On Thursday 29 November 2007, Jay West wrote:
Richard wrote...
> Looks like noone else wanted to pay that much
either. I don't
> know where they came up with a price like $1700 for 4 11/04s ($425
> ea?),
To which Pat replied...
An 11/04 is somewhat more desirable of a machine
than the 11/03 is
(it's UNIBUS instead of QBUS), but you still lack the MMU, and only
have a calculator-keypad frontpanel instead of a full lights and
toggles frontpane, and it's relatively slow. So, it's not
generally all that desirable to people, compared to something like
an 11/83, or even an 11/10, or 11/34.
Slow != UnDesireable, or HP 2100's wouldn't sell so much higher than
HP 21MX/E's ;)
I know, but it also doesn't have a toggle-switch front panel. Speed
and/or toggle-switches (and probably to some extent size) make machines
more interesting. This has neither speed nor a toggle-switch front
panel, but does have UNIBUS and is relatively small. I'm mostly
claiming that it would be less *popular* than a machine that was faster
or had an interesting frontpanel. I'm sure that some people would find
it desirable, but there's many more people that would prefer a machine
with speed, a frontpanel, or an MMU.
11/04's seem a bit rare to me. And for "curb
appeal" no different
than an 11/34.
I'm fairly certain that the only difference between the two is the CPU
boardset, and the label. IIRC, they both use the same CPU backplane,
but I'm not 100% sure on that.
Of course, who
knows if they even had any board in them still.
Looks like a full boardset to me... did you click on the camera icon
for the picture show pics? Not to mention, they look to be in awfully
nice condition.
By guessing, it looks like one CPU board, the front-panel controller,
two (memory?) boards, some other I/O board (probably console port), and
a BC11 unibus cable going out the chassis.
This would mean that it's possible that the machine very minimal I/O and
would at least need a terminator board (which also means no boot roms).
Unfortunately, it's hard/impossible to tell what boards are actually in
them from the pictures.
I'd guess
that if they were actually complete, and mostly working
(but without any interesting I/O boards), $150-$250 ea wouldn't be
too far out of line. I/O boards could dramatically raise the value
of the system, though... eg, if there were a SCSI controller or
something in the systems.
Tis all subjective personal preference. I don't have an 11/04, and
don't particularly want one. Is that because it's an 04? No, it's
because of space, time, money, already owning other 11's, not being a
dedicated -11-only collector, etc. Given that the above systems
looked complete and in very good shape, I think the asking price of
$425 each wasn't totally out of line (albeit yes, a bit high to
*me*).
Pricing is always subjective. :) I was thinking more of an average
value, if they sold. And yes, maybe I'm a little low. I always seem
to be "low" at estimating value when it comes to toggle-switch PDP-11s
on ebay.
Of course someone I ran into at VCF also claimed that $1200-$1500 was
way too much to spend on an pdp-11/35, but I'm perfectly happy with my
purchase. :)
More to the point, I don't think the auction is a
fair indicator of
the worth of an 11/04, because he bundled 4 of them at a high (total)
price. Perhaps few people want to buy all 4 and spend $1700, but
perhaps there is someone out there that would jump at buying one at
1/4th the price.
I'd definately agree... I'm sure that the people who'd pay upwards of
$400-$500 for an 11/04 wouldn't want to buy 4 for "4 times the money".
And, realistically, the start bid shouldn't be as high as what you think
the equipment will sell for, or you'll end up driving away potential
bidders. Based on the BIN price of $2700, it looks like the seller
expected them to be worth closer to $650-$700 each, which I'm certain
is WAY too high for an 11/04, which has no peripherals, is of unknown
condition, and very few I/O boards in it.
Pat
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