Get a VGA monitor instead.

Heaps of hardware is available for free, but go back too far and it will cost you.

Not really possible for my needs. I need an EGA look. VGA monitors were much smoother. EGA screens had a kind of toothy texture to them.

For an EGA monitor you'll also need an EGA graphics card (which will be ISA) - it's a digital signal, rather than the analogue RGB of VGA.

I own an EGA monitor and the biggest difference between that and my EGA monitor seems to be the scanlines, and the bigger dot pitch. There are software filters that emulate this look in DOSBOX like tv2x and scan2x

Mark2000 wrote:

Not really possible for my needs. I need an EGA look. VGA monitors were much smoother. EGA screens had a kind of toothy texture to them.

Well in that case beggars can't be choosers 😀

Mark2000 wrote:

I' doing an art project and need to see an EGA monitor in action. I thought I'd pick up some old hardware for under $100. But systems alone are nearly $500. What in the world is going on? Apples of the same vintage sell for much less. Anyone know what's up?

My thoughts:

1. Apple stuff started being collected early on, so there are plenty of examples. I think this was especially because it seemed like they would go bankrupt at one point. But some Apple stuff is worth a lot less, particularly the stuff made when Jobs wasn't around.

2. PC stuff was so common that nobody thought anything of it. If anything, about 2 years after you bought a system, it was an embarrassment to have around, so you upgraded and threw the other one out or donated it to someone.

3. 90 percent of the computers we've gone through have either been melted down or are occupying landfills.

4. A lot of the really popular hardware wasn't designed to last forever, but rather be affordable to the masses.

5. Plastics lose their finish and turn ugly and yellow and people will throw stuff out for that reason alone.

Just found a Tandy 1000 on ebay for $1000. Insane. The thing is, is this just dealers making up prices or are people paying this? Completed auctions seem to show this stuff sitting around for a long time.

I'm balking at the ebay prices too. The dos computers are soooo rare, ebay even has a vintage compter catagory, which is a big joke. I see the same pc's listed and relisted over months. No one is going to pay those bullshit prices. One person starts scalping on Ebay and others that have surplus machines see the price and they jack up their prices too. The shit never sells.

Then you have the idiots that remove the hard drives because of this hard drive destruction campaign which is bullshit (bollocks). They even destroy the 20mb hard drives from 286 pc's. Can't have anyone possessing data that is over 20 years old and probably corrupted anyway.

I haven't had to pay for any pc's yet. I've been searching and asking everyone if they have old pc's tucked away or if they know any one friends or relatives. I've amassed a nice collection, but it is mostly pentium II's and III's. I have a few Pentium I's and only 3 complete 486 machines. I really want to get a 286 and a couple of 386 machines but can't find any.

The search continues.........

Tiremaster400 wrote:

I'm balking at the ebay prices too. The dos computers are soooo rare, ebay even has a vintage compter catagory, which is a big […]
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I'm balking at the ebay prices too. The dos computers are soooo rare, ebay even has a vintage compter catagory, which is a big joke. I see the same pc's listed and relisted over months. No one is going to pay those bullshit prices. One person starts scalping on Ebay and others that have surplus machines see the price and they jack up their prices too. The shit never sells.

Then you have the idiots that remove the hard drives because of this hard drive destruction campaign which is bullshit (bollocks). They even destroy the 20mb hard drives from 286 pc's. Can't have anyone possessing data that is over 20 years old and probably corrupted anyway.

I haven't had to pay for any pc's yet. I've been searching and asking everyone if they have old pc's tucked away or if they know any one friends or relatives. I've amassed a nice collection, but it is mostly pentium II's and III's. I have a few Pentium I's and only 3 complete 486 machines. I really want to get a 286 and a couple of 386 machines but can't find any.

The search continues.........

Don't you just hate when that happens? There you are quietly buying up as many of a particular vintage PC part as you can then one day some idiot starts listing them for 10X what you've been paying for years then overnight you can't buy that part at the old price any more because everyone who has it suddenly wants more money all because of one jerk who ruins it for everybody.

If there is anyone in San Francisco with an EGA system who wouldn't mind me loading up procomm plus and taking some pictures of their screen, it would be infinitely helpful.

sliderider wrote:

Don't you just hate when that happens? There you are quietly buying up as many of a particular vintage PC part as you can then one day some idiot starts listing them for 10X what you've been paying for years then overnight you can't buy that part at the old price any more because everyone who has it suddenly wants more money all because of one jerk who ruins it for everybody.

Basically the Gravis Ultrasound scenario 🤣. Yeah I didn't like how much people were listing those for, like 100 bucks and up. I sold mine for 70 and 40 or so.

Tiremaster400 wrote:

I'm balking at the ebay prices too. The dos computers are soooo rare, ebay even has a vintage compter catagory, which is a big joke. I see the same pc's listed and relisted over months. No one is going to pay those bullshit prices. One person starts scalping on Ebay and others that have surplus machines see the price and they jack up their prices too. The shit never sells.

As far as old computers go, if the computer has actually been worked on well, and refurbished in some fashion, then $80-200 is not unreasonable, depending on specs, rarity, and time spent by the seller to restore the system. Past that price point and it starts to get a tad unreasonable depending on what is being sold. Some stuff that really is extremely rare and hard to get working does warrant a high value.

I mean, if you found one yourself for dirt cheap locally, but it was a filthy mess, you would have to spend man hours, and possibly some cash to restore it anyway. If you were doing one from scratch, you would have to buy all the parts, and again, put man hours in. Nothing is just gonna be free, or just going to be handed to you all shiny and totally set up.

If you have no idea how to do so or where to find the stuff locally, then buying a prebuit classic machine is the only way to go, and people do deserve to be paid for their time and effort, along with the computer itself, if the work is solid. If the thing is listed on ebay and is a filthy mess and needs work, and maybe repair too, then I'd not pay more then 80 bucks maybe after shipping.

Also to note, people still need reliable older machines running Me, 98-95 and prior for programmable signs, cad work, vinyl cutting machines, children's programs, etc and many of these people have no idea how to build or restore a computer on their own. A lot of the legit sellers on ebay selling restored classic computers at fare rates are life savers for these people and their businesses, and as a by product are helping the environment, so you need to keep all of this in consideration when discussing said auctions and sellers.

When you can do it all yourself, and have easy access to the parts, etc, its easy to sit back and scrutinize others prices, work, etc. But to be honest, it is a bit unwarranted, and unfair to both the buyer who you are misleading on the current value of the classic/vintage computer along with the work put in to it, and the seller offering said item, who performed said hrs of work.

The Tandy 1000 systems for $1000 are more than a bit ridiculous, in my opinion. It was not an especially rare computer, hundreds of thousands were made. I can't see spending more than $100 to $200 for a working vintage system, unless there is some other consideration at play (rare add-in boards, extra peripherals, etc).

I almost bought a "vintage" system but it ended up going for more than I was willing to pay. I thought to myself, "I could get an extra 12gb RAM and geforce 460 for my current box, for what I would be spending here"
and decided against it. Do I get upset at douchers skewing the market? I suppose I do. I don't have a problem with someone making a profit, but when they are most likely getting the parts for free to begin with, depending on the amount of time they are putting in restoring it, I just can't see spending nearly what the original price of the system was.
Most of the systems you see going on ebay are not particularly rare.

I guess the best bet is let your friends and relatives know that you will take an item off their hands and see it goes to a good home.

By the way, most of the Tandy systems I see online are along the lines of:
"well it worked the last time I plugged it in, and has been in storage for X years" or it comes with no monitor or keyboard, which is a PITA considering Tandy used proprietary connectors.

There's a ton of stuff on ebay with mark-ups like that, but in the majority of cases I've seen, almost no one pays those asking prices at all, so you just see a ton of high-priced auctions/BIN items that sit for ages along with a handful of much lower priced BIN (or, more often, auctions with a low starting price and no reserve) that actually sell.

Any realistic savvy sellers and buyers will recognize this, but it doesn't make the ridiculous mark-ups any less annoying. (and ebay's much shorter completed listing cache of the last few years is also really annoying as a buyer or seller -much less sales/pricing info to go on due to the short duration before listings are purged -which makes it much harder to know if it's worth trying to buy or sell said item on ebay at all)