31 Oct
2006
31 Oct
'06
5:31 p.m.
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
I would agree. I haev 3 or 4 pre-1975 Unibus PDP11s, a
PDP8/e, a Philips
P850 and an HP9830 (along with a couple of 9100Bs, a couple of 9810s and
a 9820 if you count those as computers).
I can forsee a world where computers are being saved, but peripherals
and special-purpose machines (calculators, industrial controllers,
sequencers, etc.) are not.
Why?
Well, they aren't computers. And we're all here talking about computers.
And while there are museums of "science
and industry" they can only sample the automation that was happening
from the 1800's through the 20th century, often
having the control
system but none of the machinery, or the other way around. But
they
truly do set the context for the industry and people and machines.
And in the case of the peripherals, the computers aren't particularly
useful without them!
Private collectors fall into the same trap as the institutions
and museums, ending up with lots of CPU's but few of the necessary
peripherals.
Tim.