'Nerd' cashes in on junk

China Daily | Updated: 2007-04-12 07:03

Sellam Ismail looks over an old Apple II computer at his warehouse in Livermore, California. Reuters

In the first purchase of his collection, Sellam Ismail loaded the trunk of his car with old computers he stumbled upon at a flea market for $5 apiece. Soon he had filled his three-car garage with what others would consider obsolete junk.

Years later, his collection of early computers, printers, and related parts is piled high across shelves and in chaotic heaps in a 4,500-square-foot warehouse near Silicon Valley. And it is worth real money.

Even as the power and speed of today's computers make their forerunners look ever punier, a growing band of collectors are gathering retro computers, considering them important relics and even good investments.

"There has been a real steep upward trend in prices in the last year, year and a half," said Ismail, 38. "It seems it's become like the new collectible to moneyed people. Before it was just nerds and hobbyists."

He states his own affiliation clearly: he wears a black T-shirt with the word "nerd" on the front.

He recently brought a quarter-century old Xerox Star computer back to life to be used as evidence in a patent lawsuit.

The pride of his collection is an Apple Lisa, one of the first computers (introduced in 1983) with a now standard graphical interface. Such items sell for more than $10,000.

In an old barn in Northern California that also houses pigs, Bruce Damer, 45, keeps a collection that includes a Cray 1 supercomputer, a Xerox Alto (an early microcomputer introduced in 1973) and early Apple prototypes.

Living history

"For me the fascination with these artifacts are that they are living histories, especially if they can be kept running, and that they are the key innovations that affect all of our lives more than anything else here in the 21st Century," Damer said.

"These artifacts also represent the 'roads not taken' when you see designs and user interfaces that in some ways are better than we have now, but simply didn't make it."

"I think my wife can be a bit put off by the project if we get visitors who want to come on the weekends but she is remarkably tolerant of this hobby of mine," said Damer, who is the owner of a company that produces 3D simulations for the US space agency, NASA.

New Jersey-based Evan Koblentz says acquiring old computers is much like some other hobbies.

"Antique car collecting is a great analogy," he said. "No one is saying that a 1934 Ford is better than a 2004 Ford in terms of reliable technology, but it's funner."

Agencies

(China Daily 04/12/2007 page16)