Anyone off to VCF-UK?

Well I am interested to learn Tony's views. Obviously, not a fan of computer museums. Perhaps we should seek to make donations a two way street. The collector gets something in exchange for donated working item. Taking Tony's comments a step further it would appear that computer museums are groups of donation funded, unpaid volunteers who seek to aquire as many inanimate examples as possible. Systems are made to work only to attract visitors and hence revenue. The members of the groups would much rather the space was used to store even more non working equipment and keep it out of sight and accessible only to the select few. I agree with Tony. Systems should be put to work. It matters not if that work is running a business, controlling a process or showing how they operate to the general public. After all they where originally designed to be used and operated by just such people. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell Sent: 17 May 2010 20:48 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Anyone off to VCF-UK? So do I. It's also worth think about what the 'damage' could be (in the case of a classic computer, an aircraft is rather different :-)). Ok, some irreplacable chip fails. But that will not damage the appearance of the machine, so even after that you still have an artefact to put in a glass case. And the chips will fail with time whether you use them or not (they will fial sooner if you use them, most likely, but even if they are not powered upo their life ie by no means infinite!). You might as well run the machine while you can... I have a book on antique clock repairing that basically says the worst thing you can do with a (common-ish) antique clock is give it to a museum. It will never be run again, it probably won't go on show (most museums have many more artefacts than they have space to display) and so on. I feel the same way about classic computers. I'd rather they were in the hands of enthusiasts who can run them I volunteered at BP for a time some years ago. I gave up when I realised that seveal of their policies were not conducive to getting machines working _or_ keeping them in the original state. I found it more rewarding to work on my own stuff... -tony