Cost Whiners

["Payton Byrd" <plbyrd@bellsouth.no.spam.net>]

One thing I've noticed is the large amount of whining going on in these groups about the cost of classic computer items.  I don't know what people expect, but I expect that the majority of people have no clue how much old stuff is worth, don't want to be bothered with figuring it out, and definitely don't want to be bothered with selling it in any way more complex than a yard sale.  So, I would say 95% (or more) of the classic computers sitting in closes the last 20 years have made their way to the local landfill.  Given that some things like Atari 1200XL and Commodore Plus/4 systems didn't exactly set sales records, I find it amusing (and a little annoying) when people complain about the prices these now rare items fetch on eBay.

Personally, I see a hobby--any hobby--as a way to spend money to get pleasure and have fun.  We certainly don't collect classic computers for the economic benefit because even if you can sell an item for 100% of your acquisition cost on eBay, most of the items you can do that with are so rarely available that you can't sustain an economy on such activity.  So, you have to think about __why__ you collect older computers and whether or not your budget and lifestyle can support that hobby.  Collecting Commodore 64s is a lot cheaper than collecting Atari 1200XLs.  Why?  Even if 95% have been chucked in the garbage, 5% of 22 million is still 1.1 million samples available.  I would imagine the number of 1200XLs available numbers in the thousands, if not hundreds.

If you cannot afford this hobby, you should consider something a little less economically taxing.  I can understand the love of the computers and the experience, but almost everyone has a PC and the emulators are so good for these classic computers that anyone who's financially strapped could get just as much usage enjoyment from emulators as with the real thing.  If you've got to touch a machine to be happy, then you need to figure out a way to make the economics work for you and deal with the reality that any item is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.  If a PET goes for $1700 on eBay, then that's what that PET was worth.

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Payton Byrd
Homepage - <http://www.paytonbyrd.com>
Blog - <http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/visualbasic/dotnet/>