It seems that nobody has noticed that on ebay is going for sale an IBM 604 calculator. This is the oldest electronic machine I've never seen for sale, and if it weren't for an ocean dividing me and it... The IBM 604 was launched in 1948, and kept in commerce up to about 1953. It's about 2000 pounds total, 1400 tubes, a programmable calculator reading programs out of an punch reader (offered in this sale). There is a specimen of this machine at this dutch computer museum, with a photo of the little thing: http://www.wins.uva.nl/faculteit/museum/604.html This is how IBM depicts the 604 in it's own history: http://www.ibm.com/IBM/history/timeline.nsf/products2 The specimen on ebay has the 521 card punch/reader. This is the description of the seller: The machine is in Santa Fe, Texas, and the current bid is $224, ridiculously low if you consider that a single IBM tube of that series has been sold for up to $170 on ebay, and there is one currently going for $50. There are 1400 of them in the machine, and if somebody here does not act I am afraid the machine will be bought and cannibalized to sell pieces! There is still 1 day, 5 hours to the sale close! This is the ebay URL: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=219958046 Ciao Francesco Bonomi (from Italy) PS please let it be clear to anyone that I am not the seller; I just would like to be the buyer, but I can't becaus of obvious distance problems!