ASCII by Jason Scott

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The Trough of No Value —

It is very rare I simply link to another site’s article, and say that I have no further comment. This is one of those times. Perfection: The Trough of No Value.

I wouldn’t change a word.


Categorised as: computer history

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3 Comments

  1. Flack says:

    While cleaning the garage this weekend it hit me; you know what lives in the trough of no value? Dot matrix printers. Over the past five or so years I amassed at least a dozen of those things, mostly while picking up collections of stuff. I put them in three categories: “well used”, “like new”, and “new in box.” A couple of years ago I tossed out all the well used ones. I’ve tried selling and even giving away the like new and new in box ones and have had zero luck. The like new ones are facing the chopping block. I don’t know if I can wait out the trough on these.

  2. JayP says:

    Thanks for the link.
    I used to find myself buying technology based on “it used to cost 10x 4 years ago” which led to my buying every C64/128 that popped up on the local usenet.

    It wasn’t too much later that someone asked if anyone had a C64 to replace one her grandmother used to play cards. I gave them a c64 and 2 1541s.

    There is always some value to someone, somewhere.

  3. Flack says:

    JayP: I stopped at an even dozen spare 1541 drives (that’s not counting the two 1571s I have hooked up to my 64, the 1541 I have hooked up to an old 486 for transferring disks, and the 1541 that died, got gutted, and was temporarily used as a piggy bank …

    I just had another thought. You know what lives in the Trough of No Value? Old modems. Even the people I know that collect “everything old computer related” don’t want old modems.