I went back to the Salvation Army store where I picked up the Wang PC last week, and was shocked to find that ALL of the computer junk had been replaced by shelves full of lamp shades! I am NOT joking, they actually had shelves full of lamp shades where only one week earlier they had too much cool old electronic junk for me to carry, or even to look at properly. I was really happy a couple of months ago when the place 'reawakened' and started filling up with interesting stuff again. But now I know that the SOURCE of the computer stuff has probably always been there, it's just that the Salvation Army store has been keeping it from me! I asked the employees what had happened to all that 'old computer junk', and was told that it had all been THROWN OUT LAST WEEK. :( I was assured that it was already gone, not just sitting in a dumpster outside. I now feel really badly that I didn't go back on Friday morning to rescue that IBM-PC that was full of cards, that Tandy 1000TX, those magnetic strip card readers, the VIC 1541, and that cool-looking grey and rounded Olivetti screen. In my defense all I can say is that I assumed I'd have another chance at them this week, and that I expected the biggest threat to be someone else buying them before I got back. But my competition is my friend, not my enemy. Unfortunately, my competition seems only to be interested in the VIC-20s, Commodore 64s, Atari 800s, and Apple //s, which all tended to disappear from the shelves fairly quickly. Now I'm hoping someone else DID pick up some of that stuff before it was thrown in the dumpster. I guess that Wang came to within two days of the end of its electronic life, and I am grateful that at least I was able to rescue it. But I would have liked to have had a good look at all of the monitors and terminals before they were turfed, because the one that was used with the Wang may have been among them. I'm feeling really depressed about this. And one thing that pisses me off is that they've still got a large shelf full of speakers, turntables, 8-track decks, old stereos etc. Why the hell would they keep that stuff, but toss the computers? There's a funky-looking 8-track + stereo receiver thing that has been in the store for YEARS, yet they won't hold onto old computers for more than a couple of months before the whole lot gets tossed into the trash? Well DAMN THEM TO HELL, and damn ME for not being more vigilant. I went back for the PC yesterday, despite the fact that I hadn't had ANY sleep the night before, and the fact that I'd have to carry it with me to work and then to class afterward. I thought I was going a little crazy for even considering it (I'm built like Stick Man), but now I wish I had attempted to rescue MORE stuff last week. Dammit, I wish I had dragged ALL the stuff I wanted to the desk and paid for it, and had them sit it in a back room until I could come back for it. Dammit, I wish there had been some sort of warning. Anyway, the total lack of anything interesting on the junk shelves did get me to look through the books. And I did find a few interesting things there (but nothing that'll make me any happier about those trashed computers). I guess I'm going to have to find out where those trashed computers GO. Anyway, the books I picked up were: Programmer's Guide to GEM (Balma & Filter, SYBEX 1986) Programming in Assembly Language: MACRO-11 (Edward F. Sowell, Addison-Wesley 1984) PC to VAX: A Communications Guide (Sandler & Badgett, Scott, Foresman and Company, 1990) Getting Started With Color BASIC (1981 Tandy Corporation) I think I may have to have a garage sale to sell some of the non-computer books I have, so that I can do something better with the computer books I keep buying than stacking them on the floor. Doug Spence ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ds_spenc/