Getting out of the hobby

[Seth Morabito]

Hey folks,

Recent activity on the list, especially the "Ka... ching!" thread, has
had me reevaluating a lot of what I get out of this hobby. I think there
are two things going on that make it less fun for me now: The money,
and the age of the stuff. I'll try to explain.

I've never been a real "collector", I suppose. I don't feel a burning
need to fill every hole in a product line, or to put things on display.
I've also never been in this for the money, far from it. No, the only
reason I've ever collected classic computers is because I've loved
playing with them. That's really all there is to it. I enjoy the sights,
sounds, and smells of firing up vintage computers and seeing them work.

On the money front, as I said I've never been in this for the money.
There was a time when most of this stuff could just be had for free, and
that was fun! Going on rescue trips was a blast. I'll never regret
driving down to LA from the Bay Area to rescue a PDP-11/34, or the time
that a bunch of us got togethr and picked up an 11/45 and an Imlac PDS-1
from Bill Gosper's house. What a time that was -- I didn't even keep any
of it, I was just there for the rescue and the camaraderie.

But nowadays, there's so much less of that. 99% of what trades hands
seems to go back and forth on eBay for real big bucks. And that's
probably just the sign of a maturing hobby, but it's not really what I
enjoy.

And secondly, lately there's been a lot less of "firing up vintage
computers and seeing them work", and a whole lot more "carefully
replacing capacitors and praying that the vintage computer will still
fire up".  We've reached the point where the hardware I love is dying.
It's been dying for years, I suppose, but now it's in hospice care. And,
frankly, that part of it is so much less fun for me than actually using
the systems. Am I just lazy? Maybe. And don't get me wrong, I've learned
SO MUCH about electronics from taking care of these systems, so I don't
consider it a loss at all. It's just not what I want to spend my time
on.

I've been ruminating on all of this pretty hard for the last couple of
months, and I've concluded that my enjoyment just isn't there any more.
Now that I'm surrounded by a bunch of stuff that I'm not getting
much out of, I feel like I'm being weighed down by the hobby. I think
it's time for me to move on and concentrate on other things.

I'm not sure yet what that means for my current collection. It's already
much smaller than it once was, as I've found homes for a lot of things
over the years. I've moved a lot, and every time I've moved I've found
homes for things I didn't want to take with me. It's probably time to do
that again, only without the moving part.

I think probably I'll have one last big "sale" of stuff, which I'll post
about here. At this point most of what I have is vintage home computers,
terminals, and QBUS PDP-11 stuff, so not everyone will be interested in
it -- but maybe some people will.

-Seth
-- 
Seth Morabito
web at loomcom.com