Re: Laser 3000

[spector@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article Lonnie McClure <lmcclure@delphi.com> writes...
> 
>     "Salvation Army thrift shop, for $10 Canadian. That's the
>      most I've payed for a machine from there, but it has also
>      proven to be by far the most interesting."
> 
>I wish our local Salvation Army thrift shops would put more "thrift" in
>their computer prices. As an example, I dropped by the main one here in
>Little Rock today. They wanted $40 for an old NEC PC-6001A, which had
>no disk drive, only the cassette cable, and no box or manual. They also
>had a "kids learning computer" of some type made by our old friend
>Video Technology that they wanted $25 for.

	I went visting the very same Salvation Army thrift shop Doug
found the Laser 3000 in, unfortunately there were no Apple IIs (or 
clones) to be found. I spoke with someone who worked there and apparently 
they do get Apple II CPUs, on almost a weekly basis, but they're bought up
very quickly! It's not surprising, unlike other old computers, the Apple II
is expandable, user-friendly and has a vast number of educational and other
types of software written for it. As if to back this up, there were dozens
of TI99/4a's, Adams, TRS80s, Atari 400/800s, VIC20s and others stacked on
shelves. Machines that never stood the test of time as well as the Apple II 
has. Hmmm, I'll admit their pricing can be a bit off, one of the TI99/4a's
I picked up to examine had a $50 sticker on it! :P 

>It sounds like when it comes to acquiring old computers, I would come
>out better by paying you 2x the price you pay + shipping! <grin>

	It doesn't hurt to keep your eyes open for people who throw
Apple IIs out in the trash! I've found two perfectly working Apple IIe's
in the trash, one even had a ProFile hardrive and DuoDisk 5.25. Another
had a 64k buffered Grappler+, Velcom 64k printer card, Monitor ///, Disk ][
and other goodies. Exteremly wasteful, but and even better deal than what
any thrift shop can offer -- it's free! (once you've cleaned it up a bit :)

	Many people will offen just give away their old computers as well.
Such is the case with the Apple III, Apple ][ and Apple ][ Plus I acquired
not too long ago.


Mitchell Spector
m_spect@pavo.concordia.ca / spector@vax2.concordia.ca