8 Mar
1999
8 Mar
'99
12:57 p.m.
At 09:35 AM 3/8/99 -0800, Sellam Ismail wrote:
How "rare" can something be when an instance
of it goes up for auction
every damn week!? Doug Yowza noted that there is one Altair or another on
sale at ebay every day!
This is the point isn't it? Finding an Altair at a garage sale or swap
meeting in Bloomington Indiana would be like finding the Holy Grail in a
pawn shop, not friggin likely. But when you expand the garage sale to cover
the whole freakin planet the chances go up to about 1.0. Added to that is
that while only about 130 to 200M of us are actually online, given the
natural connectivity of the human race we probably have access to the
garages of more than 40% of the developed nations.
That sort of re-defines rare in a different way, and after the orgasmic
frenzy has passed of finding things that used to be incredibly hard to find
in your local neighborhood, expectations will get reset and the market will
rationalize and the so called "bottom" will drop out of Altair prices.
--Chuck
8 Mar
8 Mar
1:17 p.m.
On Mon, 8 Mar 1999, Chuck McManis wrote:
That sort of re-defines rare in a different way, and
after the orgasmic
frenzy has passed of finding things that used to be incredibly hard to find
in your local neighborhood, expectations will get reset and the market will
rationalize and the so called "bottom" will drop out of Altair prices.
It is also the economy and it is more than a trivial contributor. How
many solid years of growth since 1983 or so? You end up with a lot of
money chasing goods like these.
Indeed, perhaps if the y2K bug causes a global recession/depression, then
maybe the old computers will have the last "laugh".
I expect there will be a correction, regardless of cause, in old computer
prices. The Altairs and similar probably have a floor under them of
several hundred dollars, but there will be many items that will see the
dumpster once again.
I just picked up a SABA OCR "mouse" for $10 plus shipping. A sort of
cross between a mouse and a tablet hockey puck with a window and cross
hairs to pull a line of text. Mouse, ISA card, manual and all software.
Unique and unloved items will always be available to be nabbed.
-- Stephen Dauphin
2:43 p.m.
On Mon, 8 Mar 1999, Stephen Dauphin wrote:
I expect there will be a correction, regardless of
cause, in old computer
prices. The Altairs and similar probably have a floor under them of
several hundred dollars, but there will be many items that will see the
dumpster once again.
I gather from many conversations I've had that many people buying the
Altairs see them as historic becaiuse of their connection to Microsoft.
Some think that it marked the beginning of the microcomputer revolution
because it launched the career of Gates. What these foolish speculators
fail to realize is that the game is not yet won, and they are leaving the
arena at halftime thinking their investment is secure. History will place
a very different value on their Altair because of what Linux will do to
Microsoft, far less than the tens of thousands that I imagine some people
think they may be worth some day.
Unique and unloved items will always be available to
be nabbed.
Those are the best finds.
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 02/15/99]
7:58 p.m.
At 10:57 AM 3/8/99 -0800, Chuck muttered:
This is the point isn't it? Finding an Altair at a garage sale or swap
meeting in Bloomington Indiana would be like finding the Holy Grail in a
pawn shop, not friggin likely.
Why not? I've found two in Orlando in the last year and I haven't even
been searching hard. I found out about both by word of mouth.
Joe
9436
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ai705＠osfn.org -
cmcmanis＠mcmanis.com -
dastar＠ncal.verio.com -
rigdonj＠intellistar.net