Collecting, was: ZX80

Chuck Guzis wrote: Me too - but people often get tied to a particular manufacturer for nostalgia reasons. Funnily enough, I used to collect Sinclair stuff - but got bored because there just aren't that many different types out there (I wasn't into calculators) and by and large his designs aren't *that* interesting (except as an exercise in how to cut corners) So the Sinclair stuff sat on the shelf and I started collecting interesting hardware from all sorts of manufacturers, without any particular focus. Then I ran out of space and realised that doing that was something of a never-ending job :) So all the Sinclair stuff went to good homes, as did a lot of my other random bits of hardware, and I started collecting Acorn stuff instead - because there's a huge hardware range it's enough to keep my interest, but it's not quite the open-ended "collect anything interesting" job. Of course I ended up seriously collecting Torch and Research Machines stuff too (mainly by accident :) - but items from three manufacturers is enough that I've got lots of cool stuff to mess around with, yet at the same time I can properly worry about preservation and knowledge-gathering issues. Of course I also got involved with the museum too, so I can go and play around with a *far* larger collection of diverse hardware than would be possible at home whenever I want... cheers Jules