At 10:17 AM 8/12/97 -0700, you wrote:
>buy a ton of Apple IIe/IIc's and Commodore 64's - like a warehouse full.
[...]
>hit age 50 (in approximately 2015) they're going to have to buy one, and
At which point you would be deeper in debt than the US Gov. from all the
storage costs... 8^)
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
At 09:14 AM 8/12/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Unfortunately, the high demand for common "trendy" machines (i.e. IMSAI's,
>Altairs, whatever) often displaces the preservation of machines which
>are much rarer, which are far more important historically, and which
>present far greater difficulties to preserve, maintain, and use.
Keep in mind that Value <> importance/significance/etc. Value represents a
combination of many variables, including visibility, size, trendiness, etc.
There are plenty of relatively valueless items running around the world that
are incredibly significant, while a whole lot of insignificant things
command high prices on the open market.
If I wanted to invest in classic computers, it would be IMSAI's, Osbornes,
and Apple I's. But I want to collect them, so I've got an Epson, an NEC, a
m100, etc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
On Wed, 13 Aug 1997 12:27:11 -0400, allisonp(a)world.std.com
mentioned:
> Despite have seen a few and being even an EX-digit I've never played
> with the PDP-9. Is any there that can describe the archecture and
> instruction set? Mostly curiosity here.
I think I've got a processor handbook for the -9 at home; it's
either that or the -15 (which was an up-rated successor to the -9).
I'll dig it out and post a few bits when I get home. (If I'm sober
enough. <insert grin as appropriate>) I seem to remember my first
impression was "bizarre machine"...
______________________________________________________________________
| | |
| Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston |
| Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA |
| mailto:carl.friend@stoneweb.com | |
| http://www.ultranet.com/~engelbrt/carl/museum/ | ICBM: N42:21 W71:46 |
|________________________________________________|_____________________|
Despite have seen a few and being even an EX-digit I've never played with
the PDP-9. Is any there that can describe the archecture and instruction
set? Mostly curiosity here.
Allison
> > collectible. (What is the G7000 anyway? Yes, I did buy it! It has an
> > 8048 as the CPU, of all things!)
>
> It is a video game system that is compatible with the Magnavox Odessey^2
>
> Do you have any cartridges for it. If not then I have a few duplicates.
Yes thanks, I have four or five. I don't expect to use the thing until
I can find out how to get composite video or RGB out, since I don't
possess a television.
[For those of you not in the UK, here one requires a licence to operate
"Television Receiving Apparatus", which I think includes any TV with a
UHF tuner, but not a monitor. The licence fee is (without looking up
either the current fee or the exchange rate) about $120 a year, and I am
not prepared to pay this. So I don't have a TV - and seldom miss it.]
Philip.
Welp! I finally got one. Case got a little damaged in shipping,but it looks
like it will still work. Is there anyone out there that still uses the
8bit Atari's that can send me a copy of a Term program on an Atari 8bit
format disk so I can start downloading stuff to my 8bit atari's?
> > The 'speculators' who are out to try to make a quick buck on these
> > machines while having no regard for their preservation or history will
> > only make life much more difficult (and expensive) for those who would
> > preserve both the machine and its history.
>
> I think that there will always be people around who don't have the "purest"
> motives for doing anything, and collecting computers is no exception.
> Antique dealers could be considered collectors only in it for the money, BUT
> without that force being present, a lot more collectibles would be in that
> great landfill in the sky.
Dig the mixed metaphor!
Seriously though, there are two processes at work here. One is that
those who grew up with such machines have got the nostalgia bug. This
starts prices rising, which in turn attracts speculators. The latter
fuel the second process - articles get published about how fast the
market is growing, etc.
One hopes that in a few years time, they will become unfashionable once
again, and we will see a return to the situation when these machines
first became unfashionable - they crop up at car boot sales, etc., for
not much money.
> Another thing to think about is the opportunity that the speculators
> provide. I don't recall the number of museums spread around the world, but
> it is at least a dozen or two :). Right now, I am in the learning stages of
> finding out what it takes to run a museum and donations seem to be a
> biggie. If a non-profit status museum is available, I can't imagine any
> speculator trashing something instead of taking a tax rightoff.
Do keep us posted! There are plenty of us on this list who dream of
converting our private collections into musea when we retire - or
before! - who would welcome any info on the subject.
> And yes, this type of stuff WILL make it harder for people to collect
> computers. HOWEVER, we are still at the stage where the perceived value of
> most older computers is not very high thus making it relatively easy for
> anyone who has the desire to get a fairly complete selection of computers
> relatively inexpensively. And since we seem to be some of the few concerned
> with the preservation of old computers and their history, that leaves us in
> a rather responsible position and I think the future will look back kindly
> at our efforts!
And however much we dislike the price spirals that occur, we must
remember that unless people know that collectors want these machines,
they'll put them in the dustbin.
That is one reason why, unlike Sam, I do not often haggle. If people
know that the Philips G7000 videopac computer that they priced at four
pounds at the car boot sale will get snapped up for that amount of
money, and tell people at work etc., others will think twice about
throwing out the PDP8 or whatever. If, however, they price it at L4 and
can't even get that for it, they will think that computers are not
collectible. (What is the G7000 anyway? Yes, I did buy it! It has an
8048 as the CPU, of all things!)
> > Are *you* prepared to pay $500US for an Osborne or a TI99-4a ???
No, but I'd rather pay $500 for an Osborne than see the last remaining
one disinegrate between the teeth of a rubbish crusher like that PDP9.
On Tue, 12 Aug 1997 07:33:33 -0700 (PDT), Mr. Willing graced us
with these words:
> On Tue, 12 Aug 1997, William Donzelli wrote:
>
> > I also talked to a guy that deals with old computers. Two weeks
> > ago, he _finally_ scrapped out a bunch of old machines - really
> > old. Amongst the deaths were various PDP-8s, two PDP-9s, a
> > Burroughs mainframe, and an IBM 7090 of some sort.
>
> I think; I may scream!
I had the same sort of reaction when I heard the news through
different channels. Needless to say I was less than pleased. However,
Mr. Donzelli believes there to be hope in this; he states that the
guy in question was willing to let him know about future systems
like that.
> *How* do we reach these people *before* things like this happen?!?
That's the proverbial $64,000 (65,536?) dollar question. I guess
we'll have to get to know the various scrap dealers (and especially
"recyclers") in our areas.
> (preferably without starting a mad rush from yuppie collector
> wannabes!)
This is another hot-button issue with me, having seen what the
price of Altairs and the like is now. (No, the price is not
justifiable - other than the machines are very "trendy" right now
and speculators think they can make a killing on them.) However,
given the size of things like PDP-9s and mainframes, I doubt that
systems in that class are likely to fall victim to "speculative
collection". Some of the smaller machines in the PDP-8 class might,
but the PDP-8/I I just acquired filled half of the rear of my
minivan (the other half had an Interdata Model 4 in it) - a bit
too large for the average yuppie. You've got to be pretty sick to
collect things the size of refrigerators (yes, I know, I fit the bill).
Cheers.
--
______________________________________________________________________
| | |
| Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston |
| Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA |
| mailto:carl.friend@stoneweb.com | |
| http://www.ultranet.com/~engelbrt/carl/museum/ | ICBM: N42:21 W71:46 |
|________________________________________________|_____________________|
High up on the list of wants for my collection is an IBM 5100. I passed on
one several years ago at a Goodwill (arrrgh!), but I'd sure like to track one
down now.
Any ideas?
-- Tony Eros
proprietor -- FooBear's Cluttered Cellar Classic Computer Collection
I seem to have received an email which has bounced thru a few people. I'll try
to give attributions where possible.
Dave Jenner:
> Is this the same SCO that is receiving the PDP-11 Unix petition?
> Heaven help us!
Unknown:
> I saw a thing on SCO's webpage about submitting a success story to win a
> prize. I decided it was time for some shameless plugging!
> Look what I got in return... He almost gets the point...
Daniel Seagraves:
> >
> >I have a PDP-11. I bet it would make for some
> >pretty decent advertising if you'd give me the
> >source to compile Unix on it... :)
Jim Sullivan:
> Well, since much of the early UNIX development was done on PDP11s, a version
> of UNIX could possilbe be found for it, but it's probably very old and
> out of date. Of note, my first job in the industry was with a company
> called Human Computing Resources (later HCR, later merged with SCO).
> HCR was one of the pioneers in the UNIX industry and was the provider of
> UNIX ports and layered implementations of UNIX across many platforms,
> including PDP11s. PDP11/Unity was one of our products. Of course, we
> don't sell it anymore and haven't sold it for over a decade.
The Answer
----------
The answer for Daniel Seagraves is to fill in the petition asking SCO to
sell the source code for these old UNIXes. SCO does hold the legal rights
to these old systems. We're hoping that they will be encouraged by the
petition, and help people like Daniel out.
The petition is at:
http://minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au/PUPS/ and choose the top hyperlink.
The petition has been formally presented to SCO, and we're waiting on
an answer back from them. The signs seem good, though!
Cheers,
Warren
