9 Mar
2007
9 Mar
'07
4:10 p.m.
John Foust wrote:
At 05:18 PM 3/9/2007, Jules Richardson wrote:
The problem though is that the real gems tend to be left with people who
assume (rightly) that they have little monetary value, but who also think
(often wrongly) that they have no historical value.
e.g. given an old piece of furniture, upon unearthing it someone's elderly
widow might make a few inquiries to see what it is or whether it's useful to
anyone. I don't forsee them doing the same for a bunch of floppy disks,
because it simply wouldn't occur to them that they might be important to someone.
I'm not sure how anyone can tackle that; it needs a raising of general
awareness amongst the public that old computer paraphernalia can be just as
useful as other old "junk". In particular, I'm not sure how anyone can
tackle
the problem *soon* - because unlike a lot of things, computer-related material
(at least on the software side) probably has a shelf life of a few decades
rather than a few hundred years.
Maybe I just think too much :)
cheers
J.
I'm not quite sure how to get the message out
there that
this stuff's of potential interest
I think the most effective method is to create a web page
stating that you're eager to preserve (and pay shipping to get)
those items. Many people who are about to throw away something
that was once valuable will Google and/or search eBay to see
if anyone is selling or preserving the stuff.