test-drb March 1999

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

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berman?

by jlwest＠tseinc.com

Anyone know what happened to bermans diversified industries? Is their website just dead or.... Jay West

25 years, 9 months

Wanted. Coleco vision

by thedm＠sunflower.com

Well, I finally found a Coleco Adam 3. however, this is the version that I need a Colecovision game system to play with, anyone have one for sale or trade?

25 years, 9 months

sellers market

by stephen.j.gabaly＠lmco.com

> > The Agony of Victory: Online Auctions and the Winner's Curse > > > > By Bruce Gottlieb > > > > snip > An extremely one-sided view, in my opinion, it makes many false assumptions, like each bidder has zero knowledge of the others bidders tactics and bids. I personally have not bid on products when "certain" people have the current high bid, I know their max bid is probably very high, so I don't bother. (result is a high bidder underpaiding). I wonder if anybody else does this? I would also guess that many cases exist where all bidders bid below the "fair future value". It has to happen, no one knows the future. In fact, all people who bid on the first Altairs auctioned on Ebay all bid below the fair future value(where today is the future). No? Ebay may seem a sellers market to a buyer, but go ask a couple dealers and you will get another story. The fact the auction ends at a specified time without a doubt lowers the final auction price, this does not occur in a live auction, in live auctions bids are taken until all bidders have reach their maximum bid. Collusion is also common on Ebay, and unlike real auctions is not enforced even if discovered. The grass is always greener on the other side .. For an excellent discussion on auctions, live and online, read about auctions from a real dealer http://www.mermac.com/auction.html steve

25 years, 9 months

sellers market

by edick＠idcomm.com

Sam - First of all - There's already a trading website for CP/M systems and components, by the way. it's at < http://members.aol.com/randymc482/index.htm > It's new and hasn't much on it, but it's certainly available. I don't think everyone is as "hard-over" on the eBay thing as you are. I agree that many people ask far too much for the items they offer for auction. The eBay people publish a transaction success rate of only 70%. This means that while people are willing to bid unreasonable prices, they aren't willing to pay them. Nevertheless, the eBay folks collect a fee based on the price at which the auction closes. It's not a fee based on whether or not a sale is made, but simply on a price, and a very hypothetical one, based on the 70% success rate. That high failure rate of 30% is apparently a percentage of the completed auctions, not a percentage of those started. If no one would bid on an item, the auction would not be completed. Since it's possible, in fact, common for the seller to set a minimum price, it's sure that a significant part of that 30% failure rate that is a response to the all-too-high minimum set by the seller. That's a penalty for being unreasonable. If you were going to set up a site for hobbyists and collectors, which eBay is not, then you'd have to collect earnest money in the amount of the fee to be paid the auctioneer from each bidder, and return the funds paid by all but the winning bidder to the losers after the auction ends. This would ensure a higher completion rate, but would create a lot of work. If you were to collect from the seller, which is certainly reasonable in light of the fact the seller's the only one sure to have some money at the end of the transaction, you'd still have to ensure that the buyer pays. In return, however, you'd have to ensure that what's paid for is what's received by the buyer. All of this gets complicated. Facilitating barter, like facilitating sales, is difficult. Let me cite my own example. I listed a number of items which I know are of interest at least to the people who asked for them, knowing that I didn't want any more than the value of packaging and shipping, yet only one has actually come across with funds to offset postage for the two boards, etc, he asked me to send. I got lots of "I want all of it" without even a close-to-reasonable suggestion as to how to manage packaging, hauling, and shipping. Having gotten rid of the last of the terminals and printers that are going I have about 5 cubic yards of powered chassis and unpowered cardcages in addition to a bunch of cards which will easily fit into the cardcages if that's how I choose to package them. However, I still have to search through a lot of documentation and literally thousands of diskettes in order to put the media together with the doc. Everyone's happy to receive the stuff once it's found and packaged and shipped, yet although I originally indicated I'd be happy to accept "something I can use" (followed by some examples), and all the examples were VERY widely distributed, probably in considerably greater quantity than S-100 systems ever were, I've gotten no offers of these types of devices at all, even though, in several cases, the things are still available and at lower cost than what people seem willing to pay to buy the items I've offered. Hobbyists, you see, are the guys who want everything, want to pay/trade nothing, and only get rid of an item when it's certain they won't have any further use for it. I was once in that category. I did what I did for the love of it, and made a fair amount of money besides. Now I love it a bit less, and don't want all the paraphernalia taking up space if I can't use it for something serious. Now, multiply that by the number of transactions you anticipate facilitating, and you'll see you're up against an enormous expense just in aspirin, MAALOX, whiskey, and prune juice. That's why eBay operates the way it does, still more or less isolated from the transactions, yet able to bring in lots of dollars because they charge the speculators money regardless of whether they sell their item or not. Does this seem different to you? Dick +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++= -----Original Message----- From: Sellam Ismail <dastar(a)ncal.verio.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Friday, March 19, 1999 11:06 AM Subject: Re: sellers market <snip> >>I think this is a VERY, VERY GOOD idea ! > >It is a good idea but let me be the naysayer for a moment. Say someone >does go through the trouble to create such a cool site. A bunch of guys >sick of the ebay atrocity start posting want ads for stuff they want. >And they wait. And wait. And wait. And...nothing ever comes of it. >People who are selling this stuff come to the page, see someone wanting an >Exidy Sorcerer for $15 and go "HAH! I can get 20 times that on ebay!" >Then they go to ebay and get 20 times that. > >Now I would think that many on this list are more interested in trading >computers in a sane manner with other like-minded hobbyists, and on the >strength of that alone will this work. > >Now let's say that a trading board is added, where people can post stuff >they have for sale or trade there. Let's say some really cool things are >offered for sane prices, like S-100 systems and cards, interesting >micro's from the 80s, PDP-8 hardware and software, etc. Good stuff. All >being offered at reasonable prices because its offered by hobbyists >intended for hobbyists. > >Now, along comes some jerk with a lot of money, he starts buying up >everything that gets posted, and then even worse, a couple weeks later >this stuff starts showing up on ebay and getting sold for the same old >ridiculous prices! > >Now, what I'm trying to say is, while this sounds like a very cool idea, >it has the potential to get destroyed by the very thing we're trying to >avoid. A system needs to be designed to insure that there is a level of >integrity maintained, otherwise you just have another ebay, and one ebay >is bad enough. > >I don't have any ideas on this (yet) but I think it should be well thought >out before anyone even bothers to set up the site. > >Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- >Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out. > > Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0 > See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details! > [Last web site update: 02/15/99] >

25 years, 9 months

sellers market

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 06:43 PM 3/19/99 -0800, Sellam Ismail wrote: > Like I said in a previous message, just >because an idiot wants to pay $3,000 for an Altair, doesn't mean everyone >else should too. Ebay is your boogie-man. You say Ebay's driven up the prices of Altairs, but where's the marketplace that's selling Altairs for $600, like in the good old days? Who's to say that the street price of an Altair isn't $3K or $6K? While we have plenty of aspersions on the character of the "idiots" paying greater-than-hamfest prices, where's the discussion of quality o the merchandise? Isn't it possible that a "cherry" Altair, known working, lovingly cared-for, with historically accurate peripherals, docs and software would be worth more than the $200 hamfest dust-covered Altair case? At 10:01 AM 3/20/99 -0800, Sellam Ismail wrote: > >Of course they wish for a ridiculously high price. And my argument, which >you did not address, is that ebay's auction mechanism encourages >such ridiculously high prices. Yes, an auction can generate high prices. From the perspective of the seller, they're getting the best possible price. For the seller, you'd think they'd believe they were getting what they want for the price they're willing to pay. You're right, there are many variations of auction-like sale mechanisms, and there isn't yet a web site for every one. So you're going to pay for your time and bandwidth on www.sellam.com via the sale of banner ads, or what? >Its a free market sure, but the prices that come out of ebay auctions are >by no measure "fair market value". Pish-posh! Price is set between buyer and seller - that's it. Sure, you could write a book and attempt to persuade people that your estimated values were accurate for some place and time, but it doesn't prevent people from selling for less, and it doesn't prevent people paying more. So how do you derive "fair market value" for an Altair in Silicon Valley, versus an Altair I could see and buy here in Wisconsin? Yes, Ebay makes it easy for "lazy" people to buy Altairs. I don't spend many spare hours searching junk shops, but does that make me lazy or undeserving of the opportunity to own one at a price I'm willing to pay? - John

25 years, 9 months

"new" classics (was Re: Pre-history of Digital Research)

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<I think you'd find some additional interest from others (me at least) for <modern kits or instruction sets like those to put these kinds of things <together. I might be able to follow some instructions. I know that I <couldn't just assemble one like you are now doing... yet. ;) It's something I'm not into. Publishing designs that can't be built unless your lucky to have the parts is not a winner. Trying to design something that most everyone can build is far to time consuming and would represent design compromizes that would be for the sake of buildability rather than some specific perfomance. then there is the issue of support. For example you can't get z280s as production has stopped. Some of the parts I use are based on my really deep junkbox. I do have two scopes, logic analyser logic probes, eprom programmers never mind the other tools like working systems to develop code on. Also something on that scale requires a lot of hardware to troubleshoot as initial bringup can include design errors, wiring errors and even a bad part. That leads me to why the Altair and IMSAI were replaced by AppleII and TRS80 style machines. Why, they were working out of the box and users could start coding ideas. Allison

25 years, 9 months

Redundant Technology Initiative

by dastar＠ncal.verio.com

Here's an interesting site. Not exactly what I'd have in mind for old computers but at least they aren't junking them and it seems pretty cool. http://www.lowtech.org/ Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out. Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0 See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details! [Last web site update: 02/15/99]

25 years, 9 months

Somewhat OT: GRiDCase 1530?

by arfonrg＠texas.net

Anyone know anything about a GRiDCase 1530? Here's the situation: I have one that needs a new MB which can be had for $79.00. I know it's a i386 with a 100Mb HD (NO FLOPPY) and a B/W LCD display and it used a special version of MSDOS with some GRiD stuff added. 1) Anyone know if I can just add a floppy and a larger HD? 2) Can I load Linux on it? Thanks, Arfon ---------------------------------------- Tired of Micro$oft??? Move up to a REAL OS... ######__ __ ____ __ __ _ __ # #####/ / / / / __ | / / / / | |/ /## ####/ / / / / / / / / / / / | /### ###/ /__ / / / / / / / /_/ / / |#### ##/____/ /_/ /_/ /_/ /_____/ /_/|_|#### # ###### ("LINUX" for those of you without fixed-width fonts) ---------------------------------------- Be a Slacker! http://www.slackware.com Slackware Mailing List: http://www.digitalslackers.net/linux/list.html

25 years, 9 months

BDV11 - which ROMs ?

by mbg＠world.std.com

>This is so much fun, now in this otherwise forgotten pile of stuff I find >a QBus backplane with a single card stuck in it, its an M8012 (aka BDV11) >bootstrap and terminator card. Now the reason I ignored it, and probably >the guy who tossed this backplane ignored it, was because it has a large >number of "missing" chips. Presumably those are for booting various >devices, it makes it look like the board has been stripped. However, >knowing what it is now, I suspect it could come in handy. However, I've >got no docs on it at all (sigh), but I've got The List. :-) In my experience, I've never seen a BDV11 with more than 4 chips in the sockets... You probably have a perfectly good BDV there... >Given the other stuff that was tossed out with this card I suspect either >an RL01 boot rom or an RX02 boot ROM ... Good possibility... also, a little trick about booting if all you have is the RX boot... image copy the first block (boot block) of the RL drive to the first block of an RX disk... this way, you could boot the RL by specifying the RX... I've done it numerous times on some of my -11s which didn't have the boot room I needed. Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com | | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com | | Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

25 years, 9 months

sellers market

by cmcmanis＠mcmanis.com

Sam you make our point elegantly, extracting from the text ... ... Remember, there is no danger of the winner's curse if you are sure about the value of an item to YOU. (emphasis mine) You know somethings value, you can bid at that value, if you win then great, if you lose then some sucker over paid for the item, but that isn't your problem is it? --Chuck

25 years, 9 months

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test-drb March 1999