Oldest serial number (was: Oldest machine (was: Re: Good haul of old pc stuph))

[Jules Richardson]

William Donzelli wrote:
>> Lately I've been wondering if anyone attempts to collect
>> mass-manufactured memorabilia by trying to get the lowest serial
>> number.
>>
>> For instance, I have an Atari 800 serial #388801.
>>
>> Has anyone done a wiki/database type web page where everyone can enter
>> the serial #s of their common computers?
> 
> This is mostly a pointless excercise, sorry to report. Serial numbers are
> notoriously non-sequential. Some companies purposely skip chunks in the
> series, and many actually will not start at 1 (it looks bad). To add to 
> that, the serial numbers can change as a system goes thru the factory - 
> #1 probably was not actually the first off the line, but the one
> closest to the guy that put the stickers on when the shift started. The
> real bastard companies are the ones that reuse serials!

The only case I find low numbers interesting is when a company gives 
pre-production models serial numbers too - so I find it worthwhile hunting out 
the early pre-production examples of a machine just to see how its design 
altered over time or what hardware mods were done to get it into a fit 
production state.

For serial numbers in general, it can be handy to track numbers for machines 
which had very low production runs as a way of estimating how many machines 
were made - as this information isn't often known otherwise. Such low-volume 
machines tend to have a few quirky differences too; it's almost like having a 
hand-built car I suppose - so it's interesting to see what changes happened when.

But for machines with large production runs where there are maybe thousands of 
machines for any given board revision, I can't see a good reason to go hunting 
out lower numbers myself. I suppose it brings a bit of a smile when you hear 
of a machine still running that was one of the very earliest of its kind made, 
but other than that...

cheers

Jules