9 Mar
2007
9 Mar
'07
6:55 p.m.
Clearly SWTPC is a brand that is just as desirable as CompuColor.
ebay Item # 190088674069
CT-64 terminal with minor case damage and no matching monitor.
12 bids, closed at $625.25
Another item out of my price range...
I had to fight really hard to get my Cromemco Beehive -- I imagine the
Cromemco OEM label is the only thing that kept it out of the scrappers
hands.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
13 Mar
13 Mar
7:55 p.m.
Richard wrote:
Clearly SWTPC is a brand that is just as desirable as CompuColor.
ebay Item # 190088674069
CT-64 terminal with minor case damage and no matching monitor.
12 bids, closed at $625.25
Another item out of my price range...
Granted that as many on the list have said, one can't take ebay prices as
generally indicative but: holy smokes!
I picked a derelict/beat-up CT-64 out of the surplus/discard pile about 10
years ago. Cleaned up and rewired it's in excellent condition.
I know you're interested in anything terminal, Richard, but I have to say from
a strictly functional perspective you're not missing anything. The display on
those things isn't exactly rock-solid. I don't think it's just the unit I
have, rather that the timing is derived from multiple independant RC circuits.
Which probably makes it interesting from another perspective...
14 Mar
14 Mar
6:40 a.m.
In article <45F76433.87F015DD at cs.ubc.ca>,
Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> writes:
I picked a derelict/beat-up CT-64 out of the
surplus/discard pile about 10
years ago. Cleaned up and rewired it's in excellent condition.
Dude. 10 years ago I don't know if this "hobby" was on anyone's
radar. Did ebay even exist 10 years ago? At any rate, 10 years seems
like such a long time for this hobby that I don't know how you could
compare 10 years ago to now.
I know you're interested in anything terminal,
Richard, but I have to say fro
m
a strictly functional perspective you're not
missing anything.
Yeah, I know, but people are clearly not bidding on this for the
functionality. Its the brand.
This can be a double eded sword. For instance, my Beehive terminal is
branded Cromemco and that's the *only* thing that kept it out of the
hands of the scrappers. Cromemco is a brand near and dear to people's
memories and Beehive is a "WTF is that?" brand (or worse, "what a
POS!" brand) to most people.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
7:37 a.m.
Brent wrote...
> I picked a derelict/beat-up CT-64 out of the
surplus/discard pile about
> 10
> years ago. Cleaned up and rewired it's in excellent condition.
To which Richard replied....
Dude. 10 years ago I don't know if this
"hobby" was on anyone's radar.
I beg to differ. There's quite a
few listmembers here that were active in
the hobby 10+ years ago. I'm also certain there were a good number of people
doing it well over 10 years ago that still aren't on this list. A relative
newcomer to the hobby wouldn't usually be aware of this. Just because this
list wasn't around 15 years ago doesn't mean there wasn't a lot of people
collecting.
Did ebay even exist 10 years ago?
Yes, 1995 to
be exact.
This can be a double eded sword. For instance, my
Beehive terminal is
branded Cromemco and that's the *only* thing that kept it out of the
hands of the scrappers. Cromemco is a brand near and dear to people's
memories and Beehive is a "WTF is that?" brand (or worse, "what a
POS!" brand) to most people.
I offer a slightly different view of that for
consideration. I don't think
it's a case of Cromemco being a brand near and dear... at least to the NON
collectors that would be holding it in mid air making the pitch or sell
decision. They probably never heard of Cromemco or Beehive either one. They
just see an old terminal and say "wonder if I could sell that on ebay". I
doubt the fact it was badged cromemco made much difference to the person
that decided to put it on ebay.
On a related note, I'm still clutching my "Beehive Medical Electronics Mini
Bee Computer Terminal Operators Guide", wishing that some day the
corresponding terminal would show up on my doorstep!
Jay
8:36 a.m.
On 3/14/07, Jay West <jwest at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Brent wrote...
I got my first "obsolete" machine in 1982, my next one in 1983, then
1984 (all older PDP-8s, naturally ;-) I've been fiddling with
"collector" machines for nearly 25 years now. That long ago, one
could argue that the "old" machines were thought of differently than
they are now, but if your motivation isn't "I can sell this on eBay",
things weren't that different after all. I remember seeing this
PDP-8/L in the mud at a rainy Hamvention and marvelling at how many
boards and TTL ICs were inside and thinking how cool it would be to
get this old beast running. It took a few years, and I learned a lot,
but I was right - it was pretty cool when it ran its first program
(incrementing the AC to watch the lights blink). Getting it to echo
chars on a VT220 via 20mA current loop was even cooler. That part of
the hobby is unchanged for me - what has changed most, for me, is how
much it costs to get old DEC gear cause it's "collectible". We just
wanted to run it, not make money from it.
-ethan
> I picked a derelict/beat-up CT-64 out of the
surplus/discard pile about
> 10 years ago. Cleaned up and rewired it's in excellent condition.
To which Richard replied....
Dude. 10 years ago I don't know if this
"hobby" was on anyone's radar.
I beg to differ. There's quite a few listmembers here that were active in
the hobby 10+ years ago. I'm also certain there were a good number of people
doing it well over 10 years ago that still aren't on this list. 
4:01 p.m.
Brent wrote...
FWIW, in a couple of month's time I'll be 'celebrating' 21 years of
computer collecting. I was certainly very active 10 years ago.
-tony
> I picked a derelict/beat-up CT-64 out of the
surplus/discard pile about
> 10
> years ago. Cleaned up and rewired it's in excellent condition.
To which Richard replied....
Dude. 10 years ago I don't know if this
"hobby" was on anyone's radar.
I beg to differ. There's quite a
few listmembers here that were active in
the hobby 10+ years ago. I'm also certain there were a good number of people 
15 Mar
15 Mar
4:13 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Correct. That was my last (and only) paid job :-(
Actually, I had a Cambridge e-mail addres swhen I started computer
collecting 21 years ago. I was an undergrad there then.
-tony
FWIW, in a couple of month's time I'll be
'celebrating' 21 years of
computer collecting. I was certainly very active 10 years ago.
On a Cambridge uni email address, according to our first contact in '96... 
12:04 a.m.
On Mar 14, 2007, at 10:37 AM, Jay West wrote:
To which Richard replied....
Dude. 10 years ago I don't know if this
"hobby" was on anyone's
radar.
I beg to differ. There's quite a few listmembers here that were
active in the hobby 10+ years ago. I'm also certain there were a
good number of people doing it well over 10 years ago that still
aren't on this list. A relative newcomer to the hobby wouldn't
usually be aware of this. Just because this list wasn't around 15
years ago doesn't mean there wasn't a lot of people collecting. 10 years ago, I was adopting and hacking on PDP-8 and
PDP-11
systems because it was fun, and I thought it was important to
understand and preserve the technology. I don't think I ever really
considered the notion of it being "a hobby" or any other structured,
labelable/quantifiable thing. I just *did* it, because I wanted to.
Just like today...except now it has a name.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
14 Mar
14 Mar
10:08 p.m.
Richard wrote:
In article <45F76433.87F015DD at cs.ubc.ca>,
Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> writes:
A then-vs-now value comparison was not intended, just a statement of the way
it happened.
It may be that there are more people in this hobby today, but I don't really
think the level of awareness or consideration of the hobby outside the hobby
is much different.
Given the same circumstances (source,location,appearance) for the one I found,
even today I expect it would still have ended up in the surplus/discard pile.
I picked a derelict/beat-up CT-64 out of the
surplus/discard pile about 10
years ago. Cleaned up and rewired it's in excellent condition.
Dude. 10 years ago I don't know if this "hobby" was on anyone's
radar. Did ebay even exist 10 years ago? At any rate, 10 years seems
like such a long time for this hobby that I don't know how you could
compare 10 years ago to now.
6493
days inactive
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days old
9 comments
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participants (7)
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
jwest＠classiccmp.org -
legalize＠xmission.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com