On Jan 13, 2010, at 1:57 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
lucky, he only
lost one arm. It is better to see a nice piece of
equipment smashed than be smashed under it which is something I
always
try to remember.
I am not at all convincced about that. People have a wonderful
self-repair system, classic computers tend not to. I'd rather suffer a
major injory than loose an irreplaceable classic computer...
While I'd not agree with "major", I'd agree otherwise. I'm not
about to sacrifice a limb, but I don't mind bruises, muscle strain,
or even fairly major cuts, to protect the equipment. I'd not
complain about broken bones for any IBM 360-family machine. I will
heal...the equipment won't! I don't mind making sacrifices for the
stuff that is personally important to me.
One thing I've never been able to wrap my brain around is some of
the psychological aspects of this gang. Many people here scream so
loudly about how "crazy" it is when things are worth real money,
about how unimportant this stuff is, calling it a "hobby" like it's a
purely recreational activity, etc. Do you guys REALLY think the
preservation and study of the stuff that has literally changed every
aspect of human life is such a bad thing to take seriously?
After typing that, it occurred to me that there are actually
people here who only do this for recreational purposes, and there are
actually people here who had never seen or used (say) a PDP-11 when
they were current technology. I suppose I need to wrap my brain
around those concepts.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL