19 Nov
2009
19 Nov
'09
3:01 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
I suspect a lot of us do...
Personally, I don't care whether the company is one that 'people have
heard of' or not. I am interested in good designs. I don't consider the
Apple 1 to be in that cantegory....
I think it has its place, personally I'm not disputing that - I'm just trying
to get my head around where this business of it being worth quite so much
hails from.
Each to his own. From what I've heard it is not the sort of design
(either electroncially or mechancially) that I would like.
I like it because it's such utter garbage. That appeals, somehow. It it were
as bad as it is *and* were common, I wouldn't like it so much.
Yes, I was thinking in terms of money - it's not big and not heavy. It'd
certainly need some serious packaging, though.
Yes, another not-very-good design, although I'd still quite like one. I used
to work for a guy who had one in his warehouse, sitting on a shelf, and I kind
of regret not seeing if he'd sell it. I think it was his first machine though
and he kept it more for sentimental reasons, so I suspect he wouldn't have
passed it on.
Yes, there is that. The hoo-hah they attract just seems so out of proportion
given what they are, though.
cheers
J.
I'm not
sure that on it's own makes much difference, though; there are plenty
of rare systems out that that probably survive in lower numbers than an A1...
There certainly are. I suspect I have one or two such machines myself They're the first product of a computer company
that's
still going and that just about everybody has heard of.
Now *that* may well carry
some weight. Personally I like quirky stuff that
very few folk have heard about, but I can understand how many want something
where there's a link to the modern era. And to get back on topic, why is a Sinclar ZX80 (which
I don't own) worth
many times the value of an HP workstation (which is a much better
designed and built machine)?
No idea. I like my ZX80 but I don't really
understand its value (or want to part with it -
and of all my machines, it's probably the easiest to ship
around :-)
By all acounts the plastic case is pretty fragile (I've handled one
once...). I think the sort of machines I work on (old minis, HPs, etc)
would stand up to shipping a lot better, although they are heavier, of
course. Byt my HP handheld computers are solid and easy to carry... Or, to look at
it another way, if an Apple 1 is worth $50k then surely a ZX80
should be worth at least $10k, or a MK14 even more etc. etc. and they're not.
I acutally have an MK14, I have no idea what it's worth. I must get round
to repairing it (the unheatsinked -- thanks Sinclair! -- 7805 went dead
short and wiped out many of the chips. Fortuanely the monitor ROMs
survived, and I do have a replacement SC/MP somehwere). It was my first
computer, which means it has some sentimental value to me, but that's
about the only reason I keep it. The hardware design is not pleasant
(It's pretty obvious from the circuit diagram that the display latches
should be 74175s, but some idiot oredered 74157s by misatake and they
were kludged in (a mux with one input tied to the output will make a
transparent latch -- most of the time) I can
understand the A1 being desirable - but $50k's worth of desirable just
seems totally crazy for something that was only a very small part of computing
history.
I agree with you. If I had $50k spare, I would not buy an Apple 1. But
clearly some people want one, and who am I to judge them?