CHM gripe (was: rarest computers)

From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk_at_yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Wed Aug 4 05:23:49 2004

On Wed, 2004-08-04 at 03:05, Jim Battle wrote:
> I'm not so keen on the CHM. I don't know if I aired this already or
> not, but I think not.
>
> When I left the bay area a couple months ago, I tried to give my working
> wang 2200 with terminal, manuals, working floppy disk system,
> fixed/removable hard disk system, and disks.
>
> It took a LOT of work (weeks of one-sided prodding) on my part to have
> them consider it. "The curator will contact you in a few days..." (a
> week passes), another email, "The curator will contact you in a few
> days...", more time passes, another email, "Could you describe it
> again?", etc.
>
> After more than a month of delay, I received and email with the tenor of
> a form letter along these lines: Dear Jim, thank you for considering the
> CHM. Unfortunately at this time we don't have an interest in obtaining
> your keypunch machine. Here are the names of some other museums that
> may be interested ...

Well, Bletchley's not so much different I suppose. The museum's horribly
under-staffed by volunteers who are naturally busy doing other things
most of the time. The volunteers aren't local enough to see immediately
what examples of the machine being offered we have on site and the
condition. The only time there's generally a quick response is when it's
something we know we either don't have, or something so common that we
know we have lots of them or would have no trouble finding one when we
suddenly needed one.

Personally the first thing I usually ask of anyone offering to donate
something is how soon they need it gone :-) We've had people throw stuff
in the bin before because they haven't had a response the same day.

cheers,

Jules
Received on Wed Aug 04 2004 - 05:23:49 BST