Ebay has caved!!! Vintage is back!!!

[VintageComputerman]

I was just doing a search on ebay and low and behold...they reinstated all the old categories! YEA!!!

No longer is it just one Vintage category.

Now it's...


*
Vintage Computing
o
Amiga
(50)
o
Atari
(6)
o
Commodore
(26)
o
IBM
(11)
o
TRS 80
(5)
o
Vintage PCs
(7)
o
Other
(1934)


I guess they received too many complaints or realized the value of this sector of collectibles.

 

[carlsson]

For that matter, eBay Germany never dropped their subcategories. I don't know about the Netherlands, France, Italy and so on, but I know eBay UK also only had one big category like the US one did. Actually, eBay UK still has no subcategories but maybe they'll reinstall them in a few weeks.

The general structure of each eBay site is quite individual and I suppose it reflects the population in respective country: which kind of items they are trading. On a market where relatively few or mostly identical vintage computing items are sold, they would think it makes no sense to have subcategories. I suppose the USA is a market big enough to have serious diversity though.

Edit: I went through the European eBay sites. Someone else could check the rest.

Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Spain and UK all have one big category each for all retro and vintage computers.

Austria, Germany and Switzerland have unified these subcategories (9): Amiga, Atari, Commodore, IBM/Lenovo, Merchandise, Robotron, Schneider, Sinclair and Others.

France (7): Amiga, Amstrad, Atari, Commodore, Spectrum, Thomson and Others.
Netherlands (4): Amiga, Commodore, MSX and Others.

I'm not so good in Polish, but it seems they don't have a category for vintage computing at all, or perhaps all those are listed under Video Games?

 

[barythrin]

..obviously feeling the pressure from the VCGM ;o)

 

[VintageComputerman]

I just did some research on ebay via their announcements and find...

Under the Computer & Networking category...

We're restoring brand-specific categories for Vintage Computing.

 

[dongfeng]

eBay UK seems to randomly change between having categories and not. Very annoying!!!

 

[carlsson]

eBay UK have subcategories under Vintage Video Games (or whatever it is called) but currently no sublevels under Vintage Computers. It goes to show how inconsequent their organisation is. On the other hand, if you would post all types of software under Video Games - a bit unusual to categorize operating systems and drawing programs as games but anyway - it kind of makes sense to have one category more detailed than the other as you're likely to find more different Apple software than you'll find different Apple hardware items.

 

[dongfeng]

There's also a Vintage Apple category under Apple!

I think this latest move is to lump all these stray sections together. Much more useful, but now 10,000 more software added making it 100 times harder to search...

 

[carlsson]

Aha, that is why you rarely see Apple stuff when one looks for vintage computing. It is because they have an own category, besides vintage computers. I suppose the same may be true about vintage IBM PCs too?

 

[dongfeng]

No... they're are just randomly put in either 'Vintage Computing' or 'Desktop PCs' ...

 

[Trixter]

From the announcement, this has me confused:

Vintage Computing 11189 New Category
Amiga 4598 New Category
Atari 82631 New Category
Commodore 74945 New Category
IBM 74946 New Category
TRS 80 74947 New Category
Vintage PCs 162075 New Category

What is the difference between IBM and Vintage PCs? Will I be forced to pay double-category fees to list stuff properly?

 

[Tinkerer]

"What is the difference between IBM and Vintage PCs? Will I be forced to pay double-category fees to list stuff properly?"

As I remember it was listed the same way before eBay changed it. I always reckoned the IBM catagory was for 'true' IBMs and peripherals, while the Vintaged PC catagory was for all IBM clones.

 

[Trixter]

"We're just sitting here trying to put our PCjrs in a pile and burn them. And the damn things won't burn. That's the only thing IBM did right with it - they made it flameproof."
Spinnaker Software chairman William Bowman, 1982

I am sure this is mis-attributed. Peanut wasn't even a prototype in 1982, for one thing.

The PCjrs got a lot more correct (wireless keyboard, more colors, more sound) than wrong (rubber keys, cost); they've always gotten a bad rap IMO.

 

[Tinkerer]

Oops. Missed by one key

 

[mbbrutman]

Still wrong. The PCjr was announced in Nov 1983 and did not start shipping widely until early 1984.

The correct year is 1985. This page has the quote and the proper citation:

http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/ibmpc/ibm1983.htm

I'd say that you should use a PCjr before putting a quote like that in your .sig. ;-0