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Greetings from Western Australia

Tony Epton

New Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2003
Messages
1
Location
Western Australia
I'll have to keep my intro short (I should be working on a Doctors payroll system today - not enjoying myself on a forum!)

I started collecting computers back in 97.
I was at a swapmeet in Belmont and spied a calculator for $5.
(CASIO AL 1000)
It was quite beautiful - all discrete components and Nixie tubes.
I suddenly realised that here was an area where people were discarding previously valuable technology and treating it as worthless junk.
Suddenly I was fired up by the idea and started scanning the saturday papers, auctions and scrap metal yards.
My first DecWriter I paid $150 dollars for (they must have seen me coming) - but nowadays we are knocking them back.
Over the next 4 years I probably spent $10,000 buying anything that came up.
We couldn't use the living room, then the upstairs bedroom and then the house next door - they were all crammed with cabinets.
We also started up the West Australian branch of the Australian Computer Museum Society - I am currently the curator. Lex Cunningham is the president.
Since then we have moved to Mundaring (5 acre block)
The move took 7 sea containers to store everything while a 200 sq metre barn was built.
Probably 40% of the stuff in the barn belongs to me personally and 60% belongs to the ACMS WA.
We have the beginnings of a web site at

http://www.aceware.iinet.net.au/acms

(very slow 56Kbps link from my home office)

The inventory is database driven. We have about 6000 items to catalog - so far I have managed to do about 160 (lots of photos of these though!)
I keep wishing that I could win Lotto - so I could do this full time - earning a living seems to be a very annoying inconvenience !

Saw the posting on afc this morning - so came here and registered.

Personal interests ? - totally unrealistic dreams - such as rebuilding a PDP6 using discrete components or building a relay machine or even getting the VAX 11/785 working again.


Tony
 
Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome to the VC Forum!

It sounds like you've been bitten by the bug but good! Yours might well be the single largest collection I am aware of although I think Sellam's (of VCF fame) might still be bigger. . . it's hard to tell when the numbers get that big.

I'm glad that there are folks preserving large lots of machines for future study, etc.

Enjoy the forums!

Erik
 
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