Such a deal, let the bidding begin ... :-)

[story of high price asswipe exchange](*) LOL. I have a standing interest in anything "Evans & Sutherland", since I used to work there and I have a computer graphics fetish :-). So I setup a standing E&S search on ebay. Most of the time it turns up commodity E&S PCI/AGP accelerator cards -- I'd bite, but they are always sans manual, sans driver media and sans packaging, or they are ridiculously high like $100 for an outdated video card w/out any of those ephemera. At any rate, something finally shows up on ebay that isn't such a card. It was a pair of input devices: keyboard and dials box. They look like they were for a PS300 or PS390. However, they were just the input devices without the associated terminal. These devices aren't really usable with anything else, at least not without some reverse engineering (the keyboard is custom with LED labels above the function keys!). Also, I already have a dials box, so its not like these are "first of" items for me. The seller offered them for $45 "buy it now" or "best offer" (plus $25 shipping on each item). I asked the seller if he would combine for shipping and he said he would drop off some unspecified amount from the total if I won both items. Well, ok, that's kinda vague but at least its hopeful. However, I thought $45 was a bit high for items of limited utility and obscurity. Noone else made offers. I offered $30 on each, which I thought was a fair offer for these devices. My offer was rejected, with a counter offer of $80 for the pair. Gee, a whole ten dollars less than the original offer price. Both items expired with no purchase and no other offers. Now, that's certainly their right to hold out for more money if they think that's the right price, but I think it was pretty clear that there was no market interest in these items aside from myself. Now maybe he will offer them on ebay again at a lower price with the "best offer" again. If that happens, I will probably offer $20 each as a best offer. Maybe they won't be offered again at all. While I have an interest in E&S items, I also have to be realistic about what I'm willing to pay for something just because it has the E&S logo on it. I know one of you out there has a PS390 :-) and I recently learned that a collector here in Salt Lake rescued a PS300 from the scrap heap. So the things I *really* want (the actual display peripherals) are still out there in limited quantities, but I'm not going to pay through the nose for an *untested* *asis* keyboard and dials box. I have a Megatek dials box and an E&S dials box. The Megatek was offered in a similar state on ebay (untested, as-is), but for the entirely reasonable price of $28. (I think I had to outbid someone to get it as $28 is an odd number, or that might include shipping.) Anyways, like the other ebay thread the other day, some people have funny ideas about what things are worth, both buyers and sellers. I'm willing to bet that some people who stumble upon old computers at estate sales are surprised how much they fetch on ebay. (*) I should say though that its generally considered bad form to have someone's private email quoted in a public forum without their permission. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline"-- code samples, sample chapter, FAQ: <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/> Pilgrimage: Utah's annual demoparty <http://pilgrimage.scene.org>