21 Aug
1999
21 Aug
'99
8:45 a.m.
<Sure, but the Dell machine is worth considerably more at the moment. So
<it's a good deal. If he's going for the long term investment, he could
<sell it immediately and re-invest the money in 4 more Altairs...
21 Aug
21 Aug
7:52 a.m.
On Sat, 21 Aug 1999, Allison J Parent wrote:
<Sure, but the Dell machine is worth considerably
more at the moment. So
<it's a good deal. If he's going for the long term investment, he could
<sell it immediately and re-invest the money in 4 more Altairs...
Didn't the article mention something about the Altair being donated to a
museum?
From a business perspecive it's a quantum leap
forward and a great deal.
it was an Altair 8800B, maybe even turnkey version (NO FP) wich was at the
time a very good s100 system but nowhere near as collectable as the original
version. Also I'd bet they'd spend a lot for time trying to resurect any
any pickings they'd find to that level of operation.
Now it's in some corperate hands and from there it can be lost, damaged,
or should the company fold or change hands become some excess furniture.
I sincerely doubt it will run much and even if it does it's less likely
they would know what to do with it. 
9:01 a.m.
On Sat, 21 Aug 1999, Aaron Christopher Finney wrote:
The Altair is being donated to the Computer Museum of America in Mesa,
California.
http://www.computer-museum.org
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out.
Coming this October 2-3: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0!
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 08/17/99]
Now it's
in some corperate hands and from there it can be lost, damaged,
or should the company fold or change hands become some excess furniture.
I sincerely doubt it will run much and even if it does it's less likely
they would know what to do with it.
Didn't the article mention something about the Altair being donated to a
museum? 
10:54 a.m.
On Sat, 21 Aug 1999, Sellam Ismail wrote:
On Sat, 21 Aug 1999, Aaron Christopher Finney wrote:
The Altair is being donated to the Computer Museum of America in Mesa,
California.
La Mesa!
Now
it's in some corperate hands and from there it can be lost, damaged,
or should the company fold or change hands become some excess furniture.
I sincerely doubt it will run much and even if it does it's less likely
they would know what to do with it.
Didn't the article mention something about the Altair being donated to a
museum?
http://www.computer-museum.org
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out.
Coming this October 2-3: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0!
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 08/17/99]
donm(a)cts.com
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Don Maslin - Keeper of the Dina-SIG CP/M System Disk Archives
Chairman, Dina-SIG of the San Diego Computer Society
Clinging tenaciously to the trailing edge of technology.
Sysop - Elephant's Graveyard (CP/M) Z-Node 9 - 858-454-8412
*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*
see old system support at http://www.psyber.com/~tcj/
visit the "Unofficial" CP/M Web site at http://www.devili.iki.fi/cpm/
with Mirror at http://www.mathcs.emory.edu/~cfs/cpm/
11:16 a.m.
On Sat, 21 Aug 1999, allisonp(a)world.std.com wrote:
Is this the same Computer museum that parted out some PDP monsters
for saleable souveniers?
Oh you've GOT to be kidding. Tell me you're not serious.
-Dave McGuire
The Altair is being donated to the Computer Museum of
America in Mesa,
California.
La Mesa! 
11:26 a.m.
At 04:14 PM 08/21/1999 -0400, Allison wrote:
Is this the same Computer museum that parted out some PDP monsters
for saleable souveniers?
No, I believe that was the Boston Computer Museum prior to the
establishment of the Historical Computer Center at Moffit Field.
-jim
---
jimw(a)computergarage.org
The Computer Garage - http://www.computergarage.org
Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174
The Altair is being donated to the Computer Museum of
America in Mesa,
California.
La Mesa!
11:54 a.m.
On Sat, 21 Aug 1999 allisonp(a)world.std.com wrote:
Is this the same Computer museum that parted out some PDP monsters
for saleable souveniers?
Allison
I have a hazy recollection of that event, but I don't think(?) it is the
same one. This one exists in conjunction with Coleman College - computer
training.
- don
The Altair is being donated to the Computer Museum of
America in Mesa,
California.
La Mesa! 
5:26 p.m.
Well, I didn't know that my original posting about the
Dell winner would generate so many postings ;-)
In spite of the pros/cons about the lawyer who turned
over his Altair for a WinPC, one good thing (I think)
that came out of this contest is publicity/awareness regarding
the preservation of classics. Case in point is that
when I got home last night and finally had a chance to
read yesterday's local paper, in the business section there was
an article about the Dell contest and the museum, including a photo
of one of the curator (David Weil) trying to bring up a Commodore PET.
While I wasn't surprised to hear about the contest & museum
on the 'net, I was quite surprised to read about it in a
local paper here in central North Carolina (right there next
to the news about Red Hat). It was an Associated Press article,
so it is bound to have appeared in other papers nationwide.
FWIW, the article says that the museum has 200 "pieces", including
a 360 mainframe, "the KIM Homebrew computer, a kit which sold for
$25 ..." (I wonder if they dropped a zero), and a "Royal
Precision Vacuum Tube Computer" - described as being built in
1963, with 113 vacuum tubes (sounds like a small number to me),
drom memory, disk, & paper tape reader. The article also said
there was some kind of storage disk from 1965 that was the
size of a tractor-trailer tire, holding 2.5 Mbytes, and had
to be sandblasted to be erased. (Huh???).
Anyhow, this kind of awareness is a good thing, IMO.
At 11:01 AM 8/21/99 -0700, Sellam wrote:
The Altair is being donated to the Computer Museum of
America in Mesa,
California.
http://www.computer-museum.org
Regards,
Alex
Calculator History & Technology Web Page
http://aknight.home.mindspring.com/calc.htm
9:29 a.m.
Now it's in some corperate hands and from there it
can be lost, damaged,
or should the company fold or change hands become some excess furniture.
I sincerely doubt it will run much and even if it does it's less likely
they would know what to do with it.
Apparently Kai's recent rant did not sink in too far.
Sigh...
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org
9103
days inactive
9103
days old
9 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
af-list＠lafleur.wfi-inc.com -
aknight＠mindspring.com -
allisonp＠world.std.com -
aw288＠osfn.org -
dastar＠ncal.verio.com -
donm＠cts.com -
jimw＠agora.rdrop.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com