What Classic Computer are All About - A Lovers View - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

11 Jul 1997

In message <Pine.SOL.3.95.970710232706.10063D-100000@typhoon>
classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu writes:
...
   of the old
machines.  I collect, but I admit is has to make some sense to 
 me as in useful or have some specific linkage to my place in this 
 history.  
 But this is a collectors list 8-) We all collect from that which we know. 
Not necessarily. I've bought things at radio rallies (hamfests) because 'it
looked interesting'. Only later did I discover what I really had. If I'd
always waited to find out what a particular item really was, then I'd probably
have missed all the interesting stuff, and have a totally trivial collection.

However, it does help to have some idea as to what things are. And to know what
they look like from all angles :-)

...
  You must have been - what - 8 years old 8-) Great
story! I think we all
 have one of those - where everybody kinda stares at you - wondering -
 What the Hell is THAT? What are you doing with that - THING? 
Yep, got a load of them. Taking a trolley piled high with computer parts across
Cambridge on a weekday afternoon is good for that :-). Or the time I carried
a DEC Rainbow on a train - VR201 in one hand (using the built-in handle),
CPU under the other arm, and keyboard in my pocket. Dismantling the CPU
mid-journey (it needs no tools) added to the amusement. Then there was the time
I carried an IBM PC/AT box on a train. It got the comment 'That's one hell of
a laptop' :-). Or the time I was carrying a Creed 7E (baudot printing terminal)
and was asked if I had a pen. My reply was 'no, but I have a teleprinter' :-)

Still, what's wrong with being slightly mad?

...

 BC

-tony