I know nothing about the ins and outs of why they are closing. I have been an occasional customer over the years but postage to the UK isn't cheap. I heard about the closure and hopefully in the next week or so will arrive boxes 5 and 6 of the sale manuals. I think I might now have spent more on postage than manuals with the discount on these last boxes. Thanks Becky.
I've been a long term customer too. Also bought what I could afford after hearing of the shutdown. But it wasn't anything like what I wanted to buy. I'm poor atm, though that won't last forever.
Look at the various threads, buy a Rigol and stuff anything more than 5 years old? My manuals were mostly boring, Tek 7000 stuff and similar, but ManualsPlus had originals, and I an tired of rubbish copies and it was worth the cost to buy and ship them across the pond.
My view is that at least some people should keep test gear that is repairable, as opposed to contemporary gear which isn't. As a 'just in case' precaution, for potential economic and therefore technological regression scenarios.
Also as a collector of old gear partly for the historical interest, it seems stupid to have the gear, but not the original manual, which is part of the aesthetic. And in addition, I find electronic copies pathetic and nearly unusable in a practical sense, even if the quality is good. Which it so frequently isn't. Nothing beats having the stack of paper large foldout schematics.
This is a very common occurance now in my experience, no one is interested in older things, generally, it is all apparently on the internet.
Yes, and do you know the history of fads and manias? Who can be sure the Internet is going to last forever in its current form? It's only been around what, 20 years so far. This is not sufficient basis to predict eternal availability.
Are you aware of moves by the fascists in the US government, to legislate 'sharing of technical information on the net' into a 'terrorist crime'? Seriously... Unbelievable, but it fits with those arseholes' mentalities.
I had a nice collection of electromechanical computers, mostly navigation equipment from aircraft, inertial gyros, air data computers, ground position indicators and similar. When I had to downsize it went for auction, would have got more at a scrap yard.
Tragic. Did you offer it via places like this and the vintage computing forums? Or was that before you knew of them?
Similarly old books, 3rd edition Britannica, a Pantologia, runs of the AJS and similar, these are now valued just for the plates they contain, maps are best, the plate of yet another bridge is used to light the fire. It has taken me years to to actually accept that the things I spent so much time and money on acquiring are now worthless.
You're making a big mistake. The same made by many people, which results in relics being so very rare after a few decades. You're allowing yourself to be conditioned by the prevailing view that monetary value of the moment, is equivalent to moral worth. This is a falsehood. You should decide what value is, within your own moral code. F*ck opinions of others to the contrary.
I have ST412 working disc drives, no interest, scrapped, similarly with much other computer stuff. No one now has the space to store this stuff, and museums don't seem interested either.
Sob. More tragedy. I'd have taken all that stuff. Incidentally, this 'no one has the space' is not just by accident, it's the result of deliberate social manipulation, intended to disempower the majority of the population. A deliberate side effect of the way the economic system is structured at the moment.
I am pleased that I bought the manuals I did from MP, and they will be used and appreciated. But they will also go for recycling when I die.
How soon will that be do you think? Any chance you could put me down in your will, to take whatever techno-relics you still have? I'm totally serious, please PM me if you'll consider it. I'm 60 now, will be around a while yet. See
http://everist.org/NobLog/ I have a lot of Tek 7000 series stuff, but mostly not yet recommissioned due to the sequencing of getting my workshop set up.
what is a 7T11? In the end I had a choice, pay MP for the manuals and postage, or keep that money in my savings account. All the others who complain about the manuals being dumped perhaps should have put some money where their mouth is, and bought a couple of thousand $ worth when they could. I did.
So did I, but it wasn't anywhere near that much. The timing is what bugs me. In the next year or so, I'll likely be forced to sell my current large property due to a zoning change. (
http://everist.org/no-rezone/ hmmm... needs an update.) I expect to end up with more than enough to rebuild in the country somewhere, including a *much bigger* workshop, and live comfortably. One of the items on my 'new workspace' requirements list, is a _large_ library space. Medium scale library. I wish MP had waited to shut down till that was set up.
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