On Mon, Jul 08, 2019 at 09:19:09AM -0700, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 7/8/19 8:25 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > > > > > Spoken like a non-collector. :-) > > I suppose that's the root of it. I'm basically a pragmatist. I give > away old hardware that no longer has any use to me. When I am > eventually forced to downsize, (or my widow is) most of the stuff will > go either to the recyclers or to the landfill. I am not my possessions. > > I recall the Homebrew CC at SLAC auditorium where the Apple I was rolled > out for a special price. Since I already had a MITS box, I wasn't very > enthusiastic about laying out cash for a single-board microcomputer--a > feeling shared by several other people I knew. At any rate, if I'd > have sprung for one, it'd be gone by now, as its utility has long passed.
Yeah. I was a proud owner of Amiga 2000C... or B. A big box with place for cards, and a memory extension inside (i.e. one slot filled), and two click-click-click-ing floppy drives. And a standalone mech keyboard. And green monocolor monitor. When I went to buy a 486, I had to sell it in second hand shop to raise money. It went for 600 Polish zloty (about 1/5 of 486 price), which (I estimate) was about 200-300 buckies at the time. Now they tell me (bastards!) that said keyboard alone can go for 1000+ euros. And never mind the big box, mem extender and the rest. But like you say. Amiga had less _practical_ value at that time than a lousy PC, which came with a hard drive (finally, I could install Linux and run LaTeX on it) and VGA (Doom!! UFO: Enemy Unknown!!!!), color monitor, not blinking at 640x400... Much better for anything I wanted to do with a computer then and now. So be it. I rarely do such things as remembering past decisions which later proved to be wrong, and bitching and whipping myself in guilt - especially if at the particular time it was the best decision I could have made. Now if any of you guys ever see an Amiga 2000 with small green happy dragon stickered to the keyboard, say "hello, little ami" from me. > While I can appreciate painted artworks for the genius behind them, I'm > fully aware that they're just blobs of paint on a bit of canvas or wood > and that an accurate replica could be fashioned without too much trouble > using modern technology. > > What matters to me is [b]documentation[/b], however it's preserved. I'm > often faced with a bit of old data and I need to know the details upon > which it was fabricated. That has value to me. Al K has been > invaluable in this respect. I stick around here mostly for learning. I am almost an informational omnivore (limiting to subjects of interest at the time), so I get everything. Stories about smoking caps. Or how a mainframe warmed water in open swimming pool. Or even how John Titor swindled Apple I board supposed to be owned by Guy D from under his nose and now sits on many such boards, retired and sipping pinacolada. Reading archives of this list and planning whose basement to rummage in a night after funeral. C'mon folks. Let's make cruel jokes at him. He cannot do a shit about it, or else he will ruin his future :-). > As far as owning a watch that was worn by Charles Lindbergh, okay, if it > keeps good time; otherwise, not so much. You have not weared a watch if you did not try ones from Salvadore Dali. The lousy watchmaker's works not only cannot keep up the time, they even cannot keep up the shape. -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **
