A LART is needed (was: VCF 4.0)

On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Sellam Ismail wrote: Having once met a donkey, I can say that I found it to be a much more affable, and well mannered, creature than you appear to be; hence, I don't take that as an insult as you apparently intended it to be. To answer your question, however, I don't have four feet, have no long ears, and no tail, so, it's not at all difficult to deduce that the answer to your question is no. The VCF is also a place to draw the attention of non-hackers to computer collecting; while the prices of older equipment at VCF may not be terribly high, in terms of e-bay pricing or affordability for most of us here, I recon that they're still far higher than they were at hamfests several years ago. No, I neither said nor implied that. Now, who is the idiot? Perhaps you'll learn to wait for answers before jumping to conclusions. Yes Sellam, evolution is possible for all creatures, even you. :-) What I was implying is that it's harmful for those of us who like to collect and hack interesting finds that we pick up for a few dollars - treasures that were someone else's trash, you might say. In years past, before computer, and other vintage electronics, collecting became fashionable, some of us were able to spend less than US$100 and fill up a large station wagon with all sorts of computers, plus a few bits of Heathkit equipment, various electronic components, some audio stuff with tubes (valves), and then come home to find lots more interesing old computer finds lurking for-sale on Usenet, often for the cost of shipping.

We didn't collect just for the sake of collecting or squirreling away equipment, for future profit, to complete a "collection," etc. We collected to have more fun toys to take apart, examine, repair, restore and hack. I sense that this group is composed of two different groups of people, who still have something in common - a desire to obtain and preserve older equipment. We just have differnt ideas as to how we go about it, the "serious collectors" and shelf-liners who are more interested in history and unmodified equipment verses the hackers who preserve equipment through curiosity, tinkering and reverse engineering and are responsible for the actual preservation of working systems. The former go around thinking "what's it worth" the later "neat, a new toy to hack!" I could expand upon this further, but I haven't the time tonight, alas. Perhaps we can have a discussion here about this without it turning into a flamefest. Good luck! By the way Sellam, something tells me that you're having a truly interesting month, one that will grow all the more "interesting" experiences as it progresses, that you may even learn something from by a strange twist of karma. Having fun yet? Oh stop looking into the mirror and muttering your thoughts to this group as you do so, before you risk further embarassment. ;-) All that said, I think that there's still probably much more that we agree about regarding older computers than we disagree about, and, while I don't like some things about VCF, I think that in some ways it's been quite beneficial to computer preservation, particularly from a historical perspective, as it helps to draw people together with a common interest who can share their knowledge of various machines, so, you see that I have mixed feelings about VCF, not all good, not all bad. I see and understand your perspective; can you see and understand mine? Have a good night, and, I do wish you good luck with collecting and preserving, and with having fun with these activities. -- Copyright (C) 2000 R. D. Davis "The best way to gain a true understanding of All Rights Reserved Wile E. Coyote on the Roadrunner cartoons is to rdd(a)perqlogic.com 410-744-4900 fly, head-first, off a horse into something like http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd a fence or a tree; trust me, this works." --RDD