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Unboxing a 1984 Atari Peripheral, 25 Years Later
Harry writes "When you come across a 1984 Atari Touch Tablet for sale cheap--in the original, unopened box--it would be a crime against computer history not to buy it, open it, install it, and use it, and to document the whole process with photos and commentary."
...it would be a crime not to put it on eBay untouched for some fool to pay through the nose for it.
Jesus, I mean, come on. This sort of story isn't helping with changing perception of geeks, is it?
14 pages for 14 535 x 383 resolution pictures. Ugh.
I happen to RTFAs, but I can't stand the image-and-a-few-sentences-per-page format. Especially when each page has to load a bunch of pictures and javascript. I can stand it when these slideshows open up a new window with only the slideshow's content, but this is too annoying.
Or maybe he's attempting to combat the idea that something should have greatly increased value just because nobody ever bothered to use it before.
"it would be a crime against computer history not to buy it, open it, install it, and use it" AND install Linux on it. :)
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
Or maybe he's attempting to combat the idea that something should have greatly increased value just because nobody ever bothered to use it before.
Anyone trying to do that fails by definition. Things have value because people give it value, not through decision by committee.
Basically, even if you don't think it makes sense that "something should have greatly increased value just because nobody ever bothered to use it before" the fact that other people are actually willing to pay more because nobody ever bothered to use it before is enough reason for you not to use it. You can sell it to those people for the price they are willing to pay and maximize your profits. Any other decision is illogical.
They sure don't make 'em like they used to. None of my 3.5" floppies would survive more than a couple of formats, and I'd be lucky to be able to read them on more than, what, 3 or 4 different machines.
Not only is the content distributed among 14 pages in bite-size pieces, but those pieces take up roughly 1/72nd of the page space allocated. Along with the much-lamented dilution of content across excessive pages, do advertisers realize that their paid-for links may be up to 10 page-downs below the article?
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
That belongs in a museum!
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
I'm using my 1984 Atari Touch Tablet you insensitive clod; one 535 x 383 resolution picture per page is a lot to ask for.
No, it is completely logical if the utility that you gain by enjoying the use of the item exceeds the utility you would have gotten from the money gained by auctioning it to the highest bidder.
Not really. You can sell to the highest bidder, buy a cheaper used product, and still get all the enjoyment of using it AS well as getting a profit. Win-win.
If you're going to argue that there's a greater utility to opening the box and using the new product, then you are admitting that the unopened box is worth more.
Hey, wait, are we talking about tulips?
You know, oddly enough, making teh bux isn't the most important thing in life. If I get my hands on a new-in-box peripheral for one of my older computers, screw resale. I'm opening the box, hooking it up, and using it. That's the real value.
Frankly, the entire "minty-mint" collection mania is pathological. The perceived sale value boils down to "how much can I fleece a clueless schlub for?". And that's illogical.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
...opening a sealed original package. Cut its value on the collectibles market by 50%, easy.
The Computer History Museum has one of these but it is not in original packaging. Original packaging, even when opened, greatly adds to the historic, research (and sale) value.
There needs to be more warning that it's one of those paragraph per page
advertising sites. I looked at the first page and then came back to slashdot.
We have top men working on it now.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Show me a blog or article walking through a hack adapting the device for use under modern PC hardware and I'll look more closely. This is just "retro computing" and while it is a little interesting, it isn't THAT interesting. We get it. In the old days, we thought it was awesome and now it looks worse than pathetic.
Wire up a USB connector and write a driver to support it under Mac OSX, Linux and Windows.
I remember finding my first easter egg on this... when you click on the atari logo in the upper left corner of the menu screen, it played the atari theme music. good times...
Who has time to click a page 14 times
Someone who has the time to read the first page of it, read comments about the page, and then spend five minutes constructing a complain explaining why he wouldn't click "next"?
TOP... MEN.
This is clearly a clash of value systems. And, although my value are mostly utilitarian, that's not consistently so. My GP comment has a clue to the inconsistency: "older systems". Yup, I collect old personal computers and software. That's not rational from a pragmatic POV. But, OTOH, I actually use them. I wouldn't pay collector NIB NOS prices for, say, an Amiga 1000. (Pretend such a thing could legitimately be found. Besides, I still have mine from 1986.)
Again, if you or another collector gets a warm fuzzy feeling looking at your sealed 1977 Kenner Luke Skywalker figure, great. Me, I'd wanna play with the thing.
So, in the realm of serendipitous discoveries of neat old tech toys: If I find a nifty piece of retrotech that I can play with, at a price I consider reasonable solely on the "play" value, I'm buying. And using. If that destroys it from your perspective, so be it. I'm getting what I value out of it. If you want it, for whatever your reasons, you'd better find it first.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I always thought geeks loved to play with arcane tech, making this an ideal story.
Some do. Some don't. I fall into the don't category. I guess I'm not very sentimental. I love learning about history of it and admire how clever some of the solutions were in the face of the limitations of the day. There are some wonderful lessons to be learned. But I'm also old enough to have used some pretty arcane tech (by IT standards anyway) and I remember it's limitations well. There are very good reasons we don't use it anymore.
Personally it's not the tech but the information that I worry about. Old formats that we have lost the ability to read. The hardware exists to communicate and facilitate information. We can create new hardware but we can't always create new information.
The software wasn't on floppies. It was on cartridge.
A true geek would have opened the cartridge to see if it contained UV EPROMs or proper ROMs. EPROMs still working after 24 years would be fairly impressive, too...
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Because it's a status symbol.
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