* On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 11:43:10AM -0400, David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com>
wrote:
- Anything with a PDP is a good priority, possibly
slightly less so
for PDP-11s since they're still so thick on the ground
[...]
- Terminals are always nice to save, but most people I
know have a
pile of them that's already too big.
I've got a different perspective on this due to my long collecting
hiatus.
Back in the 90s, I collected DEC gear pretty actively. I took whatever I
could get my hands on. Usually it came to me free ("just haul it away"),
and I was happy to give it a good home. I had a lot of fun.
I was young, in my 20s, unmarried, and moved around a lot, so the
collection quickly grew to the point where it was more trouble than it
was worth. With deep regret, I gave it all away. Every bit went to other
collectors, I'm glad to say. Nothing was scrapped (at least not by me)
Fast forward to 2011, and the itch came back. I'm more stable both
financially and in housing (though, there's still never enough room!)
and I wanted to start to rebuild a smaller DEC collection. Just the
things I really wanted to have.
It was a very different ballgame. I did end up with one great "score", a
very, very badly damaged PDP-11/35 that needed about 100 hours of
restoration just to power on (it still doesn't actually work, but at
least it's not rusting in a barn any more), but that was the only free
gear I could find.
I put feelers to all the normal places, and found nothing else.
Eventually I was able to buy a nice PDP-11/73 setup (11/73, 2 RL02s,
SCSI), but I had to pay $800 for it -- that was a "friend price",
definitely less than retail. I found another 11/23+ (no storage) for
$200, and considered it a pretty good deal. Eventually I found a VT101
terminal (without a keyboard) for $80, and snapped it up.
I've seen a lot of stuff come and go on eBay since then, all for more
than I wanted to pay. It's just a different world now. The stuff is
EXPENSIVE (compared to "free" or "scrap value", anyway!) and very,
very
rare. I've seen maybe 2 other complete VT100 terminals in total since I
started looking again, and both were well over $100 (or "local pickup
only" and on the other side of the country. Suck!)
The best bet seems to be to find broken, non-working stuff and fix it.
That's likely the only way to really start collecting '80s and earlier
vintage DEC gear, now. That, or have a whole lot of money! :)
-Seth