One more thing . . . about those wives . . . I've done pretty well without 'em and prefer it that way, having tried it both ways. The old computer hardware's cheaper, easier to live with, and more forgiving. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Ram Meenakshisundaram <rmeenaks(a)olf.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Monday, November 15, 1999 2:18 PM Subject: Dont want to start a flame war here but Hi, Just curious. What motivates someone to collect old minis and mainframes??? I can see it being nice to look at for a while, but something as big as a mini is very cumbersome to have around the house (let alone an apartment). And what pratical use does it serve running it at home anyway??? I see a lot of posts about collectors having paper tapes, reels, card readers, etc, but how often does one really use it or even turn it on. I would imagine that it probably sets idle for about 95-99% of the time and most people would turn on a PC instead. I have a SUN IPX and a PC. I rarely turn the SUN on, but I keep it around to do some practical UNIX programming on a real UNIX box instead of linux, freebsd, etc. As I said, I dont want to start a flame war or anything, just curious thats all...... Ram PS: If I started to collect stuff like that, my wife will throw me out of the house. She already complains about my transputer equipment... -- ,,,, /'^'\ ( o o ) -oOOO--(_)--OOOo------------------------------------- | Ram Meenakshisundaram | Senior Software Engineer | OpenLink Financial Inc | .oooO Phone: (516) 227-6600 x267 | ( ) Oooo. Email: rmeenaks(a)olf.com ---\ (----( )-------------------------------------- \_) ) / (_/