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> It’s rare for museums to keep artefacts operational. The Living Computer Museum tried until the money ran out. Here's the auction list from when the Living

• ex-aws-dude 1mo ago
  Wow I’m surprised by how high the realized prices are Who is buying these things? Private collectors?
  • kev009 1mo ago
    Antiquities and heirlooms can be a good stable investment, the same reason people trade art or watches or guns or cars. Some of these are fun to use without reducing value.
    • aleph_minus_one 1mo ago
      > Antiquities and heirlooms can be a good stable investment, the same reason people trade art or watches or guns or cars. It is only an investment if it (likely) gains yield. Otherwise it is just a means of preservation of value.
      • kev009 1mo ago
        Most of these things have large categories that are inherently disinflationary. You can't make a new authentic vintage Ferrari. Whether they are fungible is the main problem and case by case. But you generally don't do it to build wealth, it's an expression of it that happens to have yields if taken seriously.
        • detourdog 1mo ago
          The mystery of how a computer works is what drove me. I was interested in the mass produced microprocessor based systems. Once I found per integrated circuit system it became a combination of logic and hand crafted boards. This is is the area I focused on. I'm now at point where I would rather shed objects than collect them. I will probably hold on to the rarest handmade objects. The mass produced from the late 70's to the early 2000's I would like to get rid of.
    • TheOtherHobbes 1mo ago
      A lot of people had a strong nostalgic attachment to DEC PDPs because they were their first experience of hands-on computing. So SV always had a community of very wealthy nerds who could afford a used PDP-10 and its insane running and maintenance costs. But... the community was always very small. And today, the number of people with that kind of money and a similar nostalgic attachment to increasingly remote history is even smaller.
    • Veai 1mo ago
      [flagged]
  • leoc 1mo ago
    I think the prices are still really modest if you look at them in perspective. One of the small, irreplaceable stock of surviving PDP-10s could be had for less than the cost of a mediocre used Ferrari.
  • jbdigriz990 1mo ago
    I am prompted here to ask "Why that name?" Trolling? Lapsed trademark squatting? I recommend a less confusing moniker if this is a genuinely serious attempt at a museum and not just baiting a collector(s) with deep pockets.
• operatingthetan 1mo ago
  Paul Allen did not structure the financials for it to succeed, which is unfortunate. I got to go there once and it was amazing.
  • raddan 1mo ago
    I also went there, shortly before it shut down during the pandemic. A friend talked me into visiting when we’re were in town for a scientific meeting. I am so glad I went. The museum on the afternoon we visited was nearly empty. As a result, the museum docents were happy to let us monopolize their time. I mentioned offhandedly that I had always wished I could try programming SmallTalk on an Alto, and the docent said with a grin “sure!” He reloaded their Alto with a programming environment and gave me a short tutorial. I quickly crashed the machine, but I had a lot of fun along the way. I got to try many other machines that night. I often think with sadness about how my students will no longer be able to easily have this experience.
  • AdamN 1mo ago
    His sister (at his behest??) decided to lean into a smaller number of projects for his money. It does seem like a miss that they couldn't keep it going. There's enough money in Seattle that it should have been doable with the right charismatic leader and fundraising.
    • justin66 1mo ago
      > His sister (at his behest??) decided to lean into a smaller number of projects for his money. And didn't do any of the obvious things one might have done if they wanted to preserve the museum's existence, like finding a buyer or starting a foundation. She did the easy thing and scrapped it for parts. (IIRC she was the executor of his will, trustee of his estate, and the CEO of the company he left most everything to, so she had all the agency she needed to do something responsible with the museum)
      • cml123 1mo ago
        I'm bitter about the outcome too, but doesn't it seem like Paul could have _easily_ made a plan for the museum's continued existence or the donation of the computers into worthy hands? I can't see any scenario where the billionaire cofounder of Microsoft wouldn't have had those plans had he wanted them..so I can only conclude he _didn't_ care materially about the importance of the computers separate from himself.
• ndiddy 1mo ago
  The Living Computer Museum wasn't structurally a museum, it was Paul Allen's collection. Part of running a museum includes having a plan in place that the museum will continue running past the death of one particular billionaire. Allen never did this, so when he died the LCM died with him. It would have been trivial for someone of Allen's wealth and status to get one of his lawyers to set up a legal structure with an endowment that would have allowed the museum to continue to operate indefinitely rather than become a part of his estate. For whatever reason, he chose not to do this.