old computers any value

Several of you have emailed me expressing interest in the machines, and concern that they would be scrapped. Although there were some suggestions that it was valuable, no one offered to come pick it up within the next day or two. But around 4 PM, someone showed up with two of the funniest-looking semi trucks I've ever seen. He said his name was John breastor, and that I might have heard of him on Usenet. I haven't used Usenet before, so I hadn't, but he said that many of you would recognize his name, and that I should remind you all to get out of the big cities and stock up on supplies before autumn of 2006. I'm not sure what all that's about.

Anyhow, he said that he needed these machines for the backbone of the new Internet in the future. I wouldn't have thought that this old junk would be useful for that, but apparently they have some sort of special undocumented message switching features that aren't commonly found on modern computers.

He was disappointed that they didn't have the CRT displays, and some machines didn't have typewriters, but apparently he was pretty happy to get any of these at all.

Anyhow, I was glad to be rid of them and if they are useful to someone, so much the better. It saved me renting a truck and making multiple trips to the scrapper. I wish he'd taken the last of the Teletype gear and other miscellaneous crap too, but so it goes.

Mike Rowe -- There is a tactile, almost sensuous pleasure in a beautiful piece of equipment. -- Stanley Kubrick