"The vintage computer collecting hobby has
been active in its current form
since the 1990s. ... Also, I definitely would NEVER claim that a 1998 desktop PC has or
will
ever have significant collectible value."
Mark the date.
Those words will be eaten in as little as 10 or 15 years.
I am not so sure. Certainly quite unlikely things have become
collectable, but I can think of serveral reasons why a 1998 PC is not
goign to have the interest of, say, a PDP8 or am HP9830 or even an
original IBM PC.
Firstly, 1998 PCs are all much the same. There's nothing special or
interesting about any particular model (Yes, there were unusual and
interesting computers made in 1998, but they are not 'dekstop PCs'.
Secondly such machineasre essentially unrepairable. They are going to
fail and you simply can't get spares. If you swap out complete modules,
then you end up with soemthing that is not really the oriignal machine.
oddly, parts for much older machines are easier to find. Some components
are still being made [1] and many others are vaialbe as NOS.
[1] A trivial example. Recently I needed a 723 regulator IC, the versio
in the TO99 metal can. I asusmed it would be unavaialbe and was wondering
just how I woudl fit the DIL veriso ninto a very tight space when I did
the sensible thing and checked to see if I could get one. Amazingly, not
only was it available, it was even RoHS-compliant, implying it was still
being made quite recently.
-tony
