14 May
2001
14 May
'01
4 a.m.
--- Iggy Drougge <optimus(a)canit.se> wrote:
Sellam Ismail skrev:
>I once had the privelege of entering the Bodleian Library in Oxford,
>England, one of the most prestigious libraries in the world. I remember
>going through the aisles and seeing all manner of tomes, some of which
>were hundreds of years old!
I did a summer study program at Oxford about 15 years ago. One of the coolest
things was that we got a Bodleian library card! No books can be checked out;
the card entitles you to make book requests of the 19 acres of underground
stacks and have it delivered to a reading room.
>I actually got to hold in my own hands a book
>from the late 1400's and leaf through it. Can you imagine that? A book
>over 500 years old in my own hands.
In the card catalog room, I remember perusing almanacs on the open shelves
that were published before, during and right after the American Revolution.
It was amazing reading in the original what the British thought.
More so for books, but somewhat so for vintage hardware (to keep this slightly
on topic) - a huge benefit of holding an original is that you can be sure there
hasn't been any revisionism. I have this stalled project to build an Elf
design *based* on the Quest Elf, but I'm not trying to represent it as the
real thing. It will more or less work like the original, but the only reason
it's a reasonable substitute is becase you _can_ stick real logic probes in
it, etc., and it behaves like the original under most circumstances.
There are times, though, when you just want to work with the "real thing".
My opinions, I should say, are colored by the fact that I have a degree in
History (not Computer Science or EE), and spent months of my college career
doing archaeology in Greece. In that context, only originals will do for
research (not display) because we don't know enough about how things were
really made/used in many cases to even _make_ a functional copy. Now, you
can learn a lot by attempting to make reproductions and seeing how yours
differs from the origonal, but you still need the original to compare it to.
Last point - we are tactile beings - we use touch to connect us to things, to
prove they are "real". I think an original is far more valuable than a copy,
but copies are not always available/accessible. As long as you disclose that
something is not an original, I have no problem with it. I looked in on that
Mark 8 auction and it was clear to me that it was modern materials and an
old design. Can't belive it went for $1600, though
(http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1233211623)
Makes me want to go out and build my own. Are the plans available anywhere
on the web?
=====
Visit "The Seventh Continent"
http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
http://auctions.yahoo.com/