Subject: Collector's Guide to Personal Computers

From: [email-masked] (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879)
Date: 25 Jul 1994 01:33:20 GMT

I just got an odd ad in yesterday's mail, from Books Americana,
POB 2326, Florence, AL 35630.  The ad is for Tom Haddock's
Collector's Guide to Personal Computers.

Has anyone looked at this book?  I'm not anxious to spring
$14.95 for such a book, when I could spend the money on
photocopies of rare documentation.  Is it any good?

In addition to the publisher's catalog, listing various
collector's guides, none of the others related to computers,
the mailing included two newspaper clippings:

One was from the Chicago Tribune, Thurs, May 19, 1994 Section
6, pages 1 and 13, entitled They're a Real Find -- Collectors
Discover a New Use for Old Computers, a New York Times News
Service article; it features CHAC and the Historical Computer
Club.

The other reprint if from the New York Times, May 20, 1993, in
The Living Arts section, entitled 19th Century Calculator Sells
for $11.8 Million.

The clippings were nice.  I may actually keep the Tribune
clipping on file. 
				Doug Jones
				[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (krause)
Date: Mon, 25 Jul 1994 09:18:02 GMT

>photocopies of rare documentation.  Is it any good?

I bought this book in the computer museum in Boston, and I think it's worth
$14.95.
It contains photos (partially in a poor quality) of many (perhaps 50%) of the
computers, and short summary of the systems: in most cases CPU-type, clock rate
memory size and kind of periphery. No technical details.

There is also a collector's  value, but I don't know if that makes sense:
Here in germany I can find an Osborne 1 on one fleamarket for $ 25 with full
docu, and on the next for about $1000.

There are two lacks in my eyes in this book:
There is no description of the intersil IM 6100 single board computers,
the intersil 6960 sampler and the intercept junior system. Only on page 41
a short description of the Intersil IM6100 with a serial interface. I think,
he is speaking about the intersil sampler without having any information about
it.
But it is probably impossible to list every microcomputersystem that ever 
existed.

The second, more severe lack is the complete absence of the early development
systems:
Intel intellec 4 / 40 / 8 and 8-80, NSC pacer, Signetics twin and so on.
They should be included in such a book, because they are certainly available
on fleamarkets and in surplus stores and they are worth to be collected.

The main value of this book is for identifying an unknown micro computer system
which is announced without any other information: 'Xitan alpha 2 to sell,
no information available'.

Klemens Krause
Universitaet Stuttgart
Germany