or is Or he wants to bypass eBay's fees and conduct a private sale to the highest bidder. We'll see if he re-lists the item or not. Maybe I'm too much the cynic! Erik S. Klein -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-admin(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Stuart Johnson Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 10:22 AM To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Univac $$$ on E-OverPay ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joe" <rigdonj(a)cfl.rr.com> To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 10:07 AM Subject: Univac $$$ on E-OverPay However it didn't meet the reserve. Does anybody know who the high bidder (TSSWEEN) is? The seller must be nuts! Or else he just wants a new Mercades! $11,099.99 was less than the reserve? What on EARTH was the reserve??? Also, who has that kind of money for a hobby - knowing that it will require tremendous effort to bring the system back to life? It seems to me that the seller either wasn't serious about selling - or is quite greedy (the latter, I think). Stuart Johnson

On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, Erik S. Klein wrote: Retarded. Why doesn't he just ask the high bidder of the first auction to add a buck to his bid and buy it? Unless either one of two things: 1) The high bidder on the previous auction realized how carried away he got and refused the offer. 2) The high bidder on the previous auction was a shill. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

Hello Sellam, Darn, I see they made the reserve fee 1% of the reserve price. It used to be a maximum of $2.00 ? http://pages.ebay.com/help/sellerguide/selling-fees.html Best Regards At 06:58 PM 3/6/03 -0800, you wrote:

Hello Adrian, This is easily doable. Certified cachier's check by FEDEX Next Day Air gets that done, at least within the same country, or direct bank to bank wire funds transfers. An overnight letter is only about $10.00, and a wire transfer is only about $30.00 This is also doable. Immediately contact a national moving or shipping company, show them the info, get a quote ( though they might have to survey the equipment first ), and just tell them to get it done. I'm sure the seller would check the local directories for the buyer and over the phone, pass on the phone numbers of these moving or shipping companies that were in the area where the equipment is located. Then the buyer just starts making the phone calls. When it comes to the sale of large ticket items, eBay's 10 days sometimes isn't enough time for organizations or companies to go through the proposal, approval, and authorization process. Perhaps the seller knew that he might need to run it more than once to make it's availability more widely known, but not immediately have it end in a legally binding sale, in order to try to do the best they could with it. I once listed a Sun StorEdge Array for a company, and had some companies that were interested, and they described how they needed to go through a lot of "process" to get approval. With the kind of level that bidding on that item went to, it probably wasn't the average home user that was involved in it near the end. But if a museum, ( say the Smithsonian? ) wanted to purchase it, it would take time. The seller having a high reserve that wasn't met can give it that time. Best Regards At 07:19 PM 3/6/03 +0000, you wrote:

Hello Robert, That was the second to the highest. But their previous bid, the third highest also, was a little more normal. Perhaps they were just about at the max they wanted to go on it, but still slightly undecided, just wanted to test the limits. There was no last second bidding on that one. Looks like every bidder ( relatively ) rationally was making calculated decisions ( as long as all bidders were legitimate bidders ). Best Regards At 03:28 PM 3/6/03 -0500, you wrote:

Sure, if you don't mind it getting destroyed. If I paid that kind of money for anything, I'd move it myself. I've seen the results of letting moving companies deal with such things, and it would be a gross understatement to say that it's not pretty. And it basically would not be possible to get any real insurance on such a thing. Oh, you might be able to get some sort of insurance, but when the system winds up destroyed, the insurance company will claim that the value of the equipment was only the scrap value to begin with, and pay a trivial amount of money to "settle" the claim.

Andy Holt wrote: I'm sure there are one or two around somewhere but I must admit to not knowing where. On the software front, the folks at Leeds have gotten George 3 to run again on an emulator. http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~ecldh/ccs/george3.html -- hbp

Adrian Vickers wrote: I suspect that CSIRAC in Australia is a tad older. It was turned OFF for the last time in 1964. http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/csirac/ -- hbp

On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, Adrian Vickers wrote: You should visit the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. They've some pretty nifty stuff in their visible storage area. The Johnniac comes to mind. When I visited in January, I jokingly mentioned to my gf that the Johnniac looked like it was made tour, we found out that it was. Other items on display included large chunks of a SAGE system, the WISC computer, at least one of the ILLIACs, and a rack from the ENIAC. I'm looking forward to when they finally get settled in their new location which used to be the SGI headquarters building. -brian.