(No Spam @attglobal.net) writes:
On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 16:53:30 UTC, Chuck Harris
wrote:

Problem is, Sparky, where they once were worth maybe $50 bucks, or
were throw aways, ASR-33's and ASR-38's have become rather rare and
valuable.

-Chuck Harris


Really?

How valuable. I don't have one and don't want one but that's
fascinating. I know a fellow who dumped a warehouse of card
equipment about 3 years ago. Sorters, collators, keypunches. He
was saving them for 30 years and decided to pitch them.

He also had a 4381 mainframe.

de ah6gi/4 amazed at what people keep.



But that's why they become rare.

Remember when the telephone company had programs in place to get teletype
machines into the hands of amateurs, rather than scrap them? In the early
seventies, I remember hearing that ASCII machines were available here in
Canada. But at that time ASCII wasn't allowed on the ham bands (and of
course few had the equipment), and home computers hadn't hit yet. So
I gather the machines went begging. Then home computers came along, a
and they became more valuable, until enough equipment came along so
people would rather have video displays and small dot-matrix printers
instead of big and noisy teletype machines. That started the decline.
Fewer people wanted them, and few wanted to take them, and they took up
so much room. That would cause them to be tossed out.

So if there is demand, there is a smaller supply, and the price goes up.
But if still few want them, and realistically nobody needs a mechanical
teletype machine for practical reasons, then the cost remains low. But
since the cost is low, it's still easy to dump them.

Michael VE2BVW