Alto II - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

25 Jan 1999

I was at a local thrift store yesterday and spotted a couple of oddly
shaped boxes with a designation indicating them to be ALTOS boxes.  One has
a tape drive of some sort and the other has a floppy disk drive.  Does this
mean anything to anyone?  IF someone wants them, I could snag them and
ship.  I doubt they will cost much more than $10 each.

Dick

----------
...
  From: Doug &lt;doug(a)blinkenlights.com&gt;
 To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
&lt;classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu&gt;
...
  Subject: Alto II (was Re: PDP-8 prices
 Date: Sunday, January 24, 1999 8:36 PM

 On Sun, 24 Jan 1999, Marvin wrote:

 > I don't know if you noticed or not, but the email address of the seller
is
...
  > at spies.com.  For those of you who might not be
aware, spies.com is one of
...
  > the largest repositories of arcade game related
materials.  The guy who runs
...
   it seems to be
very well regarded in the collector circles.  
 That's the guy.  He's also well regarded by Alto collectors:
 	http://www.spies.com/aek/xerox.html

 So, don't worry, if you don't pay him $5K, it'll still have a good home. 
 $5K seems like a reasonable price, BTW (assuming he doesn't have a $20K
 reserve). Only 1000 or so were made.  It's historic.  It would be easy to
 justify. Who's gonna do it?! 

 Not me!  I have absolutely no desire to spend $5K on the thing.  And this
 confuses me a little.  It's near the top of my wanted list, and I can
 afford it, but the prospect doesn't interest me even a little bit.  For
 some reason, I find the idea somewhat offensive.

 I guess it's because I think of an acquisition sort of like an
"adoption". 
...
  I'm willing to house the thing, and spend a good
chunk of time trying to
 get it working, keep it working, and make it accessible to others. Why
 should I have to pay $5K on top of that?

 $500 seems to be my limit for what I consider a reasonable acquisition
 fee.  Maybe that will go up as this crazy price spiral continues, but to
 pay more than that, I think you really have to be in the speculative
 investment mindset, and I'm not.

 -- Doug