8 Jun
2009
8 Jun
'09
2:30 a.m.
On Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 9:05 PM, Chuck Guzis<cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 7 Jun 2009 at 20:43, Charles Morris wrote:
I'm still mourning the loss of things I got rid of over the years. I
had an original 5150 with the high persistence monochrome monitor and
single sided full height floppy drives. I also had an amiga 500. I
had a number of vintage hand-held games also, like that classic red
display football game, a merlin, that little professor math
educational calculator thing, a colecovision, and a big track with the
dump truck trailer. But the worst of all was a nintendo famicom with
a dozen games and the computer keyboard and cartidge add-on that I
bought new in person in japan back in the early 80s.
Then when my wife's grandfather was nearing his end, I had the option
to acquire all of his vintage computers including an apple 2e, and
another computer I haven't quite identified. I believe it was a
TRS-80. The give-away for everyone here would be that it came with a
suitcase that fit all the pieces. Anyway, I passed on all of it and
grandma put it at the curb. Face-palm.
Most of my stuff went through various garage sales over the years.
I've managed to replace some of it. But other things would be
expensive to replace now. And now that I'm old enough to feel a
perceived quality difference between things that I used in the 70s and
80 vs things now, it's getting difficult for me to throw anything out.
Will things be even crappier in 10 or 20 years? I'm really starting
to resist the disposable society.
I'm also seriously into woodworking which is a disease all by itself.
Woodworkers never throw out wood scraps figuring they'll fit perfectly
somewhere eventually, same for dull drill bits and chisels we'll
sharpen some day. Then there's vintage machinery. The only way to
buy woodworking machines that are made in america now is to buy used.
It's an extreme case of "they don't make them like they used to". The
chinese machines in my shop are very serviceable, but it's just not
the same. I have plans to eventually restore a 40s or 50s era
tablesaw (and others) when I find the time.
brian
So that's why I never throw anything away.
Who'd have thought that an
LED display stick I bought over 30 years ago would find a home in an
early 70's calculator... in 2009. Of course now I have yet another
vintage four-function calculator I don't need, but it still feels good
to fix something that would otherwise have ended up in the trash.
I hate throwing things away particularly if they're not working (I
don't mind giving away working things) ?I recently repaired a
cordless drill with a MOSFET taken from an old 1/2" tape drive
controller board.
I figure that it's a disease.