16 Mar
2007
16 Mar
'07
1:13 p.m.
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:57:40 -0500
From: Jim Battle <frustum at pacbell.net>
I've had it with the Computerworks in Austin.
Please let me rant;
nobody else will appreciate it.
http://www.austingoodwill.org/crs/store%20locater%20pages/ComputerWorks.html
When I moved to Austin a couple years ago, I had high hopes.
In
Austin (and San Antonio, and probably some other cities) Goodwill sends
all of their computer donations to a specialized goodwill, marketed as
"ComputerWorks"; the theory is that most goodwill's don't have skilled
employees to know what is interesting or not and how to price it; I
agree that is the case.
The Austin Computerworks even has a vintage computer museum, so that led
me to believe the appreciated vintage computers.
Bzzt. Not so.
What makes this even more insidious is that when I go
to the local run
of the mill goodwills and inquire about what they do with old computer
donations, they say they ship them to computer works to deal with them.
So essentially it is a vintage computer magnet attached to a wood chipper.
My main interest is in old Macintosh and clone machines. I mostly
lost interest in the Computer Works store when it became obvious that
they would no longer put anything older than a Beige G3 on the
shelves.
But just to rub it in, they keep a Macintosh 128K up on a top shelf
in the sales area which is not for sale. Why display such a
collectable, when they will never offer anything remotely similar for
sale ever again?
Before they changed locations they had a nice little collection of
SE/30s on one of the top shelves.
Before they changed policies, I picked up a PM9150, a bunch of old
unobtainium NuBus cards, and similar bits and pieces. Now, phsssst.
I flap my tongue and direct spittle in their general direction.
Jeff Walther