Collecting Philosophy, was Re: Asshole - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

13 Apr 1998

Even if I had the room and time to pick up every machine that was
headed for the dump, what can I do with several dozen PC clones?
Same goes for other systems. It's interesting to have maybe a
couple, but not the "8 PDP 11/34, 22 Atari ST, 15 Apple ][" I hear.
...
 Well, not all of us have the time to work on every
single system we get
our hands on.  There are only so many hours in the day left over after
life stuff (ie. job, pets, family...) and this is just a side hobby for
me.  My concern first is to at least get the computers to prevent them
from being disposed of and worry about getting them running later.

  I collect for many reasons, amongst them : 
 1) The fun and mental challenge of restoring/repairing them. Fault 
 finding can be interesting, you know 
I do it for the joy of being surrounded by such an ecclectic and  expansive
...
 collection of computers that span the innovation of two
decades.  When  I
...
 make enough money to relax for a couple months,
I'll have fun restoring
and repairing them.

> 2) Finding out what the machines I grew up dreaming of were really  like. 
...
 > And the machines that came before them. I could
never afford them  when 
...
   new, now I can
play with them 
Same here.

> 4) Tracing the history of certain features. To take a trivial  example, 
...
 > IOBYTE at location 3 on CP/M can be traced back to
the Intellec  MCS8i. It 
...
 > was at location 3 on that machine (with the same
format of 4 2-bit 
> fields) as locations 0-2 were reserved for the reset jump  instruction, so 
...
   this was the
first free RAM location. 
This is not only fun, but in my view, relevant.  These are the sorts of
tidbits that, in my nerdy opion, would make a fascinating book: where  all
...
 the standards came from.

> I won't claim I run all my 150+ machines all the time. I have a few  that 
...
 > I run quite often (the PDP11/45, the PDP8/e, the
PERQ 2, a TRS-80 M4, 
> this PC/AT, etc). Others I only run from time to time when I need  them. 
...
   But I do try
to have all my machines operational if at all possible. 
That's commendable, but there's not a lot of need on my end to have
everything running.  There's a desire, but not a need.  When my  collection
...
 goes on display, it will be desirable to have at least
one of  everything
...
 in the collection working with usable software so that
people studying  the
...
 artifact can get a better understanding of it.

Sam                                        Alternate e-mail:  dastar(a)siconic.com
...

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