Re: FS: APPLE IIGS

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@worldnet.att.net>]

A lot of folks have commented on what
pubpc1@library.ucla.edu wrote:

> My advice is not to sell on usenet.  The people here sit around and
> suggest shit prices and "donate it to a school" or "give it away"
> is the common refrain.  This is an atmosphere caused by people trying
> to get products cheap.  Usenet is not the best measure of an Apple
> system's value.  To give you an idea, last November, at a local
> users group BBS, I saw a IIgs system, like the above except with
> 4MB of memory and 105MB hard disk, sold for $390.  Fair deal, both
> seller and buyer were happy.

Remember, "market price" is what a willing buyer will pay a willing
seller.  In the San Francisco Bay area, 4MB GS's with 3.5" disks
and RGB displays, keyboard, and mouse, are readily available for
less than $50, and, if you're willing to shop for a couple of weeks,
they can be had for $10.  These are _not_ lot auction prices, but
used systems available off the shelf from places like "Computer
Recycling."  Garage sales also frequently yield very low prices.

It is easy to say (and likely true) that in most of these cases
the seller doesn't know (or care) what a GS is, or what it's worth.
Maybe the parents are getting rid of a system in the garage that
Jane hasn't used since grade school, and she went away to college
two years ago.

The truth is that _lots_ of Apple II systems were sold, and _very
few_ are still being used.  Hey, I love all my Apples, but outside
the local Apple user group (which is fading fast), I don't have a
_single_ acquaintance who uses, knows about, etc. an Apple II (which
I use inclusive of the GS).

When lots of _old_ product is available to few buyers, that's called
a buyers market, and the market value of the product is very low.
 
> I don't know what kind of stupid advice the seller would have faced
> if he were to have posted on comp.sys.apple2.marketplace instead,
> but I can imagine...
> 
> (I'll grant that different places may be different.  Here in LA,
> most K-12 students don't even have a typewriter.  Schools can't
> afford to dump their II computers.  An Apple IIe with AppleWorks
> is worth a lot more than a typewriter in this case.  At one high
> school that I know, for example, the Apple IIe and IIgs computers
> have moved into the classrooms for teachers to use for gradekeeping
> and printing handouts while the lab has now been invaded by mostly
> PC and some Mac computers.  Heck, I know of a student who did her
> thesis project on temperature regulation in lizards.  She used
> radio controlled thermocouples that fed into an Apple IIe computer.
> That setup would have cost at least $2000 for an SCSI input in a Mac
> and a fortune for each thermocouple, but the IIe hardware recorded
> data just as well.)

You probably don't even want to know what IBM Selectric typewriters
are going for...  mostly scrap metal.

I've always been amazed at how rabid people are about recycling.
When they get the metal parts melted down again, they feel so self-
satisfied ;-)  But the _very best_ "recycling" is re-use, which,
in the case of Apple II's (but not necessarily old refrigerators),
means simply _continued use_!  But, hey, I'm a realist--with 386's
being tossed in the trash along with Mac SE's, only an _unrealistic_
romantic could believe that the _world_ would still value his/her
beloved Apple II.

p.s.: FWIW, I'll bet they were hardwired _thermistors_ attached to
the paddle port--that's always been the cheapest and easiest way to
get temps into an Apple.
 
-michael

     Email:  mjmahon@aol.com
 Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/