National Semiconductor IMP mini

[Brad H]

-------- Original message --------
From: Josh Dersch <derschjo at gmail.com> 
Date: 2017-01-02  7:37 PM  (GMT-08:00) 
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> 
Subject: Re: National Semiconductor IMP mini 


On 1/2/17 7:22 PM, jim stephens wrote:
> This system looks pretty interesting, though pricey. I'm thinking it 
> is going to be a development machine as all the switches and display 
> would not probably have been on a production machine.
>
> I don't think National made many minicomputer format machines, in 
> their history, someone correct me.  That might make this pretty rare 
> on that front as well.
>
> thanks
> Jim
>
> Beautiful-1974-NATIONAL-SEMICONDUCTOR-COMPUTER-model-imp-16p/
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/252700755919
>

Yeah, it's pretty cool but I don't think the seller has reasonable 
expectations for actually selling it -- the auction started (I believe) 
at $1500 (which may have been a reasonable price), then the seller 
raised it to $2500, now it's at $3500 (which is fairly outrageous, in my 
>opinion).  I'm not sure what his strategy is.

>Bitsavers has manuals (of course...)

>- Josh

I think he figured toggle switches and lights = $$$$.  He might be correct, given the obscene money I've seen laid out just for a PDP 8/e faceplate. You never know a) what will motivate a collector and b) when just the right collector for a given item will show up.  Every day I thank my lucky stars they didn't, for whatever reason, show up for my Mark-8 boards.