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Old 9th Jun 2019, 5:51 pm   #21
HamishBoxer
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time

I would not dump the transistors.Looks like I shall be recycling some of my manuals/data sheets if no one is interested.
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Old 9th Jun 2019, 6:06 pm   #22
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time

The TTL ICs are certainly of interest/use to people who restore vintage computers. When (as I do) you have a dozen machines with up to 1000 TTL ICs just in the processor spares are always useful.

And as I said earlier, it is always worth a quick post here offering databooks and technical/service manuals. You'd be surprised what people want.
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Old 14th Jun 2019, 5:26 pm   #23
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time

I'm keeping them ALL - every Philips, Motorola, valve, transistor and integrated data book, all the theoretical stuff AND PE, PW and Aussie radio and hobbies books back to the 40's. To this end I have a 3 x 3m storage shed filled with plastic boxes and all indexed. So in theory you can look up any item on the computer and then go get it from the labelled box - in theory of course (sometimes fact and theory are at odds!). My wife supports this and has her books in the hallway on 3 large bookcases - but then she's a University trained electrical engineer - high power stuff.
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Old 15th Jun 2019, 5:27 pm   #24
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time

Remember that The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley might be grateful for anything a bit rare - books, components etc. I have been passing items on to them for a year or two.
Caveat - they have very slim funds so you will probably have to pay your own shipping.
Not connected with TNMoC but very supportive, as they are doing a superb job with tech I cut my teeth on in the 70s!
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Old 15th Jun 2019, 9:03 pm   #25
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time

I certainly don't have more than a few books and sheets dedicated to specific things. Being an architect not anything to do with electronics or engineering. However, I do think the Internet is not anything like an archive. There is such a large logistical framework that has to be always on, that (especially in the future I think we're likely to have) it cannot stay up forever. Formats also change - how many things stored with delight on early computers are now lost from being unreadable?

There is also a psychological aspect to books that is entirely lost on the computer. For example, I'm reading Ernst Juenger's Paris journals at the moment and wanted to quote an entry in a letter. There was no way I'd remember it from the date of the journal entry, but the muscle memory of which page it was on and the relative thicknesses of each half of the open book meant I found it in a few hundred pages almost immediately. The information wouldn't have been online, and would have necessitated a number of searches to find the right keywords even if it were.

In that sense, as an earlier poster remarked, we are custodians! However, there are museums as Pamphonica says, and they have the space and the dedication to conserve these things. On an individual level I go with William Morris and his famous axiom.

Conundrum: of course all those electronics ARE beautiful AND useful!
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Old 16th Jun 2019, 4:16 pm   #26
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pamphonica View Post
Remember that The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley might be grateful for anything a bit rare - books, components etc. I have been passing items on to them for a year or two.
There's also the Centre for Computing History, in Cambridge. I just donated several hundred computer magazines to them.
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Old 17th Jun 2019, 11:52 am   #27
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time. Dispose of data books?

Gone.

No one PMed me to ask for any.

Museums, don't forget that Bletchley threw out all the scopes they had been given last year. When I collected some I thought their unit was full of junk. I mean, who can fix a mag tape drive now, or an IBM360, or a Cincinnati Milacron CIP2200? Why? To us it is fascinating and interesting, the other 99.999% of the population aren't.

I had a pile of magazines etc that I offered to the buyer of my Meccano, scrap, all on line. Even the stuff from the 30's wasn't wanted.

Look at the prices old calculators, bombsight computers and similar technology fetches at auction, nothing. I had an ex-navy course plotting table, from the gyro and log it put a lighted dot under a glass top where the chart was and someone pencilled the course in. Essential for doing sub hunting. It was new and unused, made in 1955, valued £100, scrapped.

As I said about the resistance boxes, if you like one and want one then get it. I don't see them in sales now so probably just about all gone.

If you have the space.............
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Old 17th Jun 2019, 12:09 pm   #28
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time. Dispose of data books?

Most of the on-line journals I have seen have evidently been scanned from bound library copies which, as is normal practice, had been bound without their adverts. These days, the adverts can be just as interesting as the editorial contents.
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Old 17th Jun 2019, 1:31 pm   #29
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time. Dispose of data books?

I have to disagree with Woodchips on a number of points...

Firstly, the prices of 'old calculators' depends a lot on what they are. 1960's adding machines will sell for a few 10's of pounds. Anything remotely unusual (early-ish electronic, particularly programmable, electromechanical machines with automatic square root, etc) can sell for hundreds. And there are models that I would probably pay over £1000 for (but admittedly very few such models).

Secondly, as to 'who can fix a tape drive now', I can name at least one person who has repaired a 9-track computer reel-to-reel tape drive in the last couple of years. Me. Never had the chance to work on an IBM360 (or any other IBM mainframe) but I don't think it would be beyond me.

Thirdly, I am not psychic. You did not make it clear you had data books for offer, or roughly what they covered. You surely can't expect people to PM you with messages of the form 'Do you have the 1980-ish Philips databook that covers the SA5000 series teletext chips'? Or 'Any CRT databooks'? Or whatever.]
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Old 17th Jun 2019, 3:52 pm   #30
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time. Dispose of data books?

Quote:
Originally Posted by TonyDuell View Post

Firstly, the prices of 'old calculators' depends a lot on what they are.
Yes, indeed. I put up £1 to keep this Anita MkVIII from the auctioneer's skip in about 1990, but from prices I've seen it would return the favour many times over were I to have to sell it.

I doubt there's much prospect of data books achieving significant monetary worth within the next century or so, but the fairly small quantity that have come my way will have a home while I do.

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Old 19th Jun 2019, 5:45 pm   #31
woodchips
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time. Dispose of data books?

I am intrigued as to what calculator you would pay £1000 for? My most expensive one was a Friden EC-130, cost about £500. But I have bought Madas and Marchants for less than £5. I was saying that 99.99% are in the £10 area.

I have never worked on any IBM mainframe, custom chips etc as far as I know. This is why I also mentioned the CIP2200, something I can guarantee you have never seen, even though thousands were made to power their CNC controls. All TTL, and DTL, 8 bits, would run a six axis robot but the slide drivers were pretty neat, like digital counter based integraters to do circular interpolation.

I thought it was pretty clear I was dumping the data books, could always ask in a post. So, are you interested in all the RS data CDROMs plus all the manufacturer's CDROMS from the 90's? If so then I will drag them all out to see what is there.

Seem to have drifted from the philosophical query about what was vitally important for a career to what is of no value at all. Re-thinking it, I still don't see any value in an old computer to the wider public, unlike, say, a car. The subtly in design that we appreciate doesn't carry. Even the mechanical calculator is 'so what'. If you like it, fine, like me but don't expect many others to, and it will get skipped when you die. There was Alan's Anitas on this forum some years back who died, never saw any of his calculators come up for sale, anyone know what happened?

It would be nice to be appreciated for what one did in years past, the country, or world, isn't in that position now.
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Old 19th Jun 2019, 6:07 pm   #32
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time. Dispose of data books?

The price of vintage calculators is like the price of vintage radios, or indeed valves. Most are worth a few pounds. But there are odd models that are worth a lot more. We all know, for example, that PX4 valves are worth serious money to audio enthusiasts, but a box of TV valves is going to fetch a fiver at most.

So most calculators, handheld and desktop, are worth a few pounds to a few ten's of pounds. There are some that are worth a bit more. Of the ones that I would pay serious money for (getting towards £1000), they would include any valved Anita (as anything digital using valves is uncommon), the HP9821 (it's the one member of the HP9810/HP9820/HP9821/HP9830 familiy that I am missing).

Never seen a CIP2200, but if schematics are available I can think of a dozen people who can fix them. If schematics are not available I can think of a couple of people who would get it going.

Personally I prefer data on paper, so CD-ROMs do not really interest me. But please list what you have (in the for-sale section), I suspect somebody will want them.

And no, most people do not appreciate vintage computers, or test gear or telegraph instruments, or many such things. But in my case I've made a will leaving everything to a friend who realised that there are things here (machines, books, etc) that are rare and should be preserved. No, I don't really worry what is going to happen to the dozen or so BBC micros, or the shelves of magazines that are already scanned on the web. But it is rather more important that machines where the total known number is in single digits are saved.
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Old 2nd Jul 2019, 9:51 pm   #33
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time. Dispose of data books?

Same problem in my home workshop which has accumulated over 50 years of 'junk' that I would like to be rid of but somehow I can't do it. I did manage to chuck out about two boot loads of data books a couple of months ago - and immediately regretted it !

One that will never go (until I do) is my copy of National Semiconductor's Audio/Radio Handbook. So much information and of course the introduction in Chapter 5 to the concept of 'flooby dust'
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Old 4th Jul 2019, 9:20 pm   #34
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time. Dispose of data books?

What I'm thinking, being somewhat in the same boat, is OK what have I hung onto that is probably worthless?? e.g. the large drawer of 60's electrolytics which are probably all dry and out of specs by now, the 200 or so grundig plugs I got as a 'bargain' - only ever used one and so on. Even so it's hard to dispose of things - I even used to save small wood offcuts 'just in case' and only when I had about 3 sacks full did I offload them. On the plus side I find it fascinating going through drawers and finding things you've forgotton about - like yesterday I found this small analogue AVO meter (not a multiminor or avominor). Highly delighted but cannot recall ever buying it. LOL.
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Old 31st Jul 2019, 9:09 pm   #35
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time. Dispose of data books?

TI TTL book with the orange cover is the one to have. I'm not surprised that the OP is keeping his. Wish I'd kept mine. I also wish I'd kept the cross reference sheet for ICL TTL types. Anyone out there remember "A" types and "D" types?
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Old 1st Aug 2019, 8:30 pm   #36
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time. Dispose of data books?

Cooperman, I think I have that sheet for ICL 7400 IC number decoding.
I will see if I can find it if I get a few minutes.
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Old 1st Aug 2019, 8:46 pm   #37
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Default Re: Peeling away my life one layer at a time. Dispose of data books?

Talking of NOS caps,I have them from the 60,s and old reses but at least the reses should be ok as they are RS.
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