Collecting, was: ZX80

[Jules Richardson]

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 11/10/2005 at 8:49 PM Jules Richardson wrote:
> 
> 
>>I suppose the name Sinclair is closely tied to the early days of the 
>>home computer boom, and at least in the UK people will think of his 
>>products before the likes of Commodore or Apple.
> 
> 
> I don't know--if I were a collector (and I'm not--the junk just accumulates
> here without me trying), I'd be looking for not-very common items. 

Me too - but people often get tied to a particular manufacturer for 
nostalgia reasons.

Funnily enough, I used to collect Sinclair stuff - but got bored because 
there just aren't that many different types out there (I wasn't into 
calculators) and by and large his designs aren't *that* interesting 
(except as an exercise in how to cut corners)

So the Sinclair stuff sat on the shelf and I started collecting 
interesting hardware from all sorts of manufacturers, without any 
particular focus. Then I ran out of space and realised that doing that 
was something of a never-ending job :)

So all the Sinclair stuff went to good homes, as did a lot of my other 
random bits of hardware, and I started collecting Acorn stuff instead - 
because there's a huge hardware range it's enough to keep my interest, 
but it's not quite the open-ended "collect anything interesting" job.

Of course I ended up seriously collecting Torch and Research Machines 
stuff too (mainly by accident :)  - but items from three manufacturers 
is enough that I've got lots of cool stuff to mess around with, yet at 
the same time I can properly worry about preservation and 
knowledge-gathering issues.

Of course I also got involved with the museum too, so I can go and play 
around with a *far* larger collection of diverse hardware than would be 
possible at home whenever I want...

cheers

Jules