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Is our hobby starting to decline a bit?

falter

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Jan 22, 2011
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Just something I thought of as I watched a Max Machine go wanting for $499. Is the market reaching a saturation point?

Take my earlier example of an original Apple II.. once upon a time wars were fought for them. Now, I couldn't get back half of what I paid.

There's still the odd slugfest.. but they are becoming fewer and farther between. It seems like if you put up an opening bid at a price roughly the average of past sales or even slightly less, it doesn't fetch much action.

I've always kind of wondered just how many people there are in the hobby and if maybe the heavy duty collectors have gotten their fill. I also wonder as the next generation comes up.. with no memory or appreciation of the older machines, if they go back to being junk again. I mean, obviously rare things like an Apple I will always hold value.. but others?
 
Just something I thought of as I watched a Max Machine go wanting for $499. Is the market reaching a saturation point?

Take my earlier example of an original Apple II.. once upon a time wars were fought for them. Now, I couldn't get back half of what I paid.

There's still the odd slugfest.. but they are becoming fewer and farther between. It seems like if you put up an opening bid at a price roughly the average of past sales or even slightly less, it doesn't fetch much action.

I've always kind of wondered just how many people there are in the hobby and if maybe the heavy duty collectors have gotten their fill. I also wonder as the next generation comes up.. with no memory or appreciation of the older machines, if they go back to being junk again. I mean, obviously rare things like an Apple I will always hold value.. but others?

Maybe the "value" really isn't the important thing to most enthusiasts like myself. I could care less what PC parts sells for. I really don't need forums, Craig's List, or Ebay to do what I do, although they are convenient at times. I thought it was real special back in 2008 when I was looking for a reasonably priced 8-bit ISA IDE controller, and Hargle jumped in with an idea and saw the project through to its end. I don't think this hobby is going down anytime soon. And if it does, there's going to a whole lot of stuff available for some of us.
 
I think we're probably out of the "everything vintage goes for stupid high prices" bubble, that's all. As to the hobby of hacking on vintage systems, I'd imagine it is stronger than ever, especially since the tools to create new software and hardware are readily and freely available through the Internet. At the same time, I'd imagine forum use is not as popular with people who are just getting started with old computers, forums in general are less popular nowadays, and I'd imagine that's mostly because most forum software hasn't kept up with what people expect from modern websites.

Hobbyists sure do seem to still be interested though, I'm getting near the reorder point on XT-IDE rev 3 boards!
 
I think we're probably out of the "everything vintage goes for stupid high prices" bubble, that's all.

IMO there are several examples of computers that have been going for outrageous prices. Commodore Amigas selling for $300+ while S-100 computers fully stocked with boards barely get $500.

As to the hobby of hacking on vintage systems, I'd imagine it is stronger than ever, especially since the tools to create new software and hardware are readily and freely available through the Internet.

I think the hacking will certainly grow. The XT-IDE boards are one of the more popular considering the high failure rates of old MFM drives.
I wonder how many great old computers go unsold because of a missing proprietary keyboard or MFM hard drive connected to a non-ISA based controller.
 
a hobby declining has nothing to do with the price of stuff to do with the hobby, that would be dependent on the community around hobby, which from what I have seen is growing. What's declining is the nostalgia tourist's that think it would be neat to own a childhood memory and kind of forgot it took time and effort to get things proper.

As far as prices its still quite high, I sold my //c for over 100$ and paid 17 for it 8 years ago, commies, and amiga's (less so atari) still fetch a house payment, but that's mainstream machines.
 
Some of the famous ones, such as Altairs and IMSAIs, easily go for many thousands of dollars.

I've found, in clearing out some of my excess S-100 boards, that there's definitely a premium for tested/working boards, too. I know a good portion of the boards I've sold off have gone to hobbyists, too.
 
On the contrary, the hobby is growing, but obscure machines are just not in demand because the people who wanted one now have one . Common machines like the Apple IIe and C64 are rising slowly in value.

It's like vintage car collecting. The vintage corvettes are getting outrageous and the obscure Bogward is only collected by a a small percentage of the collecting community.

So expect the mainstream machines to keep climbing as they become rarer (I.e Apple, commodore), the known classics like MITS, IMSAI and Processor Tech to keep climbing even faster, but the obscure machines like a Coleco Adam to stay where they are.
 
I think the hobby is doing very well. In an age of smartphones that run circles around 1980's Mini Computers, there is still something magical about creating amazing results in small physical spaces. Plus, for those of us who could only look in wonder at a C64 in Sears, we get to relive part of our younger days owning the machines we couldn't have in younger days.
 
Current prices are not enough to make a determination. There are other factors such as the general economy as well as supply and demand. As someone pointed out the other day, there are more early Apple IIs out there so they sell for less than they had a while back.

On the brighter side, perhaps this means some chipper shredder lovers, I mean "recyclers", or people who would otherwise send stuff to them, have gotten the message, resulting in... more toys for us! :)
 
Speaking for myself: I like to have the computers now I could not afford back then, just to know what they were like.

Those special computers who were displayed in colorful adverts in Your Computer and such, like Oric-1, ComX35, Acorn Electron, Acorn BBC, Atari 400/800, TI99. In those days these were far outside my budget while I hammered on the ZX81 and later VIC20. Now I have a Oric-1, ComX35, Electron, TI99 and some other rare stuff sitting in a nice display cabinet. Still wish I did not sell the Acorn Atom, prices of these go through the roof now, same for the Exidy Sorcerer on which I learned Basic at school.

Some types I have double so I can toy around with them occasionally or add brandnew add-ons to them.. Nothing serious or utterly useful but it is nice to understand the hardware and software.
 
Prices rise and fall quite a bit over the years with supply and demand. Things get hot and cool down. I seen a mac Quadra 840AV sell for $500+ recently.

I think once an item consistently sells for more then a few hundred bucks people will start to drag them out and there is a constant stream of them on ebay. Some people get bored or have to move and whole collections get dumped.

Most of the stuff I collect seems to have dried up on ebay or is priced too high for me ( yes, I am cheap).
 
I note that much of the interest in this area lies in gaming. That's probably not enough to sustain interest. There's a lot of old hardware (and software) that's interesting but doesn't play games (or even has graphics).

It's the "boring" stuff that's more interesting to me, even though I don't collect it. For example, how many here collect old word processors (AES, Lanier, CPT, etc.)? How about old automotive engine analyzers (e.g. Sun)? Industrial CNC equipment? Process control gear? You get the idea.
 
I collect old non gaming software actually, quite a bit of it.

Not that many people are interested in old video capture gear either, but I have a basement full of it.

I find many collectors will spend money on hardware but will pirate all the software for that system (even games). So while gaming on old computer is popular the prices for most games are not that expensive anymore. Advances in cheap floppy and cartridge emulators allow people to bypass original media entirely (and use cracked game images). You can download a TOSEC archive with 99% of all games for any 8/16 bit system today and store it on your hard drive, something a pirate from the 1980's would drool over.
 
I'd sell things like Commodore 65's, TI 99/8, and other systems that are valuable today but have no historical significance, while you can still get silly prices for them.
 
I remember when the wife and I were scraping change for canned beans and almost winning a bid on a TI 99/4 with it fitting in budget, like 10 years ago funny how the market shifts cause nowdays you might find a later beige model that has nothing with it for the price of a dinner for 2 at a chain restaurant
 
Take my earlier example of an original Apple II.. once upon a time wars were fought for them. Now, I couldn't get back half of what I paid.

Do you mean original ][s, not +/e? From where I sit, the straight ][ prices are getting sky-high.

maybe the heavy duty collectors have gotten their fill.

Again, no, not from what I see. Our hobby is on the upswing.
 
Since when does historical significance mean much in a hobby? Value pretty goes to the rarities that are hyped up.

The hobby could turn out like baseball cards, stamps, and comic books. The rare old originals people always wanted will be worth a mint while the common stuff will be worthless.
 
Since when does historical significance mean much in a hobby? Value pretty goes to the rarities that are hyped up.

The hobby could turn out like baseball cards, stamps, and comic books. The rare old originals people always wanted will be worth a mint while the common stuff will be worthless.

Completely agree. Best not to collect for financial gain or to judge the hobby based on the rise/fall of Ebay prices. It won't end well.
 
Lately I've found myself wondering what I'm doing with my collection. At present, that includes the following machines:

Coleco ADAM
Commodore 128D
Atari 800XL
Macintosh Plus
Macintosh IIci
IBM PCjr
Tandy 102 (with a TPDD)
ADM 3A (okay, it's not a computer, I know)

All of the above machines, with the exception of the current crop of ADAM required repair. That is something that I enjoy doing with this hobby, it's a bit like a puzzle and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. However, now that they are all working and I've mostly had my fill of playing classic games on the machines I am finding myself thinking, "what next?" I don't really want to turn loose of them (with the possible exception of the IIci and the 102, still debating those), but I don't want them to sit idle either, so I've been racking my brain for ideas on what to do. I feel like it's a shame to just let them sit idle looking pretty, I'm pressed for space and more importantly, time. It seems to me old hardware is useless without software to run on it, and so I've come up with some possible projects for each:

ADAM: By far my favoritest old machine and the one I've collected for on a mostly continual basis since the mid 90's after I had the means to do so. I really had hours of fun with this machine in my childhood in the early 80's even though our family didn't have one, but it's main one of the three machines that really piqued my interest in computers (the others being the 99/4A and Commodore 64). I've always wanted to port CP/M 3.0+ to this machine. I don't really have a good reason for this, other than that the 2.2 BIOS kinda sucks and it lacks support for popular third party peripherals (serial, parallel, and hard disks), plus bank switching might be nice. Continue working on ADAMEm emulator. Slowly I've added some additional functionality to it, but I need to finally finish up this project.

PCjr: Finally put together this jrIDE card! Light pen?

Mac Plus: Seems like a good candidate to get a port of GEMDOS running on. I don't think anyone has done this and at this point are more plentiful than Atari STs. Seems like that would be a nifty project.

Commodore 128D: games mainly.

800XL: games mainly.

Aside from this, all these machines have been left behind by the internet, well, with the exception of the PCjr with mbrutman's excellent TCP/IP stack and the C-64 (bear with me). I really loved the age of the information services, particularly GEnie, and thought it would be pretty cool to recreate that service similar to how some have done with C-64 and the Qlink service simulator. There were several ports of Aladdin for GEnie on the PC, Mac, Amiga, and Atari ST, and a thriving community of RoundTable (forums) on there. It'd be nice if there was some way to experience the forum here (and elsewhere) through some information service-like gateway.

All this goes back to the lack of time to work on things, and the hardest parts of a project are starting it at the very beginning and the last 10%. :)
 
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