Love 'em or hate 'em...

On November 16, Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip) wrote: Hamfests? Hah. Hamfests turned into "new taiwanese PC clone hardware dealer fests" years ago. There are still a few around here (Washington DC area) where there's some actual RADIO (gasp!) gear, but not many. I enjoy them very much, even though they tend to be full of very old people who give me dirty looks because I have long hair. Ahh, passing of judgement, stereotypes...I just LOVE our society. *puke* I, too, am disturbed by eBay's effects on the classic computer world. But for me, around here, I have a very hard time finding ANY older hardware. A pdp11/53 or a MicroVAX is the best one can hope for in this area these days; finding a pdp8/i languishing in a storeroom is nigh impossible here anymore. I buy a LOT of stuff on eBay (Mr. Spreadsheet tells me $70,364.16 in the past 2 years), including a supercomputer and a car, and for all our complaints about it, it has allowed me to get my hands on some stuff that I've been looking for for a VERY long time with no success. Sure, I wind up paying more for it that some people here might consider reasonable...but the alternative, for me, is often *not having it at all*. -Dave McGuire