🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <9010291645.AA15511@cosmos2.orie.cornell.edu>, martin@COSMOS2.ORIE.CORNELL.EDU writes:
> Some of you might be interested how much people are still willing to
> pay for old Rainbows.  On Saturday, a PC100A (128K, no hard drive),
> keyboard, b&w monitor, LA50 printer, and 1200 baud modem were sold for 
> $1,000 at an auction at a recently closed Ford dealership.  Included was
> a system kit and MS-DOS 2.05, but absolutely nothing else.  Having seen
> the PC100A sold everywhere for practically nothing, I was totally surprised
> that someone would pay so much.  Judging from the comments I heard before
> the auction, I think whoever bought it probably expected this machine
> to be IBM compatable.  Are they ever in for a surprise !

Even if the machine _were_ IBM compatible, this is a totally
outrageous price for a used machine with that amount of disk 
storage/memory.  Even with the modem and the printer.  It
would even be high for a NEW machine.

The problem (and the key word) is AUCTION.  I'm not sure why,
but for some reason some of the people who go to auctions where 
computer equipment is sold tend to be VERY uninformed about the 
current prices of the equipment being sold.  Often the prices
are bid up far beyond anything reasonable - which means that the
people who DO know something about the current equipment prices
simply drop out and those that remain are the suckers.  Pricing
computers requires MUCH more "special knowledge" than many of
the things sold at bankruptcy auctions (desks, office equipment,
maybe even cars) and a lot of people don't realize how much they
don't know.

I'm quite sure that the auctioneers are aware of this phenomenon -
they always make sure that ads for bankruptcy auctions prominently
mention computer equipment.

						Bruce C. Wright