Apple II hoarding

[Keatah]

It bothers me that Apple II material is coming from estate sales now. Fully 70% of is is coming from the hoard of deceased owners. "Hoard" is such a dumpy-sounding word, low class.

And the people posting the stuff.. Depending on the socioeconomic status of who lists it the material is typically presented as..

1- Low-income. Hoard, pile, father's garage cleanout. All this is seems to be hand-me-downs left in a will or something like that. Junk heap, Basement cleanup, stuff.. Typically a family member is left to dispose of this junk.

2- High-income. Collection, coming from the estate of xxxxx, assemblage, selection, compendium, acquisition, offertory, repository, coming from the residence of, scarce find, rare, available for your consideration, a discovery in the estate of.. And so on and so forth.

Ohh well, one hoarder to another hoarder and the people that know nothing of "Apple II" are the ones that profit.

Every now and then a huge estate collection shows up, acquired for free or low-cost by an auction service. And it appears none of this material will be scanned and uploaded to asimov or likewise. All other classic micros have great scans of documentation and boxes. And Apple II has so little.

Edited July 30, 2015 by Keatah

[Ransom]

Every now and then a huge estate collection shows up, acquired for free or low-cost by an auction service. And it appears none of this material will be scanned and uploaded to asimov or likewise. All other classic micros have great scans of documentation and boxes. And Apple II has so little.

 

Strange for a computer so often popularly regarded as an important early home computer from a company that is still widely respected.

[The Usotsuki]

The attitude of a lot of Apple ][ users in 2015 is that of a community with, collectively, more money than brains.

[Keatah]

I'm afraid that is very true. There also seems to be an age gap. I bet the Apple II community has a disproportionately larger number of retirees than any other micro community. Maybe they (with wisdom and enlightenment) see something I don't.

 

The community seems obsessed with low serial numbers and the Apple II, not II+ or //e. But instead the "Integer II in ROM" version. When in reality the II+ and //e represent the best of the lineup. Just this past few months a II moved on eBay for around $9,000.

 

Also the price is affected more than usual by who previously owned the material, or whos estate it comes from. Silliness!

 

On thing for certain is that the II series console brings lots of looks and questions from visitors and guests. None of whom care about the precise history or versions of things. The nostalgic impact and amazement and wonderment is the same. I could lecture on Integer vs. Applesoft in ROM or the fine points of Rev 0-6, or Rev 7 and draw blank stares. But they seem interested in the floppy drives, the speed of processing, the "blocky" hi-res graphics, the crude speaker.

 

But the engineers (not technicians) I know are all over the Apple. Serves as a great catalyst for bringing back long forgotten stories and accomplishments.

 

As an Apple fan though, I hate to talk about it that the wife's friend's C64 brings on requests to play games and generates all kinds of RadioShack stories oddly enough. Very few game requests on the Apple II, except for Oregon Trail. My engine buddy's Atari 800 tends to generate blank stares, with his VCS stealing the show with ease.

 

At a symposium I recently attended we got to talking about our first computers and I was offered $5,000 on-the-spot for one of my Disk II drives because it had a serial number less than 200. I did not sell it. It has sentimental value to me. The same value as my other Disk II with a 6-digit serial number. Maybe they're special to me because I had to mow a thousand lawns and dig up a million weeds to afford to get them? There is nothing special or unique or rare about the drives except for the serial number printing and that I had them since grade school and that I did some of my first hardware "mods" on them.

 

I repositioned the write protect switch out of the way, thus eliminating the need to punch holes in the disk to use the flipside. I was in like the 3rd or 4th grade at that time and I thought I was a million bucks! Look! I improved the product! Later me and my cohorts manufactured and marketed a simple no-solder remote-mounted write protect switch. All composed of parts from RadioShack. I must have sold 60 or more kits to all the local pirates and various other users in the surrounding towns and through my BBS.

[Osgeld]

problem with the toy computers are the games, everyone remembers playing whatever on a commie or an atari, no one remembers controlling a radio telescope or a automated loom with their apple II, they remember the school having a bucket ton of them and all you were allowed to do was play Oregon trail or number munchers lol

 

its just a totally different mindset than the typical retro enthusiast, we actually used our computers for more than a game console

[The Usotsuki]

Believe it or not, we actually spent a lot of time in grade school playing Dig Dug, Mario Bros. and such on the //es (not to mention I was *already* familiar with gaming on the //c we had where I lived before). I suppose my ilk is the minority though.

[Keatah]

I would say yes. We were limited to Oregon Trail and Applesoft Basic, despite having a gorgeous 11MB Corvus Hard Disk and OmniNet setup.

 

ADDED:

Back in the day I did all sorts of science experiments some for real, some make believe, and learned programming and ran a BBS. So gameplaying on my home Apple II+ & //e happened about 20 - 30% of the time. Afterall, the VCS, INTV, CV, VEC, ASTCDE, and A800 needed some love too!

Edited August 2, 2015 by Keatah

[CGQuarterly]

This thread makes me feel very guilty about my Apple II collection...

[Keatah]

How so? Explain!

[HuckleCat]

I blame this article:

 

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2537397/computer-hardware/sold-on-ebay--new-in-box-apple-ii--never-opened.html

 

Computerworld wasn't the only media site to run this non-story.

 

Ever since this jerkoff paid more for an Apple IIc than anyone in history, including when it was new, every Apple II's price has skyrocketed, starting the next day.

 

They see that article and think "Well, if a new one is worth that much, my used one must be worth half that." The price has come down considerably since then, but still on ebay you'll find loads of people wanting over 300 bucks for a //c.

[Osgeld]

Paid 17 shipped for mine 7 years ago lol

[+frankodragon]

I recently went to an estate sale and there was an Apple II computer at the whopping price of $600. It had a monchrome monitor and a few programs on disk. They must of "discovered" eBay to price it.

[Keatah]

I tend to avoid most estate sellers. They're the gang most likely to use ebay pricing.

[SSG]

Paid $10 for mine, Ran near $100+ to repair. My ][+ that is/

[BassGuitari]

I'm afraid that is very true. There also seems to be an age gap. I bet the Apple II community has a disproportionately larger number of retirees than any other micro community.

I'd be willing to bet the TRS-80 and Color Computer scenes have it beat there.

Edited August 5, 2015 by BassGuitari

[CGQuarterly]

How so? Explain!

 

I have a hoard of Apple II stuff that I hang onto primarily because of it's value. I have a //c that I use when I want to play games (so not worth much of anything but is my go-to system), but I have an original II that I sealed up in a box that I don't mess with (the keyboard encoder chip is wonky, anyway), plus a ton of really early games (like from when they came in a ziplok bag) plus the infamous "red book" manual. I don't really do anything with any of it, so it's just a hoard. But what am I going to do? Sell it for a bunch of money to some other hoarder?