Details and pictures please on The Black Hole vintage computer store

[Bill-kun]

A few people mentioned in connection with Computer Reset, The Black Hole, which was some other large vintage computer warehouse. My understanding is that it closed long ago, but I'm still interested in learning where it was, what was there, etc. Plus, the name is cool, and I wonder if it was named after the 1979 movie. I hope they at least had a poster from the movie hanging in their lobby.

Can someone please post links to pictures/videos of The Black Hole computer store?

 

[Al Kossow]

the black hole, and the church next door

 

[Unknown_K]

With prices going up and up whey haven't new vintage computer shops opened up?

 

[whartung]

With prices going up and up whey haven't new vintage computer shops opened up?

Because the stuff is expensive to stock and nobody buys enough of it to justify the infrastructure and capital investment.

 

[commodorejohn]

Also, it's hard enough to hack it in retail in the 21st century if you're selling something with mass appeal. Vintage computing is pretty dang niche in the grand scheme of things.

 

[FishFinger]

With prices going up and up whey haven't new vintage computer shops opened up?

Where are you going to get the stock? You can't just go to a wholesaler and order vintage computer gear by the ton. The supply is limited, dwindling, and the people who have it know what it's worth. The few places that still exist are all older business that managed to get stuff years/decades ago when it was still cheap and was being sold in bulk at auctions.

 

[Bill-kun]

Back to the point of the thread.

Can someone please tell where The Black Hole was, when it was there, and what they had? How much of it did they have? What was the story about how it came to be, amassed its inventory, and how it closed?

And, any more links to pictures or videos of it.

 

[Al Kossow]

https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/18130

it was all torn down within the last few years. story about that happening
in the local paper. https://ladailypost.com/omega-peace-institute-demolition-underway

 

[falter]

Also, it's hard enough to hack it in retail in the 21st century if you're selling something with mass appeal. Vintage computing is pretty dang niche in the grand scheme of things.

Unless you're vintagecomputermuseum on ebay and you buy stuff on eBay, raise the price 4000% and then relist on eBay.

 

[commodorejohn]

Well, naturally.

 

[Unknown_K]

Unless you're vintagecomputermuseum on ebay and you buy stuff on eBay, raise the price 4000% and then relist on eBay.

Or just take other people's hoards in for consignment.

I just figured in a larger city there should be a few people good at going out and finding small hoards for sale cheap that need some work, and people who like to get those old machines fixed up and working plus those that are good at selling. Make a youtube channel showing how those machines are made working again would draw attention and people would start hunting you down to sell their stuff or put them up for consignment.

 

[creepingnet]

I have thought about the idea of a vintage computer store but I'm in no way an expert, but it's fun to dream. I've toyed with making a blog post on this for awhile, so I probably will.

A long time ago I had an idea to build a similar business off my freelance computer work that I was doing before I Started working bigger, corporate projects with big companies. Basically what I'd do is be more like a "relocation service" that acts as a store for old electronics, especially old computers. Basically, similar to Re-PC in Tukwila/Seattle does, nor Nu2U Computers in Reno kinda-sorta does. Basically, nothing is off the menu, but properly priced accordingly.

I think one of the biggest problems with Vintage computer values is that we don't seem to have an official "Blue Book" of sorts. So we have people tossing out rare dwindling hardware from the 80's and 90's, people who are charging out the wazoo for a generic AT Clone because of some clickbait article they have, or ripping off collectors on E-bay and upcharging insane amounts for god only knows what reason, and then we have places that can't discern between a 1983 IBM XT, a 2002 Compaq Presario 5000, and a 2021 Dell OptiPlex 7090 - to them it's just a computer regardless of color or age.

 

[NeXT]

Any place I know that sells older stuff does it on the side as a much larger E-waste recycling outfit which generates the sustainable profits and even then they have someone dedicated full-time to grading, data sanitation and package kitting. There is just about no physical market for selling older machines other than to people who don't want to pay shipping.

 

[bnelson]

Make a youtube channel showing how those machines are made working again would draw attention and people would start hunting you down to sell their stuff or put them up for consignment.

And the people you are most likely going to attract are ones that see you have a machine like theirs selling for $1000 and think you should pay them $800-900 for their non-working version that you will have to fix/refurbish.

 

[Unknown_K]

And the people you are most likely going to attract are ones that see you have a machine like theirs selling for $1000 and think you should pay them $800-900 for their non-working version that you will have to fix/refurbish.

And you tell them to piss off like most shops would (ever seen pawn stars where they talk people down quite a bit or show them the door?).

 

[creepingnet]

And you tell them to piss off like most shops would (ever seen pawn stars where they talk people down quite a bit or show them the door?).

That's what a good shop would do. But then that's the reason I think it's more a fantasy than an actual reality, moreso due to COVID-19.

For starters, you have the problem of idiots. Some guy walks in with a 12 year old Core 2 Duo and is upset you won't give him $900 for it because in his eyes it's "vintage" because it won't run Windows 11. Then you have the guy with his generic 486 AT Clone who thinks it's worth $25K because HE has never seen one before. Then there's the guy that tries to sue you six months later because he finds out he could have made $2500 on his IBM PC 5150 on E-bay.

Some other thoughts this raises....and this might be a mouthful.....

I know we consider this niche but it really is not so much anymore, and has not been since maybe, 2010 or so. If you think about it, we have a nice lot of heavy-hitter vintage PC YouTube Channels (8-bit guy, Adrian's Digital Basement, LGR, PhilsComputerLab, RetroSpector.....just to name a few), places like RE-PC are starting to offer parts for these older systems in their stores again, I bought 2 motherboards in Tukwila before I moved. The owner of Computer Reset hits his deathbed and now there's a Facebook group busting at the seams with people wanting to get inside and buy up all the old PC stuff there, probably more than any other genre mentioned. Heck, I go to work now and I end up meeting other people into this now, instead of being the "Weird guy with the old PC's that are dwarfed by the power of my smartphone!" like it was when I was doing this in the 2000s. It's almost darn near mainstream now. My last 3 weeks of work I've been talking DOS games, x86 PC's Pre-Pentium 4, and so on with no less than 4 different people I work with, and got a SS7 and 486 from one of them. Even this thread itself is proof of that, someone wants to see pictures of a massive warehouse full of old computer stuff.

As such, I think the problem we have is determining the true, actual, market value of this stuff to keep people in-line with the prices yet keep people from getting ripped off. I get that a lot of us started doing this because it was cheap, but those days are gone now save for the rare case here or there. It is somewhat in the mainstream consciousness. I think some people are in denial of this because it upsets them. There was a time when this stuff was worth nothing and you could back your truck up and buy out all the gear and have endless amounts of fun with it, but those days are long since over and will never come back.

Now, there is a light in the dark of pricing. Eventually, older platforms will come down and level out as their respective nostalgic patrons start to get old and pass away. It's already happening with the Atari 2600 and some of the older consoles from that generation back because the young kids, the only thing they care about is the Nintendo. I can also see it staging with XT's and AT's as most of the younger folks into this, like one of my co-workers, tend to want something 80486 at the oldest. As folks my age get older, prices of that stuff will go down, and you no longer will be looking at $300 copies of The Secret of Monkey Island.

 

[Bill-kun]

When Computer Reset was opened for liquidation, the volunteers (or some fan, but I think it was a volunteer) said that the flood of items into public hands would literally change the economics of the hobby, going so far as saying that it would singlehandedly bring eBay prices down because of increased supply.

As for this being mainstream, I'm rather at odds about that. Is it really worth not being pushed into your locker in exchange for not feeling like you're doing something special anymore?

"'I was a nerd and social outcast because of this stuff before it was cool!' he raged."

Then again, just because someone buys a 286 on eBay doesn't mean they know how to find and replace blown capacitors to make it work. Or program a game. Or use the Debug command to directly read and write to the memory. So just keep pushing/holding the geek line, and you'll know that you're still the genuine article, and not an imitator.

 

[Unknown_K]

I think one of the reasons those massive lots don't bring down prices is because their condition sucks. Most of what was seen at Computer reset looked broken, missing parts, and had not been turned on in 20+ years so lots of work was needed. Items get ebay prices because they are sold as used (but working condition).

The days of people looking at you funny for wanting their old computer junk do seem gone, now they look at you funny thinking you are ripping them off with lowball offers.

 

[creepingnet]

When Computer Reset was opened for liquidation, the volunteers (or some fan, but I think it was a volunteer) said that the flood of items into public hands would literally change the economics of the hobby, going so far as saying that it would singlehandedly bring eBay prices down because of increased supply.

As for this being mainstream, I'm rather at odds about that. Is it really worth not being pushed into your locker in exchange for not feeling like you're doing something special anymore?



Then again, just because someone buys a 286 on eBay doesn't mean they know how to find and replace blown capacitors to make it work. Or program a game. Or use the Debug command to directly read and write to the memory. So just keep pushing/holding the geek line, and you'll know that you're still the genuine article, and not an imitator.

It seems to me that CR had little impact on prices, that said, they seem to ebb and flow a bit with popularity of a particular item. For example, and I'm blaming myself here, before I started really digging into the 1st gen NEC Versa laptops, they were still pretty cheap. You could buy a used 40EC in tested, working condition for around $35. Now since I started blabbering my mouth about them online, the same 40EC in untested as/is for parts condition has an asking price of $75.00+ in most cases.

I think in CRs case, it would be at best, regional, because CR is not selling their stock online, they don't have a website to sell from anymore as a legitimate business, you instead have to travel to Dallas from wherever you are at with some means of transport or a lot of money for shipping to get the stuff to your home. It's a bit more unique than the general blah blah posted a bunch about this item now we'll charge double what we were before...or more.

On the mainstream side....your quote pretty much said in fewer words than I could. I think a big problem, myself included, is that we were into this before it was cool or popular. We endured the decades of being looked at funny for being into old computers when people were bugging us to buy a Pentium 4 with XP and use DOSbox. In a way, us "ents" of this whole thing are basically the gateway to the geek hipsters that run around now.

And just like the 286, just because someone buys a 1976 Ford Bronco does not mean they know how to change the fluids or spark plugs, replace a clutch, or rewire a dashboard cluster....thats how "Barnfinds" happen, lol. Just because someone buys a 1962 Fender Jaguar does not mean they know how to replace switches, restring it so the strings don't skip around the bridge when played hard, tweak the vibrato for more range, or know what all those switches and knobs do. That rule applies to pretty much anything that is a specialty like this is. But the Bronco is now mainstream enough now we have a limited qty speciality builder called Icon making new "old" Ford Broncos, and everyone has been copying the Fender Jaguar for the last decade, when before you had 2 choices, buy a vintage one, or special order a brand new one from Japan.