----- Original Message -----
From: "John Allain" <allain_at_panix.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2004 9:38 AM
Subject: Re: MIT Swapfest (was: DEC at MIT)
> > Interesting. I've been attending MIT Flea for 10 years, and
> > was just lamenting with friends about how nothing resembling
> > "vintage stuff" even appears there anymore -
>
> The MIT, as with other flea markets that I've seen has a sweet spot of
> 6 year old equipment, plus or minus 3 years, that can be found.
> ( 20 years ago it might have been 8 +/- 4 )
> When the thing you're looking for is older than that, it was tough
> even before eBay. This lesson I learned, hard, with a desired
> IBM 5100.
>
> The Suns and Macs mentioned this month can be augmented with
> a 1990 Canon video still camera, and large quantities of Alphas
> and SGI's seen last time out, all of which will be gone gone gone
> in 10 years.
>
> John A.
>
What you find on eBay and fleemarkets is equipment recently taken out of
service because it is obsolete or just needed to be replaced for other
reasons (software requirements). Once a machine, part, or bus type has been
out of service for more then a few years its very hard to find them in any
decent quantity. If you have an infinite amount of storage area the easiest
way to make money is to just grab everything that's obsolete and unwanted
for free (or very little cash) catalog it and wait 10-15 years until
everybody wants it at inflated prices. If your a packrat and live to a ripe
old age your probably sitting on a goldmine.
For whatever reason a few months back I started putting a 486 VLB system
together like the one I used to own when they were high-tech. Do you know
how hard it is to find caching VLB controllers and highend videocards these
days on eBay? Gravis Ultrasounds are even hard to find on eBay and they
always sell too (so its not like you cant give them away). The cards I
mentioned were made in the millions not that long ago, did they all get
landfilled already?
Received on Thu Jun 24 2004 - 09:16:14 BST