SWTPC craze

On 3/14/07, Jay West <jwest at classiccmp.org> wrote: I got my first "obsolete" machine in 1982, my next one in 1983, then 1984 (all older PDP-8s, naturally ;-) I've been fiddling with "collector" machines for nearly 25 years now. That long ago, one could argue that the "old" machines were thought of differently than they are now, but if your motivation isn't "I can sell this on eBay", things weren't that different after all. I remember seeing this PDP-8/L in the mud at a rainy Hamvention and marvelling at how many boards and TTL ICs were inside and thinking how cool it would be to get this old beast running. It took a few years, and I learned a lot, but I was right - it was pretty cool when it ran its first program (incrementing the AC to watch the lights blink). Getting it to echo chars on a VT220 via 20mA current loop was even cooler. That part of the hobby is unchanged for me - what has changed most, for me, is how much it costs to get old DEC gear cause it's "collectible". We just wanted to run it, not make money from it. -ethan