Richard> This is starting to resemble an argument for putting Richard> things on eBay before scrapping them. If they're Richard> priceless, then someone will at least attempt to buy them Richard> for somewhat less than that implies. The "priceless" stuff was an illustrating metaphor. I didn't say minis are priceless. Usually the "price" of a good is determined by the demand/offer situation of the market. Minis are cheap because the demand is so low: isolated collectors, when they have space to store it. These collective market is so dispersed that does not affect the market prices. But smart scrappers can be smart enought to bargain higher prices, when they are certain they are facing collectors. Take for instance antiques: they are expensive just because of the high demand, it's fashionable to have antiques. And who knows, sometime in the future, a VAX board becomes an expensive antique... In fact, some computing stuff is almost "priceless", for instance, ENIAC boards. Would you scrap an originl ENIAC the way you scrap Fujitsu minis? No you would not, unless you were brainless... Any computer as old as the ENIAC is a priceless asset to any museum! Right? Richard> If nobody wants 'em badly enough to pay the packing, Richard> shipping, and associated costs, plus the scrap value Richard> then, since it's too late to leave 'em inthe scrapyard, Richard> they need to be disposed of in some way, don't they? Yes indeed. It's not trivial to ship huge minis across the world. That's one reason why these mailing lists exist: e.g. to announce the availability of certain stuff in certain areas. I'd love to have a PDP or a VAX, but I know that's virtually impossible unless they appear in Lisbon/portugal area... Cheers, -- *** Rodrigo Martins de Matos Ventura <yoda(a)isr.ist.utl.pt> *** Web page: http://www.isr.ist.utl.pt/~yoda *** Teaching Assistant and MSc Student at ISR: *** Instituto de Sistemas e Robotica, Polo de Lisboa *** Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa, PORTUGAL *** PGP fingerprint = 0119 AD13 9EEE 264A 3F10 31D3 89B3 C6C4 60C6 4585