20 Dec
2005
20 Dec
'05
11:38 a.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
The only case I find low numbers interesting is when a company gives
pre-production models serial numbers too - so I find it worthwhile hunting out
the early pre-production examples of a machine just to see how its design
altered over time or what hardware mods were done to get it into a fit
production state.
For serial numbers in general, it can be handy to track numbers for machines
which had very low production runs as a way of estimating how many machines
were made - as this information isn't often known otherwise. Such low-volume
machines tend to have a few quirky differences too; it's almost like having a
hand-built car I suppose - so it's interesting to see what changes happened when.
But for machines with large production runs where there are maybe thousands of
machines for any given board revision, I can't see a good reason to go hunting
out lower numbers myself. I suppose it brings a bit of a smile when you hear
of a machine still running that was one of the very earliest of its kind made,
but other than that...
cheers
Jules
Lately
I've been wondering if anyone attempts to collect
mass-manufactured memorabilia by trying to get the lowest serial
number.
For instance, I have an Atari 800 serial #388801.
Has anyone done a wiki/database type web page where everyone can enter
the serial #s of their common computers?
This is mostly a pointless excercise, sorry to report. Serial numbers are
notoriously non-sequential. Some companies purposely skip chunks in the
series, and many actually will not start at 1 (it looks bad). To add to
that, the serial numbers can change as a system goes thru the factory -
#1 probably was not actually the first off the line, but the one
closest to the guy that put the stickers on when the shift started. The
real bastard companies are the ones that reuse serials!