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I continue to no longer attend vintage computer festivals

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Re: I continue to no longer attend vintage computer festivals

#111

Post by fock »

Semaphor wrote: post #107
TylerE wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now try finding a solid wood table that doesn't cost $3,000+.

Literally the first result on the site I checked [0], solid wood table on sale for 339 €. Do you want to move the goalposts even further? [0]: https://www.otto.de/p/gozos-esstisch-scots-pine-series-essti...

The problem there is figuratively with the posts. Screwing a board to a metal U is easy. Nicely joining 4 wooden legs to the board is not... I have also done the former multiple times, with custom-made lower parts and it is very painful to see highpriced cr* like the one in the link popping up everywhere, where it could easily be made custom (even in relatively High-CoL locations) for nearly the same price. The thing above is 30€ for steel, 2h of manual work (where the non welding prep of sawing metal pieces can be done by anyone... I did this for a trapezoidal shape of my own design...), next to nothing for painting (powdercoat would be nice, but likely not done...) and then a plank of some random wood from Ukraine (30€, 200€ if you construct it custommade from planks). I gather the main problem lies with the availability of designs and likely this could be solved by providing those (for example by an IT platform selling plans and matching suppliers with customers).

Re: I continue to no longer attend vintage computer festivals

#112

Post by lostemptations5 »

AlbertCory wrote: post #3

I was in Google Patent Litigation, and we actively collected old stuff, for possible use as prior art. I even went to Beryl Nelson's house before she died to collect her old Bell System Technical Journals. A lot of old stuff has no value to anyone. That can be hard to accept, but it's true. Even old wood furniture -- no one wants it. Old PC or Byte Magazines? Forget it; they're all over.

This is a TikTok generation answer (even if you are 70 years old) -- the thinking is: discard anything that is more than x years old. It's not useful.

But all these things are precious historical documents of the development of technology and of course ourselves. They are vitally important to keep.

Of course they aren't "useful" in the classic sense such as their original purpose -- but they are useful to remind us how things were and how far we've come and what kind of problems were solved in what way by our predecessors.

Re: I continue to no longer attend vintage computer festivals

#113

Post by rightbyte »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #26
knighthack wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an Art of Manliness podcast that talks about this: https://www.artofmanliness.com/lifestyle/homeownership/declu... It really opened my eyes to the fact that most of what you value or hold dear will have no value to others, especially if it can't be resold. As a practical minimalist (rather than a strict one) it's informed my personal practices a fair bit.

I like going to estate sales. Sometimes you find interesting things. But mostly, it's just piles of, frankly, crap. And in a weird way, it's sort of helping me deal with some of my tendencies to collect crap. Once I'm dead, 75% of it will be thrown away by someone hired to deal with the estate, maybe 50% of the rest will be sold, and the rest will once again go in the garbage. That screwdriver I'm keeping even though…

> That screwdriver I'm keeping even though it doesn't work well? It's going in the landfill anyway. Might as well go tomorrow, as in 50 years.

Hold your horses. You need that one for abusive usecases. My favourite flathead is both bent and chipped.

Re: I continue to no longer attend vintage computer festivals

#114

Post by rightbyte »

imgabe wrote: post #74
AlbertCory wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know people who've found this out the hard way, and I have, too: If you offer it for free, someone will take it. But asking ANY money is agreeing to wait a long, long time.

I’ve had the opposite experience. Offer stuff for free and you will have to deal with the flakiest, most unreliable people in the world. They’ll say they’re going to come pick it up, leave you waiting all afternoon, and then just ghost you. Ask at least a token amount and you will get someone who seriously wants it.

My experience is the opposite. Buyers are flaky. The closer the market value the flakier they get.

Re: I continue to no longer attend vintage computer festivals

#115

Post by ajsnigrutin »

lostemptations5 wrote: post #112
AlbertCory wrote: post #3

I was in Google Patent Litigation, and we actively collected old stuff, for possible use as prior art. I even went to Beryl Nelson's house before she died to collect her old Bell System Technical Journals. A lot of old stuff has no value to anyone. That can be hard to accept, but it's true. Even old wood furniture -- no one wants it. Old PC or Byte Magazines? Forget it; they're all over.

This is a TikTok generation answer (even if you are 70 years old) -- the thinking is: discard anything that is more than x years old. It's not useful. But all these things are precious historical documents of the development of technology and of course ourselves. They are vitally important to keep. Of course they aren't "useful" in the classic sense such as their original purpose -- but they are useful to remind us h…

> But all these things are precious historical documents of the development of technology and of course ourselves. They are vitally important to keep.

Sure, but we can digitize them, offer them online, for free, for everyone, with OCR even with search features... There's no need to keep moldy originals anymore, unless they're "special" to someone (=someone wants to keep them).

Eg. there's a really nice collection of old yugoslav magazines and books online, that is fun to skm through while on the toilet or in bed (instead of reddit or youtube), but keping, preserving, dusting etc. all that paper would be a pain.

Re: I continue to no longer attend vintage computer festivals

#116

Post by arexxbifs »

throwaway5959 wrote: post #109
arexxbifs wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems a bit harsh to judge an entire event by the conduct of a single speaker, but to each their own, and all that. To answer your question, yes, people are still writing malware for old systems. They don't even have to be network connected: computer viruses can spread perfectly fine from other media as well. People still send each other floppies in the mail. It's not as prevalent as on modern mainstream systems of c…

Thanks for answering the question. With regard to the show, I didn’t want to pile on, but here we go: There weren’t that many talks (the primary thing I was interested in), the trade show section was pretty small, and there wasn’t really much for newcomers to explain why this old hardware deserves preservation.

Vintage computer meetups, like vintage car meetups, are mostly chummy in-group gatherings for the already initiated. It's where geeks of a particular brand can talk shop. (I usually don't attend them and instead go to demo parties[1], which are in no way any less esoteric.)

> There wasn’t really much for newcomers to explain why this old hardware deserves preservation.

It does and doesn't - much like old cars, record players, fighter jets, trains, radios and phones. A handful can be kept around for posterity, as museum pieces. There's a point in not forgetting how they work, since most modern stuff is to a large extent refinements and complexity layered on top of previous knowledge.

But mostly, it's just a fringe hobby. Old computers deserve preservation because someone cares deeply about them and loves tinkering with them. Just like with old cars, record players, trains and radios.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene

Re: I continue to no longer attend vintage computer festivals

#117

Post by pbhjpbhj »

AlbertCory wrote: post #3

I was in Google Patent Litigation, and we actively collected old stuff, for possible use as prior art. I even went to Beryl Nelson's house before she died to collect her old Bell System Technical Journals. A lot of old stuff has no value to anyone. That can be hard to accept, but it's true. Even old wood furniture -- no one wants it. Old PC or Byte Magazines? Forget it; they're all over.

Was that the origin of Google Books, lol. Presumably, you imaged and OCR-ed the material; did you classify it using USPC/CPC/ECLA? Was there a search service? Was it made available only in Patent Litigation, across the whole org, or to the public?

Any of those documents of 'old stuff' been used for observations to patent offices, or as citations in court - ie did it pay off?

I worked at UK Patent Office 20 odd years ago they had many small troves of journals, books, clippings that individual examiners had collected and classified (UKC, and ECLA). All gone I expect, replaced for patent search by 100s of millions more patent documents, journal articles, and everything on the web.

Re: I continue to no longer attend vintage computer festivals

#118

Post by philpem »

Ekaros wrote: post #54

There are certain expectations if you brand yourself as preservation organization. At least shop around when you are going to destroy what appears to be significant collection. You should have some connections and channels for this. This tells me that this organization is likely to toss just about anything straight to recycling. If someone at lead just doesn't care about it at the moment...

I can't imagine VCF wouldn't have done that - it's standard practice. But they've also not said their side of this (nor would I expect them to when they'd have been setting up for their yearly event yesterday).

I have friends who are close to the situation and the most I think I'm able to repeat (as it's public info) is that there were management changes between then and now. Based on that alone, and it's a volunteer organisation? Fair to say someone might have forgotten to write down "Don't dispose of these" or the label fell off.

At the end of the day though, it's a bunch of magazines which were already scanned at pretty high resolution. Even most libraries back in the day transferred periodicals onto Microfiche, because there just wasn't room to store the paper copies. I really don't get why there's so much hoo-hah over this.

Re: I continue to no longer attend vintage computer festivals

#119

Post by pbhjpbhj »

TylerE wrote: post #83
accrual wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even old wood furniture -- no one wants it. Old PC or Byte Magazines? Forget it; they're all over. I think the former is pretty true, but old PC magazines are still important to keep around. For one, they can be digitized to take up virtually no physical space (unlike furniture). Secondly, once digitized and OCR'd to make searchable, they're a valuable resource for finding out when certain products or technologies…

Rather the reverse. Any publication is easily available in PDF. Real solid furniture is nearly impossibly to find new. Everthing is particleboard and vaneers, or if higher end, mdf and veneers.

Easily? Can be made easily available, but it's not like everything published has been well preserved or is publicly available.

Re: I continue to no longer attend vintage computer festivals

#120

Post by philpem »

hitekker wrote: post #94
shrubble wrote: post #15

The real question is whether these journals were already scanned and archived or not.

That's a question for folks who don't value original copies. Meanwhile, mint-condition, shrink-wrapped Magic the Gathering cards sell for $$$. Same goes for other collectibles and real art.

Whether something is a collectable depends on whether someone (ideally several someones) is willing to take it or pay for it ... apparently in this case, they weren't.

Comparing a periodical to a mint shrink-wrapped MTG card isn't really a fair comparison. Even back in the day, most libraries didn't keep periodicals, they were "scanned" (photographed) onto microfiche at the end of every year or two to save space. Some stuff just takes up too much space to store, or isn't practical to when the information is of limited value or already present in another form.

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