The world is going to pieces...

I met Alexandra (the seller) at a nearby Starbucks to pick up my loot (a core assembly and front panel) at her suggestion. We had coffee and talked about computers and electronics. It turns out that she deals mostly in microwave and radio gear, and had no idea that PDP-8s were so highly prized. I asked her about the status of the rest of the machine. It turns out that she had one box, dirty and a bit rusted, that she had discarded, not realizing that it too would fetch a good price or that the machine in one piece would fetch top-dollar, shipping and all. I think she was rather blown away by what people were bidding. I imagine if she ever comes across another classic machine, she will treat it with a bit more respect. I gave her a few pointers to the sort of things that were particularly collectible or interesting to members of the list, for example anything DEC, HP, or with "blinkenlights". She knew, that HP calculators are collectible, but didn't realize that anyone wanted the minis for anything other than parts or scrap. --Bill --- Al Kossow <aek(a)spies.com> wrote: