Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Hard drive art
On 4/16/19 1:51 PM, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
This is becoming an argument. That's understandable, but that's not my goal.
My point of throwing the "old guy" card, is to say some interest in vintage computing is persistent, is beyond keeping one's computer running, but in goals you refer to as "museum". Most museums put a computer on a shelf, don't touch: the work I describe re-engages people with now-working computers. Your work also engages others; I don't question the value of art, or oblige it to be for purpose. This is what engagement looks like.
Herb, this has nothing to do with you being an "old guy". Let's just face facts: Most of us try very hard every day to keep rare and valuable hardware out of the hands of people like the original poster, and I'm know for a fact that I'm not the only one who thought "this guy had better hope he doesn't run into me on the street". "Hey, there's a complete Model T Ford, I'm gonna grab it, tear our the seat and use it for a couch!" Nobody in their right mind would every dream of doing that, yet people do stuff like this and actually feel justified. Unbelievable. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
Have you never seen the 57 chevy trunk couch? Or T bird, or Cadillac.... People have the right to do what they want with their stuff. Just my opinion Sent from: My extremely complicated, hand held electronic device.
On Apr 16, 2019, at 2:04 PM, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On 4/16/19 1:51 PM, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic wrote: This is becoming an argument. That's understandable, but that's not my goal.
My point of throwing the "old guy" card, is to say some interest in vintage computing is persistent, is beyond keeping one's computer running, but in goals you refer to as "museum". Most museums put a computer on a shelf, don't touch: the work I describe re-engages people with now-working computers. Your work also engages others; I don't question the value of art, or oblige it to be for purpose. This is what engagement looks like.
Herb, this has nothing to do with you being an "old guy". Let's just face facts: Most of us try very hard every day to keep rare and valuable hardware out of the hands of people like the original poster, and I'm know for a fact that I'm not the only one who thought "this guy had better hope he doesn't run into me on the street".
"Hey, there's a complete Model T Ford, I'm gonna grab it, tear our the seat and use it for a couch!" Nobody in their right mind would every dream of doing that, yet people do stuff like this and actually feel justified. Unbelievable.
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
On 4/16/19 2:49 PM, Sentrytv wrote:
Have you never seen the 57 chevy trunk couch?
Or T bird, or Cadillac.... People have the right to do what they want with their stuff.
A get your point, but that's a very selfish attitude. This stuff also belongs to history. And when people pointedly seek it out with the intention of destroying it, competing with others in order to get it, well, there's just nothing cool about that. "Art" or any other such crap notwithstanding. And then the audacity to come into a forum full of people who work to recover and restore this type of equipment, and flaunt it! "Hey guys, I know you love and use this hardware, so look how I bought it out from under you and destroyed it!" ...this falls short of what I would consider to be intelligent behavior. Now, crashed drive platters, in particular, are a different matter. They will never run again. But an functional or restorable drive? Like I said, avoid dark alleys.. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
It seems you've missed my intentions, all I'll say is I thought of all people you all could appreciate my art, if I was wrong, I'm very sorry to have bothered you. Before you start calling someone unintelligent you might want to avoid threats in a digital medium. On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 3:05 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On 4/16/19 2:49 PM, Sentrytv wrote:
Have you never seen the 57 chevy trunk couch?
Or T bird, or Cadillac.... People have the right to do what they want with their stuff.
A get your point, but that's a very selfish attitude. This stuff also belongs to history. And when people pointedly seek it out with the intention of destroying it, competing with others in order to get it, well, there's just nothing cool about that. "Art" or any other such crap notwithstanding.
And then the audacity to come into a forum full of people who work to recover and restore this type of equipment, and flaunt it! "Hey guys, I know you love and use this hardware, so look how I bought it out from under you and destroyed it!" ...this falls short of what I would consider to be intelligent behavior.
Now, crashed drive platters, in particular, are a different matter. They will never run again. But an functional or restorable drive? Like I said, avoid dark alleys..
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
On April 16, 2019 4:10:56 PM Brian Brubaker <brianbrubaker@gmail.com> wrote:
It seems you've missed my intentions, all I'll say is I thought of all people you all could appreciate my art, if I was wrong, I'm very sorry to have bothered you.
I'm sure you are a talented artist. I for one would likely appreciate your art a lot more if you didn't destroy what I've worked for years trying to preserve when you create it. At the very least you could learn something from the reactions you've gotten, but you don't seem to have that capacity either.
Before you start calling someone unintelligent you might want to avoid threats in a digital medium.
Predictable. New to the net, too, I see. ...and, I take that as a threat! -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
No need to be mean to the guy. If he's using scrap parts then I don't see what the big issue is. On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:24 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On April 16, 2019 4:10:56 PM Brian Brubaker <brianbrubaker@gmail.com> wrote:
It seems you've missed my intentions, all I'll say is I thought of all people you all could appreciate my art, if I was wrong, I'm very sorry to have bothered you.
I'm sure you are a talented artist. I for one would likely appreciate your art a lot more if you didn't destroy what I've worked for years trying to preserve when you create it.
At the very least you could learn something from the reactions you've gotten, but you don't seem to have that capacity either.
Before you start calling someone unintelligent you might want to avoid threats in a digital medium.
Predictable. New to the net, too, I see.
...and, I take that as a threat!
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
I understood from one of his posts that he was purchasing drives on the market, for sometimes serious money. If I misinterpreted his statement, please let me know, in which case I will apologize and move on. -Dave On 4/17/19 10:54 AM, Drew Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
No need to be mean to the guy. If he's using scrap parts then I don't see what the big issue is.
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:24 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On April 16, 2019 4:10:56 PM Brian Brubaker <brianbrubaker@gmail.com> wrote:
It seems you've missed my intentions, all I'll say is I thought of all people you all could appreciate my art, if I was wrong, I'm very sorry to have bothered you.
I'm sure you are a talented artist. I for one would likely appreciate your art a lot more if you didn't destroy what I've worked for years trying to preserve when you create it.
At the very least you could learn something from the reactions you've gotten, but you don't seem to have that capacity either.
Before you start calling someone unintelligent you might want to avoid threats in a digital medium.
Predictable. New to the net, too, I see.
...and, I take that as a threat!
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
I definitely buy drives from ebay, and sometimes the drives are working. The two rarest drives/platters I've bought were a .85" drive, aka the smallest drive with moving parts, and 4 27" platters from an IBM 350. The majority of the drives I've bought are sold as scrap, the small percentage of larger industrial drives most all came from California. Most of these larger drives were listed for sale on e-mail for 6+ months, occasionally lowering their prices to a point where I could justify buying them. The other times I made offers and they accepted. Most of the time I ended up spending more on shipping then the drives themselves. I started making my art out of a love of hard drives, I shared it here with the thought of all people this group might be able to appreciate what I'm trying to do. If I was wrong, I won't bother the group again. On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 12:15 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I understood from one of his posts that he was purchasing drives on the market, for sometimes serious money. If I misinterpreted his statement, please let me know, in which case I will apologize and move on.
-Dave
On 4/17/19 10:54 AM, Drew Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
No need to be mean to the guy. If he's using scrap parts then I don't see what the big issue is.
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:24 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On April 16, 2019 4:10:56 PM Brian Brubaker <brianbrubaker@gmail.com> wrote:
It seems you've missed my intentions, all I'll say is I thought of all people you all could appreciate my art, if I was wrong, I'm very sorry to have bothered you.
I'm sure you are a talented artist. I for one would likely appreciate your art a lot more if you didn't destroy what I've worked for years trying to preserve when you create it.
At the very least you could learn something from the reactions you've gotten, but you don't seem to have that capacity either.
Before you start calling someone unintelligent you might want to avoid threats in a digital medium.
Predictable. New to the net, too, I see.
...and, I take that as a threat!
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
The 4 27" platters I got , I'm 99" sure someone previously removed the top layer from them as they now look silver not like the one in the link included below. My plan is to make 4 tables out of them, similar to the one in the link below, but with my own art added on top, in a clear resin epoxy. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://stupidevilbasta... On Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 12:47 PM Brian Brubaker <brianbrubaker@gmail.com> wrote:
I definitely buy drives from ebay, and sometimes the drives are working. The two rarest drives/platters I've bought were a .85" drive, aka the smallest drive with moving parts, and 4 27" platters from an IBM 350. The majority of the drives I've bought are sold as scrap, the small percentage of larger industrial drives most all came from California. Most of these larger drives were listed for sale on e-mail for 6+ months, occasionally lowering their prices to a point where I could justify buying them. The other times I made offers and they accepted. Most of the time I ended up spending more on shipping then the drives themselves.
I started making my art out of a love of hard drives, I shared it here with the thought of all people this group might be able to appreciate what I'm trying to do. If I was wrong, I won't bother the group again.
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 12:15 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I understood from one of his posts that he was purchasing drives on the market, for sometimes serious money. If I misinterpreted his statement, please let me know, in which case I will apologize and move
on.
-Dave
On 4/17/19 10:54 AM, Drew Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
No need to be mean to the guy. If he's using scrap parts then I don't
see
what the big issue is.
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:24 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On April 16, 2019 4:10:56 PM Brian Brubaker <brianbrubaker@gmail.com> wrote:
It seems you've missed my intentions, all I'll say is I thought of all people you all could appreciate my art, if I was wrong, I'm very sorry to have bothered you.
I'm sure you are a talented artist. I for one would likely appreciate your art a lot more if you didn't destroy what I've worked for years trying to preserve when you create it.
At the very least you could learn something from the reactions you've gotten, but you don't seem to have that capacity either.
Before you start calling someone unintelligent you might want to avoid threats in a digital medium.
Predictable. New to the net, too, I see.
...and, I take that as a threat!
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
It's most likely nickel, not FeO2 that had been removed. -Dave On 4/17/19 7:05 PM, Brian Brubaker via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
The 4 27" platters I got , I'm 99" sure someone previously removed the top layer from them as they now look silver not like the one in the link included below. My plan is to make 4 tables out of them, similar to the one in the link below, but with my own art added on top, in a clear resin epoxy.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://stupidevilbasta...
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 12:47 PM Brian Brubaker <brianbrubaker@gmail.com> wrote:
I definitely buy drives from ebay, and sometimes the drives are working. The two rarest drives/platters I've bought were a .85" drive, aka the smallest drive with moving parts, and 4 27" platters from an IBM 350. The majority of the drives I've bought are sold as scrap, the small percentage of larger industrial drives most all came from California. Most of these larger drives were listed for sale on e-mail for 6+ months, occasionally lowering their prices to a point where I could justify buying them. The other times I made offers and they accepted. Most of the time I ended up spending more on shipping then the drives themselves.
I started making my art out of a love of hard drives, I shared it here with the thought of all people this group might be able to appreciate what I'm trying to do. If I was wrong, I won't bother the group again.
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 12:15 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I understood from one of his posts that he was purchasing drives on the market, for sometimes serious money. If I misinterpreted his statement, please let me know, in which case I will apologize and move
on.
-Dave
On 4/17/19 10:54 AM, Drew Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
No need to be mean to the guy. If he's using scrap parts then I don't
see
what the big issue is.
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:24 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On April 16, 2019 4:10:56 PM Brian Brubaker <brianbrubaker@gmail.com> wrote:
It seems you've missed my intentions, all I'll say is I thought of all people you all could appreciate my art, if I was wrong, I'm very sorry to have bothered you.
I'm sure you are a talented artist. I for one would likely appreciate your art a lot more if you didn't destroy what I've worked for years trying to preserve when you create it.
At the very least you could learn something from the reactions you've gotten, but you don't seem to have that capacity either.
Before you start calling someone unintelligent you might want to avoid threats in a digital medium.
Predictable. New to the net, too, I see.
...and, I take that as a threat!
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
I have my feet in a lot of different hobbies, but this debate is common to pretty much all of them. It's especially common in the vintage TV\CRT hobby and antique radio fields. There are "fishtankers" who turn the TVs into aquariums, or dioramas, and there are the upcyclers who turn console radios into mini bars. there are also the folks that try to do the industrial/steampunk look, with various degrees of craftsmanship invested. Then there are the parts folks who rip working things apart to sell the valuable things, like the high-value tubes ripped out of oscilloscopes, or pulling knobs, or old crts from common vintage TVs, etc. The car parts as art people were already mentioned - trunk sofas, bumpers for wall shelves, etc. There are also those that take stock cars and turn them into movie cars (time machines, general lees, and so on). Facebook groups show this argument time and time again. There's no shortage of "white knights" who claim how awful it was that something was "arted", but are also quite often the same people that are not willing to drive out of their way to pick up something offered up for free, or have no space to store more stuff because they are already at capacity. It all comes down to the same thing - there is a lot of stuff out there in the world, the vast majority of society likes to march onward rather than look backward, and those of us who wish to preserve things from the past for what they were, are a minority. We as individuals can't save it all, and frankly, not everything needs to be saved. I personally am in the "look backward" camp. I have a lot of artifacts from a lot of different hobbies. I clearly appreciate history, but I also appreciate the "arters". At the end of the day only so many people care about working 50s TVs and room-sized computers, and if additional small pieces of these things survive in artwork form, then it still keeps more out of the landfill and it survives into the future a little bit longer. I think there is enough stuff out there for everyone. There's room for the art folk and the historians, and it sounds like in this case we have one who is conscious of the hobby and has done their research and is still making some of the stuff available to the hobby. Respectfully, Matt On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 7:13 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
It's most likely nickel, not FeO2 that had been removed.
-Dave
On 4/17/19 7:05 PM, Brian Brubaker via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
The 4 27" platters I got , I'm 99" sure someone previously removed the top layer from them as they now look silver not like the one in the link included below. My plan is to make 4 tables out of them, similar to the one in the link below, but with my own art added on top, in a clear resin epoxy.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://stupidevilbasta...
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 12:47 PM Brian Brubaker <brianbrubaker@gmail.com> wrote:
I definitely buy drives from ebay, and sometimes the drives are working. The two rarest drives/platters I've bought were a .85" drive, aka the smallest drive with moving parts, and 4 27" platters from an IBM 350. The majority of the drives I've bought are sold as scrap, the small percentage of larger industrial drives most all came from California. Most of these larger drives were listed for sale on e-mail for 6+ months, occasionally lowering their prices to a point where I could justify buying them. The other times I made offers and they accepted. Most of the time I ended up spending more on shipping then the drives themselves.
I started making my art out of a love of hard drives, I shared it here with the thought of all people this group might be able to appreciate what I'm trying to do. If I was wrong, I won't bother the group again.
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 12:15 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I understood from one of his posts that he was purchasing drives on the market, for sometimes serious money. If I misinterpreted his statement, please let me know, in which case I will apologize and move
on.
-Dave
On 4/17/19 10:54 AM, Drew Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
No need to be mean to the guy. If he's using scrap parts then I don't
see
what the big issue is.
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:24 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On April 16, 2019 4:10:56 PM Brian Brubaker <brianbrubaker@gmail.com
wrote:
> It seems you've missed my intentions, all I'll say is I thought of all > people you all could appreciate my art, if I was wrong, I'm very sorry > to have bothered you.
I'm sure you are a talented artist. I for one would likely appreciate your art a lot more if you didn't destroy what I've worked for years trying to preserve when you create it.
At the very least you could learn something from the reactions you've gotten, but you don't seem to have that capacity either.
> Before you start calling someone unintelligent you might want to avoid > threats in a digital medium.
Predictable. New to the net, too, I see.
...and, I take that as a threat!
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
On 4/17/19 7:59 PM, Matt Reynolds wrote:
Facebook groups show this argument time and time again. There's no shortage of "white knights" who claim how awful it was that something was "arted", but are also quite often the same people that are not willing to drive out of their way to pick up something offered up for free, or have no space to store more stuff because they are already at capacity.
Not here. There are loud-mouthed idiots all over the place, sure, I get that, but don't paint us all with that brush. I've put so much time, effort, and money into building a public museum over the past decade that I'm very close to not being able to buy food as a result. *I* am having a lot of trouble finding operational or restorable hard drives for most any platform. *I* pay real money for them. People who come to LSSM/MACT do so primarily because nearly everything there is functional and demonstrable...functionality is important, at least here.
It all comes down to the same thing - there is a lot of stuff out there in the world, the vast majority of society likes to march onward rather than look backward, and those of us who wish to preserve things from the past for what they were, are a minority.
With respect, if this were true, museums wouldn't be as heavily traveled as they are.
I personally am in the "look backward" camp. I have a lot of artifacts from a lot of different hobbies. I clearly appreciate history, but I also appreciate the "arters". At the end of the day only so many people care about working 50s TVs and room-sized computers, and if additional small pieces of these things survive in artwork form, then it still keeps more out of the landfill and it survives into the future a little bit longer.
The guy was talking about platters from an IBM RAMAC 350! I assure you that, should one of those EVER turn up, it would not hit a landfill. I know the guy didn't tear down a 350...but in part because of the market that he represents, someone did. I do not blame the OP for the destruction of that particular RAMAC 350, to be clear, but I do shed a tear for the one that got torn up, because I know what a big deal it would have been for it to be sitting at LSSM/MACT.
I think there is enough stuff out there for everyone. There's room for the art folk and the historians, and it sounds like in this case we have one who is conscious of the hobby and has done their research and is still making some of the stuff available to the hobby.
I agree that there is room. But there are plenty, seriously PLENTY of old computer parts that can not reasonably be restored. Once again said with respect, your argument seems to be based on "there's enough to go around", "nobody who decries 'arting' of artifacts is willing to put forth effort to save the stuff anyway", and "hardly anybody cares anyway". I disagree very strongly with all of those points. I feel that I can speak from a position of some knowledge on these points. And let me just throw in, the number of off-list comments I'm getting supporting my position here makes me want to vomit. Seriously. Supporting someone privately, rather than publicly, is far worse than not supporting someone at all. (I'm sorry man, I'm in a really crappy mood today, I am not mad at you here.) -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
Publicly agreeing with Dave. On Apr 17, 2019, at 8:56 PM, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On 4/17/19 7:59 PM, Matt Reynolds wrote: Facebook groups show this argument time and time again. There's no shortage of "white knights" who claim how awful it was that something was "arted", but are also quite often the same people that are not willing to drive out of their way to pick up something offered up for free, or have no space to store more stuff because they are already at capacity.
Not here. There are loud-mouthed idiots all over the place, sure, I get that, but don't paint us all with that brush. I've put so much time, effort, and money into building a public museum over the past decade that I'm very close to not being able to buy food as a result. *I* am having a lot of trouble finding operational or restorable hard drives for most any platform. *I* pay real money for them. People who come to LSSM/MACT do so primarily because nearly everything there is functional and demonstrable...functionality is important, at least here.
It all comes down to the same thing - there is a lot of stuff out there in the world, the vast majority of society likes to march onward rather than look backward, and those of us who wish to preserve things from the past for what they were, are a minority.
With respect, if this were true, museums wouldn't be as heavily traveled as they are.
I personally am in the "look backward" camp. I have a lot of artifacts from a lot of different hobbies. I clearly appreciate history, but I also appreciate the "arters". At the end of the day only so many people care about working 50s TVs and room-sized computers, and if additional small pieces of these things survive in artwork form, then it still keeps more out of the landfill and it survives into the future a little bit longer.
The guy was talking about platters from an IBM RAMAC 350! I assure you that, should one of those EVER turn up, it would not hit a landfill. I know the guy didn't tear down a 350...but in part because of the market that he represents, someone did. I do not blame the OP for the destruction of that particular RAMAC 350, to be clear, but I do shed a tear for the one that got torn up, because I know what a big deal it would have been for it to be sitting at LSSM/MACT.
I think there is enough stuff out there for everyone. There's room for the art folk and the historians, and it sounds like in this case we have one who is conscious of the hobby and has done their research and is still making some of the stuff available to the hobby.
I agree that there is room. But there are plenty, seriously PLENTY of old computer parts that can not reasonably be restored. Once again said with respect, your argument seems to be based on "there's enough to go around", "nobody who decries 'arting' of artifacts is willing to put forth effort to save the stuff anyway", and "hardly anybody cares anyway". I disagree very strongly with all of those points. I feel that I can speak from a position of some knowledge on these points. And let me just throw in, the number of off-list comments I'm getting supporting my position here makes me want to vomit. Seriously. Supporting someone privately, rather than publicly, is far worse than not supporting someone at all. (I'm sorry man, I'm in a really crappy mood today, I am not mad at you here.) -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
I'm not taking offense, nor am I painting anyone specific with a brush. I respect all the work that all of you do to preserve. I wouldn't be on here if I wasn't a fan. My comments were generalities about the hobbies themselves, not any specific distribution. The fact that this debate is being had at all means at least one person who sent out a note at least makes art out of the stuff. Functionality is important to your museum for sure, it's a huge part of the draw it sounds like (i've yet to have the pleasure to visit), but it's not to other places, and that's fine too. For example, people will still go the Cape to see the Saturn V and it's not functional. If i had a choice between seeing the same machines at two places, one where they worked, and one where they didn't, obviously I'd choose the ones that worked. At the same time, if my choice was between seeing them not work, versus never see them, I'd still see them not work. Being interested in things enough to look at them in museums is different from being interested in things enough to be caretaking for them. Most people would not risk their livelihoods like you are doing to present stuff to the public. Hats off to you for doing so, philanthropy like that goes unsung. As far as my enough to go around sentiment, it was a generality about all old things. It wasn't aimed at a specific product or item. Obviously when you go into specifics about any particular item in a hobby you can find examples of things that are rarer than others. I'm not going to push this further. I was just throwing in my two cents. The world would be a boring place if everyone had the same opinions and beliefs. Best regards to you all. Matt On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 8:57 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On 4/17/19 7:59 PM, Matt Reynolds wrote:
Facebook groups show this argument time and time again. There's no shortage of "white knights" who claim how awful it was that something was "arted", but are also quite often the same people that are not willing to drive out of their way to pick up something offered up for free, or have no space to store more stuff because they are already at capacity.
Not here. There are loud-mouthed idiots all over the place, sure, I get that, but don't paint us all with that brush. I've put so much time, effort, and money into building a public museum over the past decade that I'm very close to not being able to buy food as a result.
*I* am having a lot of trouble finding operational or restorable hard drives for most any platform. *I* pay real money for them. People who come to LSSM/MACT do so primarily because nearly everything there is functional and demonstrable...functionality is important, at least here.
It all comes down to the same thing - there is a lot of stuff out there in the world, the vast majority of society likes to march onward rather than look backward, and those of us who wish to preserve things from the past for what they were, are a minority.
With respect, if this were true, museums wouldn't be as heavily traveled as they are.
I personally am in the "look backward" camp. I have a lot of artifacts from a lot of different hobbies. I clearly appreciate history, but I also appreciate the "arters". At the end of the day only so many people care about working 50s TVs and room-sized computers, and if additional small pieces of these things survive in artwork form, then it still keeps more out of the landfill and it survives into the future a little bit longer.
The guy was talking about platters from an IBM RAMAC 350! I assure you that, should one of those EVER turn up, it would not hit a landfill.
I know the guy didn't tear down a 350...but in part because of the market that he represents, someone did. I do not blame the OP for the destruction of that particular RAMAC 350, to be clear, but I do shed a tear for the one that got torn up, because I know what a big deal it would have been for it to be sitting at LSSM/MACT.
I think there is enough stuff out there for everyone. There's room for the art folk and the historians, and it sounds like in this case we have one who is conscious of the hobby and has done their research and is still making some of the stuff available to the hobby.
I agree that there is room. But there are plenty, seriously PLENTY of old computer parts that can not reasonably be restored.
Once again said with respect, your argument seems to be based on "there's enough to go around", "nobody who decries 'arting' of artifacts is willing to put forth effort to save the stuff anyway", and "hardly anybody cares anyway". I disagree very strongly with all of those points. I feel that I can speak from a position of some knowledge on these points.
And let me just throw in, the number of off-list comments I'm getting supporting my position here makes me want to vomit. Seriously. Supporting someone privately, rather than publicly, is far worse than not supporting someone at all.
(I'm sorry man, I'm in a really crappy mood today, I am not mad at you here.)
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
If we have any crashed/irreparable hard drives around, would you be interested in them for parts? The electronic bits might be useful for people repairing other drives, but if the platters are not fixable, I don't have any issues personally donating them for art. (I actually sort of want to make a set of wind chimes myself out of some wrecked late 80s/early 90s 3.5 hard drives, but I need to make sure they're well and truly dead first. I have one quantum fireball where the big control chip lived up to its name, but the platters might still be good so I don't know...) On 4/17/2019 7:05 PM, Brian Brubaker via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
The 4 27" platters I got , I'm 99" sure someone previously removed the top layer from them as they now look silver not like the one in the link included below. My plan is to make 4 tables out of them, similar to the one in the link below, but with my own art added on top, in a clear resin epoxy.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://stupidevilbasta...
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 12:47 PM Brian Brubaker <brianbrubaker@gmail.com> wrote:
I definitely buy drives from ebay, and sometimes the drives are working. The two rarest drives/platters I've bought were a .85" drive, aka the smallest drive with moving parts, and 4 27" platters from an IBM 350. The majority of the drives I've bought are sold as scrap, the small percentage of larger industrial drives most all came from California. Most of these larger drives were listed for sale on e-mail for 6+ months, occasionally lowering their prices to a point where I could justify buying them. The other times I made offers and they accepted. Most of the time I ended up spending more on shipping then the drives themselves.
I started making my art out of a love of hard drives, I shared it here with the thought of all people this group might be able to appreciate what I'm trying to do. If I was wrong, I won't bother the group again.
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 12:15 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I understood from one of his posts that he was purchasing drives on the market, for sometimes serious money. If I misinterpreted his statement, please let me know, in which case I will apologize and move
on.
-Dave
On 4/17/19 10:54 AM, Drew Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
No need to be mean to the guy. If he's using scrap parts then I don't
see
what the big issue is.
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:24 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On April 16, 2019 4:10:56 PM Brian Brubaker <brianbrubaker@gmail.com> wrote:
It seems you've missed my intentions, all I'll say is I thought of all people you all could appreciate my art, if I was wrong, I'm very sorry to have bothered you. I'm sure you are a talented artist. I for one would likely appreciate your art a lot more if you didn't destroy what I've worked for years trying to preserve when you create it.
At the very least you could learn something from the reactions you've gotten, but you don't seem to have that capacity either.
Before you start calling someone unintelligent you might want to avoid threats in a digital medium. Predictable. New to the net, too, I see.
...and, I take that as a threat!
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA .
-- Jonathan Gevaryahu jgevaryahu@gmail.com jgevaryahu@hotmail.com
I would love any and all crashed platters, donations would be great, but I'm happy to pay for them as well. On Fri, Apr 19, 2019, 3:00 AM Jonathan Gevaryahu via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
If we have any crashed/irreparable hard drives around, would you be interested in them for parts? The electronic bits might be useful for people repairing other drives, but if the platters are not fixable, I don't have any issues personally donating them for art. (I actually sort of want to make a set of wind chimes myself out of some wrecked late 80s/early 90s 3.5 hard drives, but I need to make sure they're well and truly dead first. I have one quantum fireball where the big control chip lived up to its name, but the platters might still be good so I don't know...)
On 4/17/2019 7:05 PM, Brian Brubaker via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
The 4 27" platters I got , I'm 99" sure someone previously removed the top layer from them as they now look silver not like the one in the link included below. My plan is to make 4 tables out of them, similar to the one in the link below, but with my own art added on top, in a clear resin epoxy.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://stupidevilbasta...
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019, 12:47 PM Brian Brubaker <brianbrubaker@gmail.com> wrote:
I definitely buy drives from ebay, and sometimes the drives are working. The two rarest drives/platters I've bought were a .85" drive, aka the smallest drive with moving parts, and 4 27" platters from an IBM 350. The majority of the drives I've bought are sold as scrap, the small percentage of larger industrial drives most all came from California. Most of these larger drives were listed for sale on e-mail for 6+ months, occasionally lowering their prices to a point where I could justify buying them. The other times I made offers and they accepted. Most of the time I ended up spending more on shipping then the drives themselves.
I started making my art out of a love of hard drives, I shared it here with the thought of all people this group might be able to appreciate what I'm trying to do. If I was wrong, I won't bother the group again.
On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 12:15 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I understood from one of his posts that he was purchasing drives on the market, for sometimes serious money. If I misinterpreted his statement, please let me know, in which case I will apologize and move
on.
-Dave
On 4/17/19 10:54 AM, Drew Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
No need to be mean to the guy. If he's using scrap parts then I don't
see
what the big issue is.
On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 4:24 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On April 16, 2019 4:10:56 PM Brian Brubaker <brianbrubaker@gmail.com
wrote:
> It seems you've missed my intentions, all I'll say is I thought of all > people you all could appreciate my art, if I was wrong, I'm very sorry > to have bothered you. I'm sure you are a talented artist. I for one would likely appreciate your art a lot more if you didn't destroy what I've worked for years trying to preserve when you create it.
At the very least you could learn something from the reactions you've gotten, but you don't seem to have that capacity either.
> Before you start calling someone unintelligent you might want to avoid > threats in a digital medium. Predictable. New to the net, too, I see.
...and, I take that as a threat!
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA .
-- Jonathan Gevaryahu jgevaryahu@gmail.com jgevaryahu@hotmail.com
You comparison seems to be a popular item, a simple search on google produced over 600 million results... http://www.sweetsofas.com/classic-car-couches.php On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 2:05 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On 4/16/19 1:51 PM, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
This is becoming an argument. That's understandable, but that's not my goal.
My point of throwing the "old guy" card, is to say some interest in vintage computing is persistent, is beyond keeping one's computer running, but in goals you refer to as "museum". Most museums put a computer on a shelf, don't touch: the work I describe re-engages people with now-working computers. Your work also engages others; I don't question the value of art, or oblige it to be for purpose. This is what engagement looks like.
Herb, this has nothing to do with you being an "old guy". Let's just face facts: Most of us try very hard every day to keep rare and valuable hardware out of the hands of people like the original poster, and I'm know for a fact that I'm not the only one who thought "this guy had better hope he doesn't run into me on the street".
"Hey, there's a complete Model T Ford, I'm gonna grab it, tear our the seat and use it for a couch!" Nobody in their right mind would every dream of doing that, yet people do stuff like this and actually feel justified. Unbelievable.
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
participants (7)
-
Brian Brubaker -
Chris Fala -
Dave McGuire -
Drew Notarnicola -
Jonathan Gevaryahu -
Matt Reynolds -
Sentrytv