MSB - "Most Significant Bits" or" Museum Service Bureau"

Hi all In a conversation with Curt Vendel regarding a Shaffstall adapter he needed, I offered him something else for the purpose. This offer has now evolved into something quite different, on which I would like to year your collective opinion. As most of you know, my interest is in media conversion, and not in collecting as such. I very often see posts like "I need to read so and so, who can help me". What I now suggest, is that we create two non-profit non-commercial "organisations" or "service bureau" or what you want to call it, one for everything west of the Atlantic, and one for the everything east. The purpose of these bureaus should be to assist collectors in copying software and data while the media are still readable on the hardware available. The reason for splitting it in two, are (1) freight and customs handling (xrays etc...) and (2) many european systems never made it to the US, or have been scrapped years ago. Examples are systems like Regnecentralen, Rovsing, Norsk Data, Philips PTS, and others you probably never even heard of. To start with, I can offer the use of my (company) service bureau, as described on www.farumdata.dk/enserv.htm I have been thinking on the financial side too. We will without a doubt be forced to buy hardware sometimes, e.g. via eBay, partly because things _can_ and _will_ break sometimes, and partly because the range of drives is to be enlarged.. It is only fair that these costs are coverd by the users of the service bureau. So, what I was thinking of, is a fee of maybe 3-4 Euros (4 - 5 US$) per floppy, and a bit more for a streamer. Plus P & P. In case of Operating Systems, patches, or other files which could be interesting for other collectors, a weekly or monthly CD could be sent off to e.g. Jay West, for inclusion in his archival system. Your comments would be appreciated Happy NewYear to all of you Nico