Other collecting activities?

From: Scott Stevens <sastevens_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Sat Apr 17 02:48:15 2004

On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 00:11:01 -0400
"Brian Mahoney" <brianmahoney_at_look.ca> wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > So, anyone else like to expose any other collecting and/or strange
> behavior of their own? ...
> > Best, David Greelish, classiccomputing.com
> >
>
> You mean other than girlfriends, ex-wives and bad debts?
> Sure. California Raisins, hardcover sports books (a couple from the 40s
> about the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Yankees),
> old sports equipment and Mario/super Mario stuff.
>
> Besides computer hardware/software/manuals, I also collect books about
> computers. Here's a shot at another thread. My oldest is from
> 1962, The Thinking Machine by John Pfeiffer published by Popular Science
> Living Library Program (with jacket in near mint condition.)
> Shots of MIT's Lincoln Lab, Ascension Island antimissile defense system,
> etc. There was a TV show by the same name and the TXo computer would write
> scripts for Westerns, according to the book.
> Next oldest is 1965 , 'The Computer Age and Its Potential for Management' by
> Gilbert Burck and the Editors of Fortune. The one I have is the 7th
> printing, believe it or not and, again, has the original dust jacket and is
> in near-mint condition.
> I find these books fascinating since they are not manuals. They were meant
> to explain and introduce computers to the lay person. Pretty cool stuff, to
> me anyway.
> Lastly, I collect school textbooks about computers. Generally these are high
> school Computer Science kinds of texts, full of high-res pics of all the
> computers you guys talk about. Add to this the plain-English explanations of
> how the various pieces interacted and you can see how I got hooked. My
> background is motion picture technology and communication arts not
> computers.
> Who's got older books?
>
>

I have "Corey Ford's Guide to Thimking Machines" (spelling correct, people used to love jokes about mis-spellings of IBM's 'Think' motto) from 1961. A presentation copy from IBM. It's called 'A Handbook for the Home Cybernetician' on a frontleaf page. It's got tons of those wonderful cartoons from the 1950's that feature big room-sized boxes with doo-dads and controls all over them and a befuddled human or two. What 'the common man' thought a computer was at the time.

Also in the 'front matter' of the book : "Corey Ford wishes to express his thanks to IBM 704, IBM 705, IBM 7070, IBM 7090, and IBM RAMAC, without whom this book could not have been written"

The preface is titled "A Computer in Every Home" which was intended as a ridiculously funny thing at the time, only fit for a joke book.

I wish I'd saved more of Dad's books from the old days of IBM. He also had a complete set of Datamation magazine going back to the beginning, that was thrown away in the mid 80's.
Received on Sat Apr 17 2004 - 02:48:15 BST