I am no longer attending vintage computer festivals • Hacker News Board

Re: I am no longer attending vintage computer festivals

#21

Post by init2null » Thu, Apr 11, 2024, 6:59 PM UTC

h2odragon wrote: post #10

The politics of volunteer organizations tends to get uglier after there gets to be money in it. Preservation of things like this, ephemeral history, is important. Everybody recognizes that immediately: "hey what a good idea if someone would save that stuff". The actual doing gets harder. i got a stack of 17 years of "PC magazine" somewhere; easy to find people who say "oo cool i'd love to look through those" but much…

I just found my two remaining beloved PCMags in my boxes. They have such fond memories attached, but I'm thrilled that I don't have 17 years.

I understand the desire to keep years of magazines, but I'd worry that it becomes a personality trait at that point. And of course they take up way too much room. My newly-adopted Win98 PC is bad enough.

Re: I am no longer attending vintage computer festivals

#22

Post by exe34 » Thu, Apr 11, 2024, 7:02 PM UTC

init2null wrote: post #21

h2odragon wrote: post #10

The politics of volunteer organizations tends to get uglier after there gets to be money in it. Preservation of things like this, ephemeral history, is important. Everybody recognizes that immediately: "hey what a good idea if someone would save that stuff". The actual doing gets harder. i got a stack of 17 years of "PC magazine" somewhere; easy to find people who say "oo cool i'd love to look through those" but much…

I just found my two remaining beloved PCMags in my boxes. They have such fond memories attached, but I'm thrilled that I don't have 17 years. I understand the desire to keep years of magazines, but I'd worry that it becomes a personality trait at that point. And of course they take up way too much room. My newly-adopted Win98 PC is bad enough.

I keep wanting to get old apple computers, but I definitely don't have the space or the time to play with them!

Re: I am no longer attending vintage computer festivals

#23

Post by amatecha » Thu, Apr 11, 2024, 7:09 PM UTC

Just a reminder that VCF's mission statement is literally "To preserve computing history through education, outreach, conservation, and restoration"[0]. It's pretty egregious that they would destroy such a large collection of material directly relevant to computing history.

[0] https://vcfed.org/about/

Re: I am no longer attending vintage computer festivals

#24

Post by amatecha » Thu, Apr 11, 2024, 7:11 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #16

Sounds like the donation was unsolicited, Jason just expected the thousand pounds of tree pulp to be appreciated by a vintage computer festival?

That's pure speculation. There's no reason to assume he randomly dropped off a ton of containers full of stuff without having prior communication/arrangement with them, or at the very least, an acknowledgement/acceptance of the material when he arrived.

Re: I am no longer attending vintage computer festivals

#25

Post by dihydro » Thu, Apr 11, 2024, 7:22 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #16

Sounds like the donation was unsolicited, Jason just expected the thousand pounds of tree pulp to be appreciated by a vintage computer festival?

I don't think your assumption is correct based on this sentence: "I also want to take this moment to clearly state that Evan Koblentz, the director of the Vintage Computer Federation for many years, who took the original donation, had absolutely no say or part in this pulping of historical magazines, having been driven out of the organization years before."

Emphasis mine.

Re: I am no longer attending vintage computer festivals

#26

Post by fzzzy » Thu, Apr 11, 2024, 7:31 PM UTC

init2null wrote: post #21

h2odragon wrote: post #10

The politics of volunteer organizations tends to get uglier after there gets to be money in it. Preservation of things like this, ephemeral history, is important. Everybody recognizes that immediately: "hey what a good idea if someone would save that stuff". The actual doing gets harder. i got a stack of 17 years of "PC magazine" somewhere; easy to find people who say "oo cool i'd love to look through those" but much…

I just found my two remaining beloved PCMags in my boxes. They have such fond memories attached, but I'm thrilled that I don't have 17 years. I understand the desire to keep years of magazines, but I'd worry that it becomes a personality trait at that point. And of course they take up way too much room. My newly-adopted Win98 PC is bad enough.

which two?

Re: I am no longer attending vintage computer festivals

#27

Post by nocoiner » Thu, Apr 11, 2024, 7:48 PM UTC

santoshalper wrote: post #18

noobermin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given Jason is in the business of archiving things, likely the loss itself is has to be a part of it.

It seems almost impossibly rude to take a donation like that, then to destroy it without even seeing if the person who donated it would like it back.

And how did it even come up that they were enjoying their continued use of his plastic bins? Did they think that would be consolation?!

I know this is only one side of the story, but based on his subjective experience here, I can’t say I blame the guy at all for feeling so insulted or being unwilling to accept an apology.

Re: I am no longer attending vintage computer festivals

#28

Post by Lerc » Thu, Apr 11, 2024, 8:01 PM UTC

I care about vintage computers and early computing history, because quite a few people I know are aware of this I am gifted old hardware and documentation. I have nowhere to set them up or display them so they go into storage.

I would willingly gift them to good homes, I feel my role is as a custodian. I cannot make use of these things, but I can ensure that they continue to exist.

I can completely sympathise with the anger that the author of this post feels. They were performing this custodial role and the expectation in passing to a new custodian is that they preserve the material or pass on to a new custodian. I'm sure if faced with the option of destruction or taking back the donation the author would have taken it back.

Re: I am no longer attending vintage computer festivals

#29

Post by jazzyjackson » Thu, Apr 11, 2024, 8:12 PM UTC

santoshalper wrote: post #19

jazzyjackson wrote: post #16

Sounds like the donation was unsolicited, Jason just expected the thousand pounds of tree pulp to be appreciated by a vintage computer festival?

It definitely does not sound like that. What a strange interpretation. Who would spend hundreds of dollars and hours of time just to do an unsolicited drop?

I'll take the L, without context and just reading the blog there wasn't any hint at coordination with the receiving party (besides the donation being accepted I suppose)

Speaking from experience tho people clearing out storage containers sometimes do strange things

Re: I am no longer attending vintage computer festivals

#30

Post by prosaic-hacker » Thu, Apr 11, 2024, 8:13 PM UTC

I have a storage room under the stairs which would be a vintage computer museum of its own. I am keeping it there until I downsize the house in the next 5 years. I have been delusionally waiting for that 10,000 year preservation origanization to come into existence but I am not holding my breath.

If a billionaire funded museum could run into trouble (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34831880) what hope is there for anything else.

PS. I have a cache of ~10,000 1980s and 90s DIP ICs (8032 Micro controllers and support chips) that I want to find a use for. You could contact me at my account name without the punctuation at gmail.