Bay Area: IBM 4341 and HP3000

[Sean Caron]

I don't know; I think it remains to be seen, whether or not there will be
an enduring market, or even an interest, for historic computer gear in the
long-term... I think the last 20 years have shown more than anything that
there is an enduring interest for at least some small subset of the
population...

But I'm on your side, really; my implication was that an active collector
is often providing a real service, something of value, just by offering to
come and pick this stuff up, especially when it is heavy and oversize.
Definite costs there. As well as in storing it (although I'd be paying my
mortgage anyway) not to mention if you want to run it, repair it, keep
spares, documentation.

So quite the opposite; I think the seller is delusional if they expect to
get anything much out of their pile of scrap, cash-wise. I have no illusion
that my own collection is going to be worth much in terms of hard cash to
anyone at all, but I'm not yet willing to rule out that I might be able to
find someone interested to take it for free and continue to give it a good
home, when I'm on my way out. I'll have fun with it in the mean-time. We
all gotta have hobbies.

Enduring interest remains in all kinds of old electronics... Radios,
musical instruments, hi-fi equipment, heck, the eBay price on many HP RPN
calculators exceeds that of the devices new, 20, 30 years down the line
(discounting inflation, of course). Why not old computers?

Sure, not every single old box of electronics will be of enduring interest,
but I think a few will. And let me highlight my deliberate choice of the
word interest, over a term such as cash value!

Best,

Sean


On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 1:22 PM, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:

> On 1/11/15 9:52 AM, Sean Caron wrote:
>
>> we're all doing a service
>> to posterity by warehousing this stuff
>>
>
> No, you're not. You're being chumps.
>
> Museums aren't going to want it, and your family will take it
> to the dump when you croak.
>
> Think about it the next time you calculate how many thousands
> of dollars it has cost you to store your collections.
>
>
>
>
>