two showed up on ebay.
Good luck finding that Imagination Machine.
Received on Tue Jul 01 2003 - 02:15:01 BST