>  No one collects cloud servers, the things that do
> the real work and storage.  Will they?
Google's first server is in the Computer History Museum...

On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 8:54 AM Bill Degnan via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
wrote:

> Something has to be the most sought-after thing in every collectors'
> hobby.  The Apple I is not historically significant enough alone to justify
> the prices they get, there is a cultural/memorabilia component too.  Just
> rare enough to form an elite "market".  It's an indicator that computer age
> collecting is healthy and robust.  The Apple I prices help support all
> vintage computer prices, if you're into all that.
>
> I have noticed, from running an indie computer museum for 4 years, that
> young people dont know much about 8-bit computers.  They're much more
> interested in SGIs and NeXT and DOS gamers with a mouse GUI.
>
> Fast forward 50 years.  Impossible to know how society will rememeber the
> computer age, roughly 1950-2000.  A lot of kids today dont lust after a
> computer like prior 4  generations, their smartphone and school-issued
> chromebooks are just fine.   Most people today own computers that are
> nothing more than a network interfaces. We in this group are atypical,
> archaic by definition. No one collects cloud servers, the things that do
> the real work and storage.  Will they?  Not sure what you call it but we're
> not in the "computer age" anymore.  My point, the memorabilia factor that
> supports Apple I prices will drop off, leaving only the historic value.
> Will the historic value support current prices?  A market requires demand.
> What will be the demand in 2073?
>
> Historians will always value the Apple I and a few others from the computer
> age, but the price escalation phase of probably over.
>
> One would still have to pay the future value equivalent of $250,000+ for an
> Apple I for as long time.  Few if any other computers from our era will
> earn anything close to those prices.
>
> Bill
>
> On Fri, Aug 4, 2023, 2:03 PM Peter Corlett via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Aug 04, 2023 at 08:51:31AM -0500, John Herron via cctalk wrote:
> > [...]
> > > That price is interesting. Does that imply the value has gone down
> after
> > > some skyrocketed close to 1 million? One still has to make the decision
> > of
> > > a owning a house or an apple 1.
> >
> > Well, both of them are treated as speculative investments, putting them
> out
> > of reach of people who just want the pleasure of using them rather than
> > looking for the next bagholder. The main difference is that I can just
> buy
> > the parts to build my own Apple 1 and nobody's going to stop me, whereas
> if
> > I try that with a house the local authority gets quite upset.
> >
> >
>


-- 
Michael Thompson

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