rarest computers. was: RE: Xerox Alto Restoration + Emulation

[SHAUN RIPLEY]

--- Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:

> On Tue, 2004-08-03 at 03:13, William Donzelli wrote:
> > 3) How many people have *significant* machines?
> One that made a dent in
> > history, even if it was something as mundane as an
> Apple II or a
> > PDP-11/34?
> 
> Do you mean significant as in it might be a really
> common machine, but
> that particular one was used for something
> interesting / significant /
> important?
> 
> Personally I like finding stuff like that -
> particularly machines (or
> even just stray hard disks, floppies, or paper-based
> data) which have
> been in use at old hardware or software
> manufacturers themselves. It's
> kinda nice finding 'lost' information, or stuff that
> gives an insight
> into the company themselves, or provides a snapshot
> of what they were
> doing at such-and-such a time.
> 
> Typically people seem to collect such things for the
> hardware itself;
> i.e. hard disks or floppies get re-formatted and
> paper documentation
> gets thrown in the bin. Seems a shame that often no
> effort is made to
> preserve the data from the time itself, just the
> physical hardware.
Well... I keep information on hard disks that come
with old computers if the information is interesting.
For example, I have e-birthday cards sent to an
secretary by her colleagues; emails from her husband
explaining why he was not having an affair; emails
from a mom to a college son that she thought it would
be good for him if he could learn something other than
wasting his time.... But usually it is private and all
I can't do anything with it.

vax, 3900

> 
> cheers,
> 
> Jules
> 
> 


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