28 Dec
2005
28 Dec
'05
2:34 p.m.
Richard wrote:
...unless you like PCjrs, as I do, in which case you collect 5 or 6 as they're
somewhat flimsy machines (for example, what is supposed to pass for case and
shielding is plastic lightly coated with what looks to be "spray-on metal" I
believe IBM was awarded a patent for the process, but I don't know what the
process is.)
In article <43B30E61.4000004 at oldskool.org>,
[Note to Jim: adopt a shorter line length for easier > quoting :-]
I have Thunderbird set to wrap outgoing at 79 characters... what would you
suggest? :-) WAIT -- never mind -- I see your point. It is now 76 :-)
I've gotten
past that fear by making sure I have duplicates of everything.
From what I've read about collecting, this is important if you intend
to keep things working. You'll need at least one spare unit for
parts, possibly more. I think a conservative estimate on older
equipment I read somewhere was to keep up to 3 units as spares,
depending on the rarity of the item and what tends to break. I suspect small computing history museums are no
different, but its not very exciting to look at a shrink-wrapped copy
of Word 1.0 in a case (albeit actually using Word 1.0 probably isn't
exciting either).
All of my nostalgia and history involving computers has come from experiencing
them, not looking at them. So that's why I'm a firm advocate of
"hands-on"
computing museums.
I'm enough of a purist that I only use emulators that properly emulate both
scanlines *and* disk-drive noises (and in the case of arcade emulators, the
only one I've ever loved was Vector Dream as it emulated screen burn-in, 60Hz
hum, the sound of the coin hitting the bucket, etc.)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/