Comment by Animats
6 hours ago
> It’s rare for museums to keep artefacts operational.
The Living Computer Museum tried until the money ran out. Here's the auction list from when the Living Computer Museum was liquidated.[1]
[1] https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/firsts-history-computing-...
Paul Allen did not structure the financials for it to succeed, which is unfortunate. I got to go there once and it was amazing.
I also went there, shortly before it shut down during the pandemic. A friend talked me into visiting when we’re were in town for a scientific meeting. I am so glad I went.
The museum on the afternoon we visited was nearly empty. As a result, the museum docents were happy to let us monopolize their time. I mentioned offhandedly that I had always wished I could try programming SmallTalk on an Alto, and the docent said with a grin “sure!” He reloaded their Alto with a programming environment and gave me a short tutorial. I quickly crashed the machine, but I had a lot of fun along the way.
I got to try many other machines that night. I often think with sadness about how my students will no longer be able to easily have this experience.
Wow I’m surprised by how high the realized prices are
Who is buying these things? Private collectors?
I am prompted here to ask "Why that name?" Trolling? Lapsed trademark squatting? I recommend a less confusing moniker if this is a genuinely serious attempt at a museum and not just baiting a collector(s) with deep pockets.
I think the prices are still really modest if you look at them in perspective. One of the small, irreplaceable stock of surviving PDP-10s could be had for less than the cost of a mediocre used Ferrari.
Antiquities and heirlooms can be a good stable investment, the same reason people trade art or watches or guns or cars. Some of these are fun to use without reducing value.
> Antiquities and heirlooms can be a good stable investment, the same reason people trade art or watches or guns or cars.
It is only an investment if it (likely) gains yield. Otherwise it is just a means of preservation of value.
2 replies →
A lot of people had a strong nostalgic attachment to DEC PDPs because they were their first experience of hands-on computing.
So SV always had a community of very wealthy nerds who could afford a used PDP-10 and its insane running and maintenance costs.
But... the community was always very small.
And today, the number of people with that kind of money and a similar nostalgic attachment to increasingly remote history is even smaller.
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