An Organization (was: Do we have a VAX organization?)

O.K. as I said in the beginning I really don't like organizational issues. That's why I'm getting nervous about the goals here. I do agree that Sellam's thing is perhaps the best point to start. However, ... We certainly don't need another mailing list. With port-vax and classiccmp (and occasionally comp.os.vms) we have what we need. Certainly we don't need a new style online forum ... those are notoriously non-populated. I also don't have a sophisticated portal web site in mind. Something simple that states the mission of the organization, a few articles about why preserving classic computing equipment is good. Something that plays down the collectible asset value (that's important in many respects!). And most important a list of people and their collections and activities all over the country and the world. Linking to their project web sites. The web site must be simple so it's maintainable. vintage.org is fairly simple, but even so some links and features on the front page don't work, and that shouldn't be. Rather have less stuff that does the job. About local chapters and national meetings etc. I'm sceptical too. It couldn't hurt for some of us weirdos to come out and have some face to face interaction with real humans, OTOH, this takes even more time away for those who are already struggling having a family life and their collection (aside from making a living.) We don't want to steal people from their spouses and kids. I guess that Isildur is right, the non-profit incorporation would be most critical. This would actually provide incentives for folks who have stuff to decommission. Instead of competing against scrap dealers we would have an advantage of a tax deduction for old stuff. That's also why I think we must downplay the collectible asset value. This should be for the fun and curiosity and public service of preservation, and, if possible, public use of the old stuff. It should not be to promote a new fad of collectible items in order to boost a market, issue price guides, promote pocket book driven collections. The PDP-8 market is already going that way. BTW: that's also why I appreciate a clear cut between the vintage.org and the vintagetech.com things. I wouldn't ask Sellam to move any money from his business to the association but the appearence of a for-profit business next to VCF should not be confounding the non-profit nature of the association either. In terms of the need for funds, I'm mostly interested in a "dachorganization" that would make it possible to put old computers into public use. Help those that do. If you run a cluster of VAX 11/780, 8600, and couple of 6000s with full gear, this makes no sense for the privatier to do 24/7 in terms of electricity. Add the costs of a decent Internet connection too. If you want to show blinkenlights (like the cyber PDP-8) you need an even better Internet connection. The whole point of mainframes is multi-user applications, so it's only natural that the 11/780 wants to serve users through the network. One way of doing this would be a "vintage-pass" available to the public for a fee and for members at a discount. The vintage-pass would give people accounts on the systems of all members. This could have multiple levels, like dec-pass, vax-pass, pdp-pass, ibm-pass, etc. It would include various levels of service, such as guest-account, individual-user account, up to sysadmin-account. Optional operator services (Joe Jones mails his old PDP-11 tapes to bring his old work back to life, etc.) You (or your wife or kids) put the tape in and go. There would be some ethics and legal issues involved. On the one hand rules of conduct by the users, monitoring malicious activity (e.g., cool things like the killer- poke on the PET 2001) to a revival of the worm of 1988. Certainly special scrutiny applies for operator or sysadmin accounts. On the other hand the privacy of the user and his data. This is kind of the space I was thinking about. Organizing cyber events, video-conferences, a worm of 1988 revival fest, could be periodic highlights that warrant press releases and may draw attention. Perhaps more than an annual meeting that people won't usually attend anyway. regards -Gunther Vintage Computer Festival wrote: -- Gunther Schadow, M.D., Ph.D. gschadow(a)regenstrief.org Medical Information Scientist Regenstrief Institute for Health Care Adjunct Assistant Professor Indiana University School of Medicine tel:1(317)630-7960 http://aurora.regenstrief.org