At 02:13 PM 10/12/00 -0700, Sellam Ismail wrote: Yes, I already have one, too. It turns out the guy was local (!) and he claims to have found someone else to pick it up. I don't know if he actually sold it. Personally, I'm in a throw-away mood as opposed to a collection mood. I tossed 3" x 3" x 25" of old clone 8088 through 486 PCs and cases away last Tuesday. My mind kept running the mantra "They will never be uncommon or rare or all that interesting." I saved some IBM brand PCs of each generation, a hardcard, and a few others. I haven't even made my way to the pile of monitors yet. I coalesced a box of Pentium 50-166 Mhz era motherboards, some brand-new, and for heaven's sake, they would barely fetch a few bucks on eBay. My other mantra was a friend's rule that if you can't sell it on eBay, throw it out. http://www.freeboxen.com/ looks interesting, but this stuff is hardly worth the cost of shipping. I wish I would've gotten the Milwaukee PDP-11/45 the other day, though. I think my e-mail was first to reach the guy, but someone else went the extra mile to pick up the phone to arrange pick-up, so they got it. - John

At 06:39 PM 10/12/00 -0500, John wrote: Besides the obvious typo (unless you actually put the cases in the trash compactor first :-) I would say that you are metamorphosing. I recently gave away all my Amiga stuff. And it wasn't because it wasn't good stuff. In fact it was the best stuff of everything, but it just wasn't germane to my collection. I think its very similar to butterflies. You start as a collecting caterpillar and you take everything anyone offers you or you find. You can spend years doing this and you wrap yourself up in a collection much like a chrysalis. Finally, after being stuck in there for a while you "break out" and toss out a whole bunch of stuff and go deep on a particular thing (or things). And that becomes a very beautiful and "light" collection. Then depending on your mentality you either drink only nectar or you fall from grace and become a caterpillar again :-) They will of course be rare at some point. But its probably not worth paying the freight to store them. My Dad started collecting Cap guns (you know, made a bazillion and sold for a nickel in the 30's and 40's but now they are "rare and collectible.") My kids may in fact feel about a Compag DeskPro 286 like I do about a PDP-8. We'll see. Recently my computer collection has been appreciating more rapidly than my stock portfolio! Actually they are also fun to use to learn about things like the PCI bus where you aren't afraid to try something that might zorch the motherboard. --Chuck

Rumor has it that John Foust may have mentioned these words: compactor first :-) I would say that you are metamorphosing. good stuff. In fact it was the best stuff of everything, but it just wasn't germane to my collection. -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig. If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.

Okey.. I've got an Amiga 500 (not sure which variant, but I could probably figure it out), an exernal 3.5" floppy, power supply, and some kind of memory (?) expansion that plugs in underneath the console. It's all in very nice, even excellent shape. I think I own it all for about $20, which is the minimum bid that I would accept. Any interest? -- Bill Layer Sales Technician &lt;b.layer(a)vikingelectronics.com&gt; +----------------------------------+ Viking Electronics, Inc. 1531 Industrial St. Hudson, WI. 54016 - U.S.A 715.386.8861 ext. 210 <http://www.vikingelectronics.com> +----------------------------------+ "Telecom Solutions for the 21st Century" Powered by Slackware Linux 7.1.0

Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers said: Repeat after me... The help command is your friend. Help Backup Help Copy If you speak reasonably fluent English you can admin VMS on a Vax.... Took me years to get good at Unix and vi. The real fun on VMS is how slick EDT is with a good VT100/220. Bill -- bpechter(a)monmouth.com | FreeBSD since 1.0.2, Linux since 0.99.10 | Unix Sys Admin since Sys V/BSD 4.2 | Windows System Administration: "Magical Misery Tour

I have a four step plan; offer it at a "fair" price on eBay or lists like this one, then offer it again for a token amount to cover packing, offer it free with a local pickup, take it to the scrapyard 6 cents/lb for breakage, more for aluminum, copper, circuit boards etc. Goodwill and most schools around SoCal have no interest in older systems (non pentium 166 mmx and above). Exceptions exist, but Goodwill I know dumps all older systems in bins that go directly to a scrapper at breakage prices.

Speaking of old systems, that GRiD 1530 of mine is trash bound if I don't hear from anyone. I have no space for it, I'm afraid. -- ----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu -- I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. ----------------------------------

On Fri, 13 Oct 2000, Mike Ford wrote: Ouch... How about Salvation Army thrift stores? Occasionally, I go "junk sailing" (sic). There are a cluster of thrift stores around Canoga Park, quite a few along Main Street in Ventura, and still more in Santa Barbara. (Rich people's junk! Whoo-hoo). Another "junk store trail" is via the Inland Empire, hitting stores in Covina, Azusa, Pomona, La Verne, Fontana and Riverside. Sometimes the most "classic" thing in these stores is an old 8-track compact stereo that doesn't work. But what you can find may surprise you. I found an old Commodore Pet (with the tiny keyboard) in one of these places (but they wanted way too much--like $60...)

On Sat, 14 Oct 2000, Sellam Ismail wrote: Perhaps on E-bay or VCF or places where people know what it is. I sort of expect thrift store prices to be a bit lower, cause I don't expect thrift store management to really know what they have. Of course, they might have gotten more savvy over the years....

On Sat, 14 Oct 2000, Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip) wrote: Or more likely they must've thought, "Computer...expensive...$60". I see this all the time. Old 286 or less PCs selling for stupid amounts of money. I doubt they knew the value of the machine. You should've grabbed it. Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org

Mike Ford writes: Of course, GoodWill Industries has gone the extra step and created their own version of ebay. http://shopgoodwill.com/ No bargains there either. Andy

At 10:07 PM 10/12/00 -0700, Sellam Ismail wrote: Probably not. I'd collected most of these older PCs from the trash from a local computer dealer. That doesn't mean they were broken, it means he didn't want them and the customer didn't want them. Some were just fine. Others... sheesh, it just comes down to time. I'd packratted them for years. To bring any one of them up to speed (with memory, CD, sound, etc.) involves so much wasted time mucking around, and then you end up with a slow Win95 box or yet another box with the world's largest virus, Linux. If I really need a new firewall or new utility PC, why shouldn't I spend $400 and get a new whiz-bang disposable eMachine from Best Buy? What is my frigging time worth? Whoops, I got all excited there, remembering I was responding to Sellam, and that I had to speak crudely in order to be understood. I'm self-employed. I put a price tag on everything, especially time. I'm not truly reformed, though. I saved a couple known-working 486/66s to revive for my three kids. They're sharing an eMachine now, but it would be fun to have one in each kid's room. But I'm sure that ten minutes after installation, I'll be asked by a five-year-old why he can't get to ToonDisney.com, which requires a browser with Flash and who knows what else. Two weeks ago, the school superintendent asked me where *he* could dump old PCs. They've got too many, and their technology director would never allow such mutts in the classroom. Have you been to a school or a library lately? The machines are bolted down in hardware and software to keep you from doing naughty things. Teachers here aren't even allowed to install any software on their PCs, the techs must do it for them, all for reasons of support, piracy and viruses. Similarly, other clients ask me what they can do with their old (486/xx, P-133, etc.) computers. They have barely enough RAM for Win95, hard disks that seem puny by today's standards, no software transferred legally, etc. Sure, think it's generous to give it away, or send it to Goodwill... but what is someone getting? They're getting something that they can't use to run Office so they can better themselves at their job, and it's not big enough or fast enough to get on the net, and it's going to require someone with arcane knowledge to fix it or upgrade it. What you've given them is clearly inferior. If they don't recognize that right away, they'll learn it soon enough. You're giving them a headache and an obligation to waste time trying to squeeze oomph out of a computer that doesn't have it to begin with. - John

At 06:06 PM 10/13/00 -0400, Roger Merchberger wrote: Uhm Roger, you seem to forget that I'm in Wisconsin, own a tractor or two, have chicken and sheep poop on my dress shoes, live on a farm, etc. I'm 45 minutes between Madison and Milwaukee. - John

----- Original Message ----- From: "Sellam Ismail" &lt;foo(a)siconic.com&gt; To: &lt;classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org&gt; Sent: Friday, October 13, 2000 1:07 AM Subject: Re: NEC APC available Ack is right. I work at a non-profit organization called the Full Circle Group (we have a web site somewhere, I just forget the URL). If anybody ever needs a place to dump Pentium class (or higher, although we sometimes take 486s) or PowerPC+ machines or parts, I can get an address. If it's near the greater-Cincinnati area, I or someone else can pick it up. We reformat the machines, install an operating system (Windows with MS Works or Linux with StarOffice), give it a monitor, clean it up, give it a printer if necessary and send it on its way. In a 3-hour time period we can perform installations on 180 machines with a crew of 5-10 people (using Norton Ghost Multicast Server -- great little (well, not so little) program. Kevin

On Mon, 16 Oct 2000, John Foust wrote: I assume Bill Gates. He's a charitable guy. I'm sure he's willing to look the other way for charity. Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org

On Tue, 17 Oct 2000, Mike Ford wrote: Gee, even a Mac?

Thanks, I looked at the control Panel/system/general and wasn't sure it "looked" like a serial number. These old 575 are real keepers. Not that bad even at P75 speeds I checked the motherboard and it has switch settings for up to a P120. Now if I can just make them work with some version of *nix....