14 May
2013
14 May
'13
4:15 p.m.
* On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 04:46:45PM -0600, Richard <legalize at xmission.com>
wrote:
In article <51929999.6090700 at gmail.com>,
mc68010 <mc68010 at gmail.com> writes:
Yup. I've been doing this long enough to notice the trends now. About 8
to 10 years ago SGI stuff was listed locally on Craigslist with great
regularity, often with very low "just come take it away" kind of prices.
Octanes, O2s, Indys, occasionally Indigos and Indigo 2s (not as often)
could be had for $50 to $150 depending on configuration.
But I haven't seen any SGI equipment come up in a very long time now.
It's just dried up. People who were getting rid of it have gotten rid of
it. I notice you can still find Octanes and O2s on eBay for pretty
reasonable prices, but I haven't found one on CL in ages (but, then
again, I'm not really looking for that)
The same, as you say, is true of DEC stuff, which is much more my focus
of interest. 15 to 20 years ago (my God, has it really been that long?)
it was not at all uncommon to find a rack or two of PDP-11 or VAX stuff
sitting out on loading docks, often very nice stuff, just free for the
taking. Lots of terminals, lots of free VT-100s and VT-220s, lots of
DECwriter terminals. Now, it's all gone. Anything that was going to be
scrapped has been scrapped, anything that was going to remain in service
is still in service limping along on inceasingly expensive reseller
spares. The only source of the stuff is collector-to-collector (or
reseller-to-collector if you're made of money)
Such is life! I miss doing dumpster runs to get the cool stuff I loved
to find, but that's just the way it is. I'm not too happy about getting
older, either, but I can't do any more about that than I can do about
the supply of PDP-11s and VT-100s in the world! :)
(That said, I still would love to find a VR201 monitor, hint hint!)
-Seth
Seems like we are in a upswing of vintage gear
prices. Some stuff is
going for many time what it would have last year even. I think people
are feeling better about spending money again.
What I see is about the same amount of demand chasing a smaller
supply. It wasn't too long ago you could get a (possibly dirty) VT100
for about $100 and they were listed fairly often. Now they aren't
listed very often at all and are often starting around $150-300.
Obviously, better cosmetic condition fetched a better price, but I'm
seeing the supply of terminals and older SGI equipment pretty much dry
up.