14 Aug
1997
14 Aug
'97
2:05 p.m.
On Thu, 14 Aug 1997, Tim Shoppa wrote:
Oh - you never mentioned it was rather
"common" consumer stuff at a
flea market. My comments were more oriented towards dealing with
Yes.
scrap dealers who have 1800-pound minis which will get
junked unless
I go out of my way to make it both convenient and pleasant to sell them
to me. Believe me, most of these scrap dealers will melt a PDP-9
down in an instant. By being excrutiatingly compliant with their
particular needs, I can often get access to complete systems, before
they begin hacking away at bus cables, ripping apart custom backplanes,
and pulling the PC boards to be melted down for gold. If I haggled for
just an instant, that PDP-9 would go on its way to the crusher. I'm talking
about building up long-term relationships and preserving classic machines -
not about saving a buck (or a quarter)!
I totally agree. And again, I was referring mainly to swap meets. You
don't generally build long term relationships at swap meets. The scrap
dealers are a much different story.
Sam
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Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass