On 13 Oct 2010 at 8:56, Ian King wrote: Not really--my first question would be "What would I do with it?" At my age, such answers don't come easily. --Chuck

On 13 Oct 2010 at 12:42, Teo Zenios wrote: Pretty much my feeling. I look at the not-to-distant time when I'll have to move and downsize, or worse yet, just plain die and folks will have to select the most expeditious way to dispose of what I have. I no longer accept any vintage gear unless it's small and unusual and I can think of a use for it. Let the museums and folks with warehouse space have the stuff. Anybody want a NEC Spinwriter? I gave in to a moment of weakness and took it in. Now it sits in my shop, neglected. --Chuck

In article <1D7E779D9BAD4DF081730566A31C3E75 at dell8300>, "Teo Zenios" <teoz at neo.rr.com> writes: I'd store it in my warehouse with the rest of the gear for my computer graphics history museum. Shipping is probably $200-300 for proper packing and freight shipping. Current bidding is $560, I'm expecting it to sell for $750 at a minimum, maybe $1000+ once the snipers have their say. While it would be nice to have one of these, at this point I can think of much more effective things I could do to improve my museum with the same amount of money. However, as time goes on, it becomes harder to find items for the museum that fill a gap and the more exotic items start working their way up the priority list. Restore it to working condition and occasionally exhibit it functioning. Usually exhibit video of it functioning. For an item like this, I would be treating its restoration like the way the PDP-1 team worked at CHM. I highly doubt that anyone on this list leaves stuff "to rot" in their basement. I would hazard a guess that less than 25 units are still in existence. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

On 10/13/2010 12:16 PM, Richard wrote: As the auction is now over, apparently it is worth just over $30,000 to the right bidder whomever that may be. Not quite the millions a painting by a famous artist might be, but definitely not a small chunk of change. With that said, paintings and artwork can end up in private hands or in museums, and so will other various "artifacts" including computers.

On 10/18/2010 12:01 AM, Curt @ Atari Museum wrote: Though the other thing with "collectable" computers is generally the collectors' value is still less than things originally cost, at least for now. Note I did say generally, there are many exceptions, but more often than not, things are just reaching the original cost.

cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org wrote: The ZX80 was (iirc) ?99.99. At one point (1999/2000) the UK ebay price was ~?400. A quick completed listings search just now suggests that ~?110-?250 is nearer the mark. No MK14s or Aces in ebay's current completed listings so no idea about those. I don't think you'll get rich selling old home micros. Antonio (260675156877 is another ZX80 but this one will set you back a lot more. Mind you, it's worth it as it'll win pretty much any "my $system would crush your ZX80" contest you might find yourself dragged into. You could live in it too, so it qualifies as a mainframe.)

On 10/17/10 10:07 PM, Teo Zenios wrote: I will probably list a completely restored Alto II with software soon. We'll see if a RUNNING machine brings a similar price.

I was at the Rodin museum in Paris and hoped to see a piece that a friend had photographed. They informed me that the collection is about five times what will fit on display at any one time, and the piece I wanted to see was in storage. :-( I was particularly interested in this bronze because it looks uncannily like me (which is why my friend took the photo), and I wanted to get a photo of the two of us side by side. Ah well, I guess I'll have to go back to Paris sometime.... -- Ian

I feel even more strongly about this, having dealt with some particularly clueless people at musuems and related organisations [1]. To the extent that no part of my collection is ever going near a museum. [1] My 'favourite' story is the chap from the British Library who didn't realise that thermal printouts fade quite quickly, and thus any such printouts of historical significance need to be photocopied or scanned ASAP. My experience suggests that few museums would dismantle a rare machine to produce documetnation and then fix it, whereas quite a few enthusiasts would. Giving a very rarew machine to such an enthusiast is more likely to produce inforamtion of benefit to the rest of the classic computing community than would be produced if it was given to a museum. Particularly as hackers (in the origianl sense) are not often well-paid, if they can find a job at all. -tony

This is the problem - not very many computer "museums" are real museums, or even act like real museums. -- Will

Yes, and many are decent organizations. "For now" is a good way to put it. I would rather not start another MUSEUMS SUCK! thread. We have said everything many times before. Some people just can not change their views. -- Will

Ouch!. As an aside, I've heard that you should never lend anything rare/valuable as a prop for film/television. There have been too many cases where the object has been essentailly ruined, and while they'll pay you the insured value, taht is hardly what you want (as I have said many times 'Ypu can't hack banknotes'). Not just computers, I've heard of antique furnitrue coming back in a terrible state. While I have no problem with demonstrating my machines, and to taking them apart so that other enthusiasts can see the insides, and to letting people use them, I do insist that I am present _all the time_. No exceptions. So yes, if you're, say, restoring an HP9125 plotter, like the one that sold on E-bay rexently for over $2K, and you want to, say, check some signals, then I'll find a way to get mine set up so you can clip your 'scope onto it. But I am not going to lend it to you. -tony

On 10/15/2010 3:13 PM, Teo Zenios wrote: such museums are rare. for the most parts museums (and libraries) operate as businesses and need customers and income. They will make or rent exhibits that generate traffic. they rarely place a lot of emphasis on the longevity of every little bit that could exist in their sphere of influence. the rare exceptions are such as the CHM and the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian is picky about what it takes, but preserves artifacts quite meticulously. The CHM has a lot of nice stuff, and from what I've seen preserves what it accepts quite well. I mentioned libraries, because they are at the bottom of the food chain in my book. There are countless elaborate collections of books dispursed to the far winds by clueless librarians. The rare exception and model you would think would exist is a person like Al Kossow. He is the rare archivist, who has the mission to save the software and ephemera of computing, and actually knows what he is doing. Most librarians, and such operations as almost any "Discovery Museum" or such has the mission to bring in bodies and collect money. the rare well finance serious collector probably is the best hope for your rarities if you pass them on, as most of the museums frequently already have what they need, and won't take say the complete apple collection from the Newton to the latest Macintosh LC3.

Gene, I've never seen these before. I'm not a Kaypro user (none in the collection) but I've owned a couple in the past. I grabbed the first issue. This looks like it will be a fun read. Thanks for uploading them. Rob On Oct 16, 2010, at 12:42 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: Robert Borsuk rborsuk at colourfull.com Colourfull Creations http://www.colourfull.com

On Sun, 17 Oct 2010, steve shumaker wrote: I do not have a list, but it would not take much time to make it - I've only got 25 issues left to scan. I'll try to get a list put together of those 25 tonight. Have you already gone through what I posted? g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!

On Sun, 17 Oct 2010, Robert Borsuk wrote: You're quite welcome Rob! The Kaypro is a neat little machine - you need one. *laughs* I've also got a pile of the Kaypro software docs for CP/M, BASIC, MultiPlan, etc. I'll get those scanned as soon as I can figure out the dead-chicken waving pattern over the scanner. [*] [*]The manuals are of a non-standard heigh and width - the Ricoh scanner I'm using loses it's mind over it for some reason. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!

On 10/18/2010 11:18 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: Luckily not all museums are strict in this regard, or I would not have been able to create my ETH Lilith emulator.... I was enough for them to know I had a working one, and had reliably returned documentation lend to me by the ETH, to lend to me several of the system disks. Regards, Jos Dreesen

seen. Their idea is to put items into storage in whatever condition they arrived in and do nothing unless the item can form part of a display. -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rich Alderson Sent: 19 October 2010 18:54 To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: Nonsense about museums and libraries [was RE: Xerox Alto onebay (not mine!)] From: Jos Dreesen Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 9:39 PM On 10/18/2010 11:18 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: Clearly, someone decided that you had been properly trained! ;-) Seriously, each museum makes that determination by its own criteria--but each museum makes that determination. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.PDPplanet.org/ http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

Really? In my experience, incoming items are first evaluated for stability. This is necessary because they often come from private collectors who do not have the resources of a museum and may have stored the items for years in a less than ideal environment, like a musty basement or a garage. (Some private collectors do better than others.) Rodent nests (and sometimes carcasses) are removed, areas of decay are cleaned carefully so they do not progress further, and then the item is catalogued and, most likely, stored. The item is stored until one of the very few members of the restoration team can attend to it. In our case, there are three of us who not only restore pieces but also deal with intake and ongoing aspects of display and operation. We also give tours and lectures. We engage in public dialogue, such as this forum. Occasionally we sleep. Just what is it you think we should be doing differently? -- Ian PS: as far as librarians go: I was on an advisory board for the UW Libraries for a few years. Anyone who doesn't think they are hardworking professionals has no clue about what a library is. Hint: it's a lot more than a bunch of books on shelves. ________________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rod Smallwood [rodsmallwood at btconnect.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 12:16 AM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only' Subject: RE: Nonsense about museums and libraries [was RE: Xerox Alto onebay (not mine!)] seen. Their idea is to put items into storage in whatever condition they arrived in and do nothing unless the item can form part of a display. -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rich Alderson Sent: 19 October 2010 18:54 To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: RE: Nonsense about museums and libraries [was RE: Xerox Alto onebay (not mine!)] From: Jos Dreesen Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 9:39 PM On 10/18/2010 11:18 PM, Rich Alderson wrote: Clearly, someone decided that you had been properly trained! ;-) Seriously, each museum makes that determination by its own criteria--but each museum makes that determination. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.PDPplanet.org/ http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

In article <CC28F43ED4708D489ABCF68D06D7F556040A5CCB89 at 505DENALI.corp.vnw.com>, Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> writes: I'd like to hear more about what constitutes "cataloging", as I'm a n00b in this respect. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

What do you mean by 'item','piece' and 'part' here? I can understand an item being made of several pieces, but why do you need a third level here? In the case of a classic computer, what would you label? The casing? The individual PCBs/modules? How would you handle the case of taking 2 effectively identical machines acquired at differnet times and using parts from bvth to make one working example, or would a museum never do that? (If the latter, then I consider the policy to be broken!). -tony

:-( I was of course thinking of the more sensible situation of either taking parts from a more common (even if still quite rare) device to fix up a very rare one, or taking 2 examples of a rare machine, both not working, and making a working one from them. It's an interesting question whether you should use new parts (from RS/Farnell/Digikey/wherever) or parts taken from contemorary machines to fix up a classic computer, if both are available. Personally, I use new parts if I can, simply becuae they are likely to be more reliable. I am not sure what a museum would do, though. I would guess consider each case separately? -tony

OK, that makes sense... I think, acutally, I wouid tie little tags to the PCB handles indicating where they'd come from, and leave a note inside 'machine A' saying that <whatever part> had been moved to 'machine B'. Keeping records is essential, but they can get lost. The more places the information is recorded the better. Incidnetally, It will take some finding, but I might have a spare RK8E board set. I certainly don't have a spare drive cable for it, though... Abd hope you're planning on repairing that RK05 :-) True enough. For my own machines I always err on the side of restoration. As I said the other day, the perpose of a computer is to 'compute', and I have no interest in collecting non-working plastic and metal boxes full of PCBs ;-). -tony

From: Tony Duell Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2010 12:18 PM I was trying not to re-use the same word for different levels. You donate items to a museum, let's say for simplicity's sake a horse shoe and a tea service with 4 individually decorated cups and matching saucers, pot, sugar and creamer. You do this in 2010. That's the first field of the accession numbers. The two items are the 75th and 76th donated to the museum this year. These numbers will be the second fields of the respective accession numbers. The horse shoe will receive accession number 2010.075.001, and be marked as 2010.75.1 The tea pot will be 2010.076.001; the sugar, 2010.076.002; the creamer, 2010.076.003; the first cup-and-saucer pair, 2010.076.004A and 2010.076.004B; and so on. The reason for pairing the cup and saucer will be the matching decoration on each pair. You could also simply number each piece individually, but then you lose information. I'll start with the last comment. The policy will depend on the purpose of the museum; no two museums have identical missions, though they may be very close. A computer museum with a mission of making systems run will have a very different answer to your question than a museum dealing with the history of engineering laboratories, where the identical computers may have been used for very different purposes and be important to the understanding of how each lab achieved its goals. (Not every museum tries to please everyone in the know about a topic--there are art museums which I find deadly dull, and art museums I love to visit over and over, for example.) Neither policy is "broken", they simply differ. Computers are more difficult to catalog than tea services. My personal preference would be to replicate the manufacturer's bill of materials, assigning accession numbers at each level down to the circuit boards (or equivalent, in the case of large valve-based modules, but those don't crop up in the time frame in which we have specialized). Since the catalog here was set up by someone else several years before I joined the team, I have to accommodate myself to what is in place--we're not in a position to re-catalog several thousand pieces my way. We catalog the top-level items (CPU, disk drives, tape drives, printers, etc.) when they come in. The low-level items (disk packs and cartridges, tapes, boards, etc.) are fuzzier: Loose items, like spare boards, are catalogued when they come in, but boards installed in larger items only get catalogued when they are pulled for repair or replacement. It takes discipline to catalog pieces when you would really rather be restoring a system to working condition, but without a catalog, you will very quickly lose all semblance of provenance, and your reason for being a museum. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.PDPplanet.org/ http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

Speaking of cataloguing, is there any free open source cataloging software available for small museums that have no budget/support? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/> Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

OK, I got that. But why have a maximum of 3 levels? I now understand what you are saying, and I will admit the only examples I can think of that need 4 levels of heirarchy are somewhat strained [1], in my experience having a limit like this on anything is asking for trouble. Like having a maximum deptho fo a directory tree on a filesystem :-) [1] As I understand it, if you acqure an HP 9826 computer system with a printer and a plotter, you might label them : 2010.53.001 (Processor unit) 2010.53.002 (Printer) 2010.53.003 (Plotter) Maybe then 2010.53.001A (RS222 interface card in the processor unit), 2010.53.001B (parallel interface card in the processor unt), 2010.53.003A (HPIB interface PCB in the plotter). But what then do yoy do about an optional firmware ROM on the RS232 interface? OK, asI said, strained, but I am sure there are machines where 3 levels of heirarchy are not really enough. I do find this difficult to understand (no, not your comments, but such a policy). It's great to say that the calcualtors for a particular thing (say landing a man on the moon) were performed on such-and-such a computer. And to have a working example of such a machine. And of course to preserve the software that was written to do those calcualtions. And if the moachien was modified, or special interfaces were made, then that's something else that should be preserved. But what i don't 'get' is why a stock machine is somehow 'special' becuase it was used for a particular task, when any other machine off the same production line would have done just as well. If I was visiting a museum, I would be much more interested to see a working example of the sysem (prefereablly running the rogiianl software) than to see the machine that was actually used, not operational. Hmm.. I don't think I am terribly happy about that. I would want to open up every machine as it was being catalogued and recurd all the intenral PCBs, what options are installed, and so on. -tony

Hi I thought I'd stay out of this but have to say something here. This is how history gets filtered and the actual history is lost. While audience appeal may be important for a museum, sequential history is imortant as well. It might be that that tank was used as a prototype of a gun stabilizing system that later made the difference of Montgomery not getting his ass blown off. It is also inportant for museums not to rewrite history by ignoring why things got the way they were. What you don't say is as important as what you do. Dwight

Museums have lots of constraints. The most onerous is almost always funding. I'm sure we'd all love to see such complete records created and maintained, but the cost of such cataloging is phenomenal. In addition to the added cost, the more detail you collect the more staff you need to gather it, and the more variation you're going to get in the judgement calls made by different individuals. That said, I _can_ see some value in tracking certain kinds of options that add major functionality. For example, if your IBM 3090 has the vector facility that seems noteworthy. (Ok, that's not the best example, since the model number of such a machine reflects the vf, but pretend it doesn't for the sake of argument.) De

----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Cisin" <cisin at xenosoft.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Friday, October 22, 2010 8:26 PM Subject: Re: Cataloguing in a museum setting [was Re: nonsense...] Seems to me you need to have an expert (of that particular companies systems) at the museum to know what to look for to catalog.

I would certainly agree with that. Now without wisshing to start _another_ flamewar, I would suggest that a lot of people cataloguing exhibits fore musuems are _not_ computer experts.. Hence some of my earlier comments. Somebody else said that cataloguing properly was expensive. I would argue that the main 'cost' is time -- the actual materials needed are minimal. What you need is an knowledgable person to check over every machine, record the options/variants, etc. But hang on a second. Surely evey newly acquired machine should ne opened up and inspected anyway/ You want to make sure it doesn't suffer unnecessary deterioration. For example, mybe there's an internal backup battery. It sould at least be disconnected so it doesn't go into deep discharge. PErhaps it should be removed, packed in a leakproof container, labelled, and kept separately. Many of us have seen the damage that a leaking PCB-mounted battery can cause :-(. And to be honest, if you're going to do that, it doesn't take much more time or knowledge to note down what options are in the machine. -tony

Sure, but that's then 4 levels. I ahve no problem extending the heirarchical system to as many levels as are necessary, my query is why it's noramlly limitied to 3. Why not just have as many levels as are needed. And why recorsd the year of acquisition? What importance is that? Why not just a number for each artefact starting at 1? Is there anything particularly special about either of those? In the case of the 'blad was it modified in any way? Say different lubricants to operate in a vacuum? Or modified controls so it could be operated by gloved hands? Or??? If so, then it becomes interesting because of the modifications. But a stock item is, to me, just that, no matter what it was once used for. I don;t see why those are mutually exclusive. ^^^ PERQ Operting System? I already have it. (Sorry, could NOT resist...) Only if chips of different dats codes somehow affected the operation of the machine. The point is that I can think of countless examples where machines look identical from the outside but are quite differnet inside. Does that 'PRRQ 1' have a 4K or 16K WCS processor? Does that HP9836C have a CPU/RAM board or a CPU/MMU board? What SPCs are i ntaht PDP11/34? Does that IBM 5150 have a 16K/64K Planar or a 64K/256K one? How can you possibly know how interesting/importantsomethign will later turn out to be? -tony

That's _exactly_ my point. Having atbitrary limits may cause problems later on. Ah no, you misnderstood me... Presumanbly there is a database of the artefacts in the museum, indexed by the indentification numbers. That database includes more details about the particular object, things like (I would hope), options, serial number (s), version, etc. All we've been discussing. I see no reason why the date of acquisition (full date, not just the year), source (maybe 'anonymous donor' :-)), and the like should not be stored there as well. It's far better to store too much information than too little. But what I am wondering is why the year of acquisition should be a field in the indentifier. As an aside, maybe in principle, but not always in practice... Suppose I did have an HP9820 (say) that had been used for some famous bit of work. Yes, I could sell it for more than the normal 'going rate' for such a machine. But could I be sure ot be able to buy another one? There's not an infinite supply of old computers, and some people may well not sell _at any price_. You could offer me a million pounds/dollars for a machine in my collection and I would turn you down. And I'll bet there are others like me. Agreed... I feel you should err on the side of recording too much information. It's easy to ignroe it later ;-) Nor would I, and for the record I don't consider DELLs or other PC clones to be the machines I want to collect. That doesn't mean I think that nobody should collect them. Or that the PC clone has not had a very significant impact on computing (not necessarily for the better :-)). -tony

Whre did I say anything about modifying it? Why do you assume that enthusiasts are going to blow things up, or be unable to fix them? There are several problems with this : 1) The information my not exist, at least not publically. If you need to reverse-engineer a scheamtic, it's a lot easier to do so from a machine that's basically working. 2) ICs fail even if they are not powered up. We all know about bit-rot in EPROMs, but other ICs fail in storage too. It may well be that a machine, however carefulkly it has been stored, will not be available to later genarations. Why? If the 2 collectors involved know what they are doing, then nothing will be lost. -tony

On 10/16/2010 07:21 PM, Teo Zenios wrote: If, you meant to type "1000+ years" then maybe I'd agree with you - when the archaeologists can't figure out things worked, then they're interested enough to *not destroy the unit* while trying to figure out how it works. As a previous poster mentioned - How's the antikythera device reverse-engineering / restoration going thus far? The argument of "But there's so much available information now" doesn't mean much when access the most comprehensive library of the ancient world (Alexandria) evaporated left most people thinking the world is flat for a millennium. If people can't access the info, it doesn't do much good - who's going to have a working DVD-ROM 1000+ years from now? Right... but how many "emulators" will be run on PCs that require +1.65v... and if the curators forget that the original hardware needs +5.0V (and that's just TTL... what about RTL or ECL?) and try to get original hardware working without the full specs (remember, this is in a futuristic scenario... we still don't have the full specs of King Tut's tomb, and it's a couple kiloyears old...) Emulators are great for a lot of things (offtopically, especially running WinXP in a sandbox) but aren't nearly so helpful when trying to get original hardware working again... ...For the stuff they care about. How much is in low-end storage that they don't care about? (Yes, I actually own some stuff that's "museum quality" (not computer-based). No, I haven't donated it yet as I need more info to the local museum lackeys & how well said priceless (yes, honestly[1]) treasures will be treated. Not if it's destroyed by the museum's volunteer workers because they don't know what they're doing... admittedly, if the collectors have more $$ than brains, than such is still the case. More reason to make sure that whomever gets your (speaking collectively) collection actually knows what to do with it, which I'm pretty sure in ARD's case he's stated that's covered. Mine... not so much. At least not yet. But. I still have stuff to give away, but that's another episode. Laterz, "Merch" [1] Priceless means lots of things. In this case, the items are unique and 5 generations old... but I doubt anyone else would actually pay money for them, no matter how small the amount. Hence... priceless. ;-)

Mark Davidson wrote: I think most museums (not just computer-related) could do a lot better in acting as intermediaries between people who need to "dispose" of items and those who might want what they have - the museum attitude a lot of the time is "we don't want that, so we don't care what you do with it," when it's not really much more effort to say "we don't want it, but we recognise that these things won't be around forever, and so therefore you could ask here and here and here..." It's not about doing the work of actually finding a home for it, but more about suggesting places / individuals who might be interested, based upon experience of the item being offered. Yes, me too - or not ebay specifically, but more that I'll try to find a good home for it. Once out of my hands it's out of control, but at least I can sleep easy in the knowledge that I tried to do right by it rather than making a quick buck. cheers Jules

William Donzelli wrote: Yes, I don't think museums should be getting deeply involved - but I think any museum should strive to have good relationships with other museums and with the various enthusiast communities, which means it's not too hard for them to reel off a list of alternative places that a person might try when their offer of an item is turned down. Whether the person makes use of that advice is out of their hands, but if there's an aim to preserve history for future generations then it seems better than assuming that the person will do the research themselves, rather than giving up and simply tossing the item. cheers Jules

On Sun, 17 Oct 2010, William Donzelli wrote: In modern times, who has attempted a project on the scope of the Library of Alexandria? I don't know how well they planned against accidental fires, but they were certainly not adequately prepared against military vandalism. But, will the machines care enough to bother analyzing such petroglyphs? Will the machines share the information with the humans? Or, by that time, will the machines have realized the importance of exterminating the biological infestation that came over on the Gogafrincham B Ark? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

On Sun, 17 Oct 2010, William Donzelli wrote: I don't have the numbers to argue it, but my impression was that the library of Alexandria was a committment of a much higher percentage of the available resources than any of those. If so, then it was "relatively" larger (although admittedly smaller absolute size). -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

I suspect that's still true of most libraries (and the wrb...) today,.. -tony

True, but I bet the "90 percent of everything is crap" rule applied back then as it does now. -- Will

Nearly everyone who could write back then was probably working for someone (i.e. the Emporor/King/Pope), so if he told you to write something down - well, you had better start writing it down. And we know people in power almost never have good taste. -- Will

From: William Donzelli Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 2:27 PM Doesn't matter that it's crap if it contains an interesting verb form not seen before, or mentions an historical fact only known previously

From: William Donzelli Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 4:38 PM Often enough to make it worthwhile. And the archaeologists often don't know enough linguistics to make the call for the linguistically interesting texts. For example, take _The Horse, the Wheel, and Language_, which examines the vexing question of the Indo-European homeland (yet again). The first third of the book is directed at archaeologists, to try to teach them enough linguistics to understand his arguments in the last third. (The second third is aimed at the linguists, to teach them enough archaeology. Fortunately for me, I took archaeology classes as an undergraduate.) He has some interesting conclusions, although his final analysis is seriously flawed from a linguistic perspective. The difference is, the author is an archaeologist who went to the trouble to read the *linguistic* work on the question in some detail (although his grasp of the details is sometimes howlingly weak).

From: William Donzelli Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 5:51 PM Not intended as a slam, and it is true, mutatis mutandis, of linguists' knowledge of archaeological concerns. However, the linguists would not toss the Roman sewer scrolls--you never know where something interesting about language will turn up--and it's not their business to decide on the historians' interests. Both historical linguistics (which is what I'm talking about) and archaeology (of any stripe) are massive fields, with a great deal of lore for the practitioner to ingest. There is no blame in the practitioners of either field not knowing much about the other.

If you'd like to scan a few more issues, let me know. I'll package up some that you don't have and mail them to you. steve On 10/19/2010 6:07 AM, Gene Buckle wrote:

On 10/18/10 4:38 PM, William Donzelli wrote: The reason for saving RPG and COBOL isn't to look for clever things, it is to preserve how day to day business was performed using the computing equipment of the time. This is the same reason to preserve system design and procedure manuals for end-user applications. This stuff is even more difficult to find than manufacturer-supplied software! I have spent the past few months collecting EAM and EDP books and conference proceedings from the 50's -> 70's, because CHM had almost nothing on case studies and descriptions of business processes (payroll, inventory, and accounts payable/receivable, etc.) from the punched-card era forward. It's hard to write an overview of software in the 20th century for docents without basic reference material on how non-scientific computing was done.

On 10/18/10 6:29 PM, William Donzelli wrote: Nope, just the card images :-)

Hey, I am the guy that rescued the 9300 RPG cards! Anyway, perhaps a poor example on my part. Perhaps I should have said all that 1980s RPG and COBOL - well after many of the ideas and practices of business IT had formed. -- Will

On Monday, October 18, 2010, Rich Alderson wrote: Like the Roman or ancient Greek version of misspelled words, improper grammar, "hillbilly english", street slang, etc? Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org

Icanhazlukanika? -- Will

On 19 October 2010 01:22, Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> wrote: Well, that little bit of information made my day. Thanks for that! I think there is currently-much-underappreciated value in preserving knowledge of old computers because of the things they did that modern ones do not. I know full-time senior IT professionals who have never seen an OS older than Windows XP and most IT professionals have never seen or used anything but Windows. The view of the modern computer expert could be approximated by something like: OSs are always written in C and compiled. Interpreters are only used for scripting. Computers work by loading compiled binaries files from a hierarchical filesystem on disk into separately-managed RAM, where it's executed according to the user's privilege level. All computers are at least 32-bit and the only important architectures ever were 386 and ARM. PowerPC is weird and marginal. Macs have always been x86, the PC started with Windows XP. A few very old-timers remember Windows 2000. Memory always came in DIMMs. All computers multitask, have GUIs and mice. Multiuser is normal. Unix is weird and used by old men in big old companies. Temporary storage is on USB Flash sticks. For booting, you use a CD. Networking *means* TCP/IP over Ethernet. VMs were invented by VMware about 6-7y ago. -- Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

On Sun, 17 Oct 2010, ben wrote: Once they had built and launched the B ark (the FIRST one), they settled in and libed gappily ever after, until they were all wiped out by a virulent phone plague. (or was it a giant mutant space goat?)

On 18 October 2010 04:01, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: "Oh, I've heard of worse," said Ford, "I read of one planet off in the seventh dimension that got used as a ball in a game of intergalactic bar billiards. Got potted straight into a black hole. Killed ten billion people." "That's mad," said Mella. "Yes, only scored thirty points too." -- Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

Yes. Plenty of such weeks exist. Like the current one. Hang on a second... I said I had had dealings with some particularly clueless msueums. I did NOT say that all museums are clueless. If you can't understand the difference then I am afraid I regaurd you as somewhat clueless. Hang on a second. There is a big diffenrce between criticising somebody becuase of their racial background of beliefs and criticising somebody or some organisation because of what they do. It is completely wrong to, say, attack priests or burn down churches, or anything like that. But I have no problem with a statement of the form 'I disagree with $religion on $matter'. I am not advocating any form of harm or damage to computer museums or the people who work there. This does not mean I have to approve of everything they do. There are plenty of private collectors who I would be happy to give my collection to. In fact I have already selected one (he knows who it is). Oh come on... A person working in such an institution should be aware of something like that. I wouldn't expect him, say, to know how to repair the printer that produced those printouts, but the fact that they fade is surely well-known to anyone involved in conservation of documents. I am this close {fx : holds up fingers <1mm apart) to making sure I don't contribute anything. That is, I will send e-mails to the Australian HP musuem asking them to stop distributing the 100 or so scheamtics I've produced (many unavailalbe anywwhere else). I will ask that the docuemnts I wrote are removed from bitsavers [1[. I will make sure there are no more CD_ROms of my diagrams. No more distrbituions of my tools to read certain disk on PCs. No more repair tips. No more me running to find amnauls to aswer all the private e-mails I get on how to fix <foo>. I can't see I'll be the loser. But no, I won't do that. Becasue I happen to want to help get computers preservedm repaired, restored, and working. [1] Actually, I don't think I ever gave premision for them to be there in the first place. Not that I mind, as far as I am concerned the more people who get information on how to repair old the machines the better. I assume you work on some machines that I am not especially interested in (there are many...) which is why I don't recall your work anywhere. Could you enlighten me as to what machine(s) they are? -tony

On Wed, 13 Oct 2010, Chuck Guzis wrote: I couldn't agree more with your first question. Honestly the only answer I can come up with is to donate it. My money is better spent elsewhere, like on a 19th century Petzval lens (still looking for a suitable one) for my Photography. The only classic computer stuff I've collected in the past several years was a couple carloads that were mostly Commodore stuff. It helped out my Aunt to dispose of stuff from someone she knew that died, and it gave me spares as well as several items I've wanted since they were new. I'm looking to dispose of stuff, not get more. Sadly I've found an interesting roadblock to disposing of stuff, and that is finding free time to dig stuff out and get rid of it. Like my money, my time is better spent elsewhere, and it is spent on my family and my photography. People change over time, and with those changes what is important changes. Zane

Christian Liendo wrote: I don't think it'd work as a fridge, but it looks like it would be possible to put a cushion on top and sit on it. Lose the couch. ;-) I've never found that many museums with deep pockets, unfortunately.