On Sat, 27 Jan 2001 19:07:39 +0000 (GMT) Tony Duell
<ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Perhaps somebody could expain the aims of this hobby
of ours. Is it to :
Obtain as many machines as possible without caring what they are
Not for me!
Obtain as many of particular types of
'interesting' (to you) machines
Up to a point... but I'd rather swap identical duplicates
for something fulfilling the requirements below:
Getting (again) the machine that you 'used as a
kid' and enjoying those
ancinet games again (say)
Getting machines that you dreamed of owning many years ago and could
never aford back then
Getting machines that have particular hardware (or software) features
that you find interesting, whether or not you've ever heard of the
machine before
Preserving a piece of computer history
Programming a machine that is really simple enough to fully understand
Repairing a machine that's built from parts you can get and understand
Learning about the operation of a computer by understanding a processor
at gate level
All of those! I got started by getting machines that have
special features (PERQ portrait screen, Apple /// two-speed
cursor keys, Apricot LCD-in-keyboard thingy). Now I have
reached "critical mass", whereupon old computers arrive at
my house by a kind of gravitational attraction.
--
John Honniball
Email: John.Honniball(a)uwe.ac.uk
University of the West of England