Sad experience

Today at the UW-Madison surplus sale, a favorite haunt, I found a box containing eight or nine software boxes. Sure enough, it looked like a complete set of all the software from IBM that shipped with the original IBM PC circa 1982: DOS 1.1, 2.0 and the full UCSD p-System, including FORTRAN, the assembler and Pascal. Everything pristine. All disks in place. The shrinkwrap was still around a few of the boxes. No price on the box, so I search for the Pricing Guy. "Sorry, we can't sell software." I knew about this policy - the University destroys all the software it can no longer use. I'm sad that I found the item on the sale floor but can't buy it. He refers me to Boss #1. He says "we can't sell that, how did that get out here? Go talk to Boss #2." Boss #2 says "Three dollars." Back to Pricing Guy. I say, "Boss #2 said three bucks." Boss #1 is still within earshot, he says "Boss #2 can't do that." (So why did you send me to him?) Boss #1 takes the box and heads for the back room, where the disks will be "recycled" and the manuals shredded. - John www.threedee.com/jcm