[vcf-midatlantic] Hard drive art

[Matt Reynolds]

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 at 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
>